is intricate? If this be desirable, it must be done quickly, or the opportunity will be forever lost. Should our prejudices prevent it, we must remember that their faults will be obscured, and their virtues brightened by the tints of time. Posterity will think of them, more in pity than in anger, and will blame us for the little regard which has been paid to their welfare.

Hapless nations !-Like the mists which are exhaled by the scorching radiance of your summer's sun, ye are fast disappearing from the earth. But there is a Great Spirit above, who, though for wise purposes he causes you to disappear from the earth, still extends his protecting care to you, as well as to the rest of his creatures.-There is a country of Souls, a happier, and better country, which will be opened, we may charitably hope, to you, as well as to the other children of Adam. There is the atoning blood of the Redeemer, which was shed for you, as well as the rest of mankind; the efficacy of which, you have unwittingly continued to plead; and which may be extended, in its salutary influence, even to those who have never called on, because they have never heard, THE NAME OF THE Son of GOD,

48

CHAPTER XV.

LANGUAGE OF THE INDIANS.

By PETER S. DUPONCEAU, ESQ. (of Philadelphia,)

MORE than two years having elapsed since, by the desire of the Historical Committee, I had the bonour of carrying on a Correspondence with the Rev. Mr. Heckewelder, of Bethlehem, the object of which, in connexion with a course of studies which I was pursuing at the same time, and to which my leisure moments have since been devoted, was to investigate and ascertain, as much as possible, the structure and grammatical forms of the Languages of the Aboriginal Nations of America. The committee have been pleased to express a wish that I should report to them the further results of my subsequent inquiries into this highly interesting subject; so that it might appear whether the views which I took of it in the beginning were confirmed by a deeper and more accurate research, or whether those views had proceeded from too hasty conclusions from particular facts. I have delayed to the last moment the performance of this duty, in order to profit by all the facts and observations which I might be able to collect in the mean time. The first volume of the committee's transactions, of which the said correspondence makes a part, being now entirely printed, except the introductory matter which the committee may think proper to prefix to it, I cannot postpone any longer the execution of the task expected from me.

In the first place, I wish to state, that when I entered upon the present investigation, I had no favourite hypothesis or theory to support. Whether the Indian

population of this country took its origin from the Tartars, or from any other race of men; whether America was peopled from any of the countries of the old hemisphere, or those from America, are questions upon which I have never yet employed my mind. I have purposely left it free, that I might pursue my philological inquiries in an abstract point of view, unmixed and unconnected with those more important subjects on which their results, when fully ascertained, may, perhaps, ultimately throw light. My sole object has been to endeavour, by means of the study of the Indian Languages, to collect some facts of which philosophy might avail itself to extend the bounds of our limited knowledge of the all-important history of man.

I have, it is true, generalized my observations as much as possible. My inquiries have not been confined to one Indian language, or only to a few: I wished to take a birds-eye view of the whole, as the only means of obtaining some interesting results. I was anxious to know, in the first instance, whether the American idioms differed as essentially from each other as those of the nations who inhabit the Old Continent. That they so differ in point of etymology is a fact too well known and established to admit even a doubt; nothing therefore remained for me to inquire into, but the similarity or difference of their general construction or grammatical forms. Next followed of course their comparison with the idioms of the Trans-Atlantic Hemisphere. I fixed my mind upon these points, and made them the principal object of my researches.

In this investigation of facts, I have not drawn my information indiscriminately from every source, otherwise I should very soon have been lost in a labyrinth of contradictions. I left no book or manuscript unconsulted that came within my reach; but I examined the assertions of each writer with a critical eye, fully determined in no case to swear on the word of a master. I tried to discover the sources from which my authors had derived their knowledge; the opportunities which

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they had of acquiring it; the time which they had spent among the Indians, or in the study of their languages; the degree of attention which they had bestowed upon it, and the powers of mind by which they had been enabled to take a just and an accurate view, of their subject. Finally, I rejected every thing that came in the shape of mere assertion, and paid attention only to those specimens of the different idioms in which their grammatical structure was sufficiently exhibited. I found more of these than I had at first expected, and was enabled by their means to take that wide range of observation, which alone could serve the purpose I had in view.

I have derived no little aid from that excellent work ably commenced by the late Professor Adelung,* and no less ably continued by our learned associate Professor Vater, and another Adelung,† not inferior to his predecessor. I mean the Mithridates, which I do not hesitate to call the most astonishing philological collection that the world has ever seen. It contains an epitome of all the existing knowledge of the ancient and modern langnages of the whole earth. It exhibits specimens of the words of each language, by means of which their affinities can be traced as far as etymology may help to discover them, with a delineation of their forms, syntax, constructions, and general grammnatical character, exemplified in the greatest number of cases by the Lord's Prayer in each language and dialect, with a literal German translation interlined, and fol

* Author of the great German Dictionary, and other celebrated literary works.

The Hon. Frederick Adelung, of St. Petersburg, Counsellor of State Member of the Imperial Russian Academy, and of this Society. He is, the nephew and worthy successor of the great Adelung.

Mithridates, oder Allgemeine Sprachenkunde, &c. Mithridates, or the general Science of Languages, with the Lord's Prayer as a speci men, in nearly five hundred languages and dialects. Berlin, 1806-1817, 4 vols. bound in 6 octavo. The last volume consists of valuable additions to the former ones, by Mr. F. Adelung, and by Baron William Von Humboldt, who has enriched it with an excellent dissertation on the Basque language.

lowed by a commentary in which every sentence is parsed and the meaning of each word given, with an explanation of the grammatical sense and form in which it is employed. Of this extensive work two volumes* are exclusively dedicated to the languages of the Indians of North and South America, and give a condensed view of all the information which heretofore has existed in print upon this subject.

From the labours of the Missionaries of the Society of the United Brethren in this country, I have derived considerable assistance. With a view to promote the Christian faith and the civilization of the aborigines of the country, those venerable men had written a number of grammars, dictionaries, and other elementary works on the Indian languages, which being intended merely for the use of their young ministers, were unknown to the rest of the world, and would have remained for ever buried in obscurity, had not the exertions of the Historical Committee brought them to light, and rendered them more generally useful. By their means the forms and construction of the two principal mother tongues of this country, the Delaware and the Iroquois, are become sufficiently known. Professor Vater has not given a very particular description of either, for want of materials to work upon; for neither the English nor the French, who were both so long in possession of the northern part of the American continent had taken pains to furnish thein.

I have the honour of annexing to this report a list of the various grammars, dictionaries, vocabularies, and and other MS. works on Indian languages, which have been presented or communicated to the Historical Committee in aid of their researches. It will be easily perceived how much advantage has been derived from them in the course of inquiries which I have been di

These are called the 2d and 3d parts of the third volume, and contain together no less than 874 pages. The whole of this third volume and the best part of the second are the work of Professor Vater.