1886. } Anthropology. 87 
systematically and at greater length, but until that time arrives 
ome one must do the pioneer work. The board of regents of 
the Smithsonian Institution have changed their year from the 
fiscal to the calendar, making it necessary to hand in manuscript 
earlier. All anthropologists are most cordially requested to send 
to my address the titles of all their publications. 
Tue “Inpian Locat Names,” recently published by a school- 
teacher of York, Pennsylvania, Mr. Stephen A. Boyd, is a rather 
extensive collection of North American local names of Indian 
origin (there are but a few Central and South American names in- 
serted), of which the interpretation is added or attempted. In an 
appendix we find etymologies of a number of topographic names 
from the Eastern hemisphere also. The undertaking is laudable, 
though difficult; for the compiler should not only be a copyist of 
etymologies given by others, but we expect him to be able to 
judge, which one of the ten or twelve explanations of one name 
is the correct one, and to do that he must have some knowledge of 
the language to which the name belongs. The local names of 
North America belong to more than 150 different dialects, and of 
all of these he who knows enough to passa judgment on this mat- 
ter, may fairly be regarded as the Pico de la Mirandola or the 
Mezzofanti of American linguistics. Mr. Boyd is not a man of this 
sort ; for he does not even give the name of the language from which 
his copied interpretations are taken, and moreover we are often 
left the choice between three or four totally diverse etymologies 
of the same name. But in the preface he is candid enough to give 
his scientific authorities, which form quite an extensive list— 
Albert S. Gatschet. 
ÅNTHROPOLOGICAL News.—In Vol. 106 of the Transactions 
of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, philol.-hist. department 
(Vienna, 1884), Professor Dr. Friedrich Miiller has published 
the paradigms of several Koloshian (or Thlinkit) nouns and 
verbs, based upon data contained in a rare publication of 
the priest, J. Wenjaminow (St. Petersburg, 1846). Guided by 
e principles governing the grammar of agglutinative lan- 
guage in general, Professor Miiller by his publication intends 
to rectify several statements made by Professor Dr. A. Pfitz- 
maier upon the same linguistic subject. The Abnaki dia- 
lect of the Passamaquoddy river, Maine, has been made the sub- 
ject of an article read before the American Philosophical Society 
of Philadelphia, on Feb. 6, 1885, by Abbie Langdon Alger. This — 
article consists of a vocabulary of words, phrases and sentences, in 
_all about 450 items on fifteen pages; the accentuation is indicated _ ne 
by signs of length or macrons upon the vowels. The terms are — 
not given after certain categories of objects, as parts of body, w . 
lationships, etc., and this makes it difficult to find in the long 
list any word that may be looked for. It would have been pret oe 
