770 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



dian tribes. Whether it is not a case for the exercise of a large liberality — I will not 

 say bounty, but policy ? Those tribes, sir, that have preceded us, to whose lands we 

 have succeeded, and who have no written memorials of their laws, their habits, and 

 their manners, are all passing away to the world of forgetfulness. Their likeness, 

 manners, and customs are portrayed with more accuracy and truth in this collection 

 by Catlin than in all the other drawings and representations on the face of the earth. 

 Somebody in this country ought to possess this collection — that is my opinion — and I 

 do not know who there is or where there is to be found any society or any individual 

 who or which can with so much propriety possess himself or itself, of it as the Gov 

 ernment of the United States. 



For my part, then, I do think that the preservation of " Catlin's Indian Collection " 

 in this country is an important public act. 



I think it properly belongs to those accumulations of historical matters respecting 

 our predecessors on this continent which it is very proper for the Government of the 

 United States to maintain. As I have said, this race is going into forgetfulness. They 

 track the continuation of mankind in the present age, and call recollections back 

 to them ; and here they are better exhibited, in my j udgment, better set forth and 

 presented to the mind, and the taste, and the curiosity of mankind, than in all other 

 collections in the world. I go for this as an American subject — as a thing belonging 

 to us— to our history — to the history of a race whose lands we till, whose obscure graves 

 and bones we tread every day. I look upon it as a thing more appropriate for us than 

 the ascertaining of the South Pole, or anything that can be discovered in the Dead 

 Sea, or the River Jordan. These are the grounds, sir, upon which I propose to pro- 

 ceed, and I shall vote for the appropriation with great pleasure. 



ARCHIBALD M<- VICARS. 



Archibald Me Vicars, in an editorial note, on page 303, edition of 1842, 

 of Paul Allen's, Lewis and Clark's Expedition, speaking of the Yellow- 

 stone country, and of the voyage of Mr. Catlin in 1832 on the steamer 

 Yellowstone, refers to his sojourn at the fcrt of the American Fur 

 Company, at the mouth of the river, and indicates his idea of the value of 

 Mr. Catlin's work. After giving a sketch of Mr. Catlin's several tours, 

 he says : 



It is needless to say that by his delineation of Indian life and manners, his portraits 

 of the native chiefs, and the rich collections of his museum, he has done more than 

 any other individual toward presenting the living image of a race which is seemingly 

 fast passing away. 



MAYNE REID ON MR. CATLIN'S NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



We know no monograph of man, existent or extinct, so finished, so exhaustive, so 

 truthful, as that of Catlin upon the " North- American Indians." In it we find a com- 

 plete account not only of their personal appearance and modes of life, but their minds 

 and modes of thought ; in short everything relating to them, psychological as physi- 

 ological. It is a description in which pen and pencil perform an almost equal part, 

 both wielded with like skillfulness. Nor is it circumscribed by local or tribal limits ; 

 for, although Catlin made the majority of his observations along the line of the Mis- 

 souri River, before completing his task he gave a large share of attention to the In- 

 dians of the Southwest and South ; and his portraits of these people — by word as well 

 as brush — with but slight alterations, will stand typical of all the tribes, from the land 

 of Alaska to the "Land of Fire." 



It will be much easier now to write a monograph on the North American Indian 

 than in the time when Catlin did it. Then the " red man" was to ethnological litera- 



