47o 



SCIENCE. 



enough for this paper. This general remark, however, 

 should be carefully weighed. The canon of the Colum- 

 bia, the Yosemite Valley, the Charquinez Strait connect- 

 ing the Suisun and San Pablo Bays, and the Golden Gate 

 itself, through which the waters of the Sacramento and 

 the San Joaquin, draining the great Valley of California, 

 find their way to the ocean, are all about a mile wide. 

 With the exception of the canon of the Mississippi, the 

 same is true, it is here repeated, of all the canons above 

 referred to in the Rocky Mountains and east of them, 

 noticed in this paper. It is submitted, therefore, that 

 the main facts in regard to them, point almost unmistak- 

 ably to a similar origin for them all. All these canons I 

 have myself visited, many of them several times. Several 

 of them are splendid, even sublime, beyond the- power of 

 the most accomplished pen to describe. I dared not to 

 attempt it, and have, therefore, simply stated what I have 

 myself seen and drawn such conclusions as the facts 

 seemed to warrant. 



Let me add a very few words in conclusion upon a 

 paper on the geological history of the Colorado River 

 and the plateau of it, read at the St. Louis meeting by 

 Col. E. C. Dutton, of Washington. This canon, as 

 described by Maj. Powell, who has the honor of braving 

 almost incredible dangers to explore it and to give the 

 world their first knowledge of its wonders, is some 1,500 

 miles long ; the perpendicular walls are a mile or a frac- 

 tion of it apart, and are from 1,000 to 5,000 feet high. 

 They are composed of nearly all the series in the geolog- 

 ical catalogue, from the granite all the way up to the 

 highest igneous stratified rocks. Now this, by far the 

 longest, and in some respects the most wonderful canon 

 in the world, Col. Dutton described as having been worn 

 by the Colorado River. In view of the facts herein pre- 

 sented that conclusions seems supremely fanciful and 

 absurd. Like all the others, it could only have been 

 formed by some great convulsion of the earth's crust, 

 and through it the drainage of nearly a thousand miles 

 along the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains finds 

 its way to the Gulf of California. 



ADDRESS OF COL. GARRICK MALLERY, U. S. 

 ARMY. 



Chairman of the Subsection of Anthropology of the A. A. A. S. 

 at the Opening of that Subsection. 



THE GESTURE SPEECH OF MAN. 



Anthropology tells the march of mankind out of 

 savagery in which different people have advanced in vary- 

 ing degrees, but all started in progress to civilization from 

 a point lower than that now occupied by the lowest 

 of the tribes now found on earth. The marks of their 

 rude origin, retained by all, are of the same number and 

 kind, though differing in distinctness, showing a common 

 origin to all intelle:tual and social development, notwith- 

 standing present diversities. The most notable criterion 

 of difference is in the copiousness and precision of oral 

 speech, and connected with that, both as to origin and 

 structure, is the unequal survival of gesture signs, which 

 it is believed once universally prevailed. Where sign 

 language survives it is, therefore, an instructive vestige 

 ol the prehistoric epoch, and its study may solve prob- 

 lems in philology and psychology. That study is best 

 pursued by comparing the pre-eminent gesture system of 

 the North American Indians with the more degenerate 

 or less developed systems cf other people. 



EXAMINATION OF THE INDIAN SYSTEM. 



The conditions and circumstances attending the pre- 

 valence, and sometimes the disuse, of sign language in 

 North America were explained. The report of travelers 

 that among Indians, as well as other tribes of men, some 

 were unable to converse in the dark, because they could 



not gesture, is false. It is the old story of Bap/?apoc and 

 ayJaaaoi applied by the Greeks to all who did not speak 

 Greek, repeated by Isaiah of the " stammering" Assyri- 

 ans, and now appearing in the term slav (speaker arro- 

 gated to themselves by a large division of the Aryan 

 family), as contradisiinguished by the Russians from the 

 Germans, whom they stigmatize as Njemez (speechless.) 



The theory that sign language was the original utter- 

 ance of mankind does not depend upon such tales or pre- 

 judices. After the immeasurable period during which 

 man has been upon the earth it is not probable that any 

 existing peoples can be found among whom speech has 

 not obviated the absolute necessity for gesture in commu- 

 nication between themselves. 



The assertions made that the sign language of Indians 

 originated from one definite tribe or region supposes its 

 comparatively recent origin, whereas the conditions favor- 

 able to its development existed very long ago and were 

 co-extensive with the territory of North America occu- 

 pied by any of the tribes. Numerous evidences were pre- 

 sented as to its antiquity and generality. But the signs 

 are not now, and from the nature of their formation never 

 were, identical and uniform. The process is the same as 

 among uninstructed deaf mutes when associated together, 

 which was explained. 



A comparison sometimes made of the diversities of the 

 sign language of the Indians with the dialects and provin- 

 cialisms of the English language is incorrect, as there is 

 so small a proportion of the sign-using tribes which make 

 identically the same signs to express the same ideas, and 

 also because the signs are not absolute and arbitrary as 

 are the words of English. 



ARE SIGNS CONVENTIONAL OR INSTINCTIVE ? 



Sign language, as a product of evolution, has been de- 

 veloped rather than invented, but each of the separate 

 signs had a definite origin arising out of some appropri- 

 ate occasion, and the same sign may thus have had many 

 different origins due to identity in the circumstances. 

 No signs in common use were at first conventional. 

 What may appear to be convention largely consists in the 

 differing forms of abbreviation which have been adopted. 

 Yet, while all Indians, as well as all gesturing men, have 

 many signs in common, they use many others which have 

 become conventional in the sense that their etymology 

 and conception are not now known or regarded by those 

 using them. The conventions by which such signs were 

 established occurred during the long periods and under 

 many differing circumstances. Our Indians, far from 

 being a homogeneous race and possessing uniformity in 

 their language, religions and customs, differ from each 

 other more than do the several nations of Europe, and 

 their semiotic conceptions have correspondingly differed. 



PERMANENCE OF SIGNS. 



Instances were presented of the ascertained perma- 

 nence of some Indian signs, and of those of foreign 

 peoples and deaf mutes. Though they, as well as words, 

 animals and plants, have had their growth, development 

 and change, those which are general among Indian tribes, 

 and are also found in other parts of the world, must be 

 of great antiquity. Many signs but little differentiated 

 were unstable, while others that have proved to be the 

 best modes of expression have survived as definite and 

 established. 



IS THE INDIAN SYSTEM SPECIAL AND PECULIAR? 



The Indian system as a whole was compared with those 

 of foreign peoples — the ancientGreeks and Romans, the 

 modern Italians, the Turks, Armenians and Koords, the 

 Bushmen of Africa, the Redjangs and Lelongs of Suma- 

 tra, the Fijians, the Chinese, Japanese, and the Austra- 

 lians. The result is that the so-called sign language of 

 Indians is not, properly speaking, one language, but that 

 it and the gesture systems of deaf-mutes and of all 



