48 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



The work was substantially completed, and the lands affected by the various treaties 

 described in schedules and platted on maps. These schedules and maps were duly 

 turned in by Mr. Royce and were added to the archives of the office for use in con- 

 nection with the more strictly ethnologic researches. Since that date frequent 

 requests for information concerning the Indian laud treaties have been received, and 

 thereby the value and accuracy of the work has been fully tested. During the year 

 the demand for such information so increased that it was decided to submit the 

 material for publication. While the schedules and maps were in most respects ready 

 for printing, revision of certain portions seemed to be required, and a general intro- 

 duction was thought to be desirable. 'Accordingly in November the work of revision 

 was assigned to Dr. Cyrus Thomas, who also undertook the preparation of the 

 requisite introductory chapter. The remainder of the fiscal year was spent by Dr. 

 Thomas chiefly in the completion of this task, which was not quite done at the end 

 of that time. The work is designed for publication as Volume VIII of the Contri- 

 butions to North American Ethnology. 



LINGUISTICS. 



As the researches relating to primitive peoples in this and other countries pro- 

 gressed the importance of linguistic studies became more and more apparent. Man- 

 kind is preeminent partly because of a variety of individual characteristics, yet in 

 large measure because of social organization ; and it is through organization that 

 men have been successively raised from savagery to barbarism, from barbarism to 

 civilization, and from simple civilization to the highest enlightenment and humanity. 

 Now, the basis of organization is expression, and the art of expression is accordingly 

 paramount among the arts of men, and ethnologists have found that the grade of 

 development and the classific relations of peoples are more justly indicated by their 

 arts of oral expression than in any other way. Thus the accepted ethnologic classi- 

 fication in this and other countries is primarily, if not wholly, linguistic. 



The importance of linguistic researches has been recognized in the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology from the outset, and much labor has been expended in the col- 

 lection of linguistic literature as a basis for the classification of the tribes and also 

 as a means for still further extending the principles of ethnic classification. 



During the last fiscal year this branch of the work has been carried forward con- 

 tinuously by Dr. Albert S. Gatschet and Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, and during a part of 

 the year by the Director and Mr. J. Owen Dorsey. 



The work of the Director in linguistics during the year was largely ancillary to 

 the researches in psychology and in anthropologic classification. In this connection 

 portions of the rich store of linguistic manuscripts were examined, and the princi- 

 ples of linguistic development were formulated for the use of the collaborators. 



Mr. J. Owen Dorsey was occupied during July in (1) the preparation of a cata- 

 logue of the Teton-Dakota manuscripts by Messrs. Bushotter and Bruyier, in pos- 

 session of the Bureau, and (2) the continuation of his work on the Winnebago texts 

 and dictionary slips, noted in previous reports; and during August the first of 

 these lines of work was completed, and he then rearranged the linguistic manu- 

 scripts of the fireproof vaults of the Bureau. Many of these manuscripts are 

 unique. A large proportion represent the work of the regular collaborators of the 

 Bureau, but several have been derived from other sources by exchange or by dona- 

 tion, through the interest in the subject developed early in the history of the 

 Bureau. The material is of great scientific value, and it is deemed important that 

 it should be arranged in readily accessible form, in connection with a suitable cata- 

 logue. On completing this task, Mr. Dorsey resumed the preparation of material for 

 the synonymy of the Siouan stock, in connection with which he prepared during 

 November a brief memoir on Siouan sociology, which was afterwards revised by 

 Mr. McGee for incorporation in the sixteenth annual report of the Bureau. During 

 December Mr. Dorsey's work was interrupted by illness, which, to the great loss of 

 science, terminated fatally. 



