J.W. Powell’s Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region. 451 
cation on the subject has yet been issued, but he has read 
papers before the Philosophical Society of Washington and 
other scientific bodies, to invite the attention of ethnologists to 
the subject. He has also been engaged in preparing the his- 
tory and bibliography of the Klamath, Chinook, Wayiletpu, 
Sahaptin, and other families of Oregon, and his papers on this 
subject will appear in the second volume of Contributions to 
North American Ethnology. 
In March last, Mr. Albert S. Gatschet was employed to assist 
in the study of Indian languages, and during the spring months 
his time was occupied as an assistant in compiling the bibliog- 
raphy of the North American languages. During the summer 
and autumn months he visited a number of tribes in Oregon, 
for the purpose of collecting vocabularies and grammatic notes. 
On his way to the field he stopped at Ogden, where he found a 
tribe of Shoshone Indians, from whom he procured a vocabu- 
lary of about five hundred words. 
In Chico, Butte County, California, he stopped one week, to 
visit the Michépdo Indians, a branch of the Maidu stock, where 
he collected linguistic material of value. From Chico he pro- 
ceeded directly to the Klamath Agency, in Southern Oregon, 
words from Modok Indians visiting Washington and New 
York, and his work at the Klamath Agency was a continua- 
tion of such study. Altogether he has collected a vocabulary 
of about five thousand words, also many sentences and texts 
on historic and mythologic subjects arranged with interlinear 
translations. ‘ ; 
The numerical system of this language 1s quinary,. and the 
numerals above eleven have incorporat particles giving them 
a gender or classifying significance, apparently based upon 
form. The subject and object pronouns are not incorporated 
in the verb; the personal pronouns differ from the possessive ; 
and a true relative pronoun exists. An im} rtant character- 
istic of the language is the use of prefix-particles in nouns and 
verbs indicating form, and the reduplication of the first sylla- 
ble, which is usually the radical syllable, for the purpose of 
showing distribution. It is often equivalent to our plural. It 
occurs in the singular of adjectives indicating shape and color, 
in augmentative and diminutive nouns and verbs, 1n iterative 
and frequentative verbs; and forms the distributive plural of 
many substantives, adjectives, numerals, verbs and adverbs. 
From the Klamath Agency, Mr. Gatschet proceeded to the 
Grande Ronde Agency, in the northwestern part of Oregon. 
On his way he stopped at Dayton, and made collections of 
