ing, fishing, rowing, sailing, sawing, planing, boring, and, in short, an endless list.

Whether or not sight preceded hearing in order of development, it is difficult, in conjecturing the first attempts of man or his hypothetical ancestor at the expression either of percepts or concepts, to connect vocal sounds with any large number of objects, but it is readily conceivable that the characteristics of their forms and movements should have been suggested to the eye-highly exercised before the tongue-after the arms and fingers had become free for the requisite simulation or portrayal. It may readily be supposed that a troglodyte man would desire to communicate the finding of a cave in the vicinity of a pure pool, circled with soft grass, and shaded by trees bearing edible fruit. No sound of nature is connected with any of those objects, but the position and size of the cave, its distance and direction, the water, its quality, and amount, the verdant circling carpet, and the kind and height of the trees could have been made known by pantomime in the days of the mammoth, if articulate speech had not then been established, as Indians or deaf-mutes now communicate similar information by the same agency.

CONCLUSIONS.

It may be conceded that after man had attained to all his present faculties, he did not choose between the adoption of voice and gesture, and never, with those faculties, was in a state where the one was used to the absolute exclusion of the other. The epoch, however, to which our speculations relate, is that in which he had not reached the present symmetric development of his intellect and of his bodily organs, and the inquiry is, which mode of communication was earliest in adaptation to his simple wants and unformed intelligence. With the voice he could imitate distinctively but the few sounds of nature, while with gesture he could exhibit actions, motions, positions, forms, dimensions, directions and distances, with their derivatives and analogues. It would seem from this unequal division of capacity that oral speech remained rudimentary long after gesture had become an efficient instrument of thought and expression. With due allowance for all purely imitative sounds and for the spontaneous

action of the vocal organs under excitement, it appears that the connection between ideas and words is only to be explained by a compact between the speaker and hearer which supposes the existence of a prior mode of communication. This was probably by gesture, which, in the happy phrase of Sayce, "like the ropebridges of the Himalayas or the Andes, formed the first rude means of communication between man and man." At least we may gladly accept it as a clew leading us out of the labyrinth of philologic confusion, and as regulating the immemorial search for man's pristine speech.

COMPARATIVE DIFFERENCES IN THE IROQUOIS GROUP OF DIALECTS. By ERMINNIE A. SMITH, of Jersey City, N. J.

[ABSTRACT.]

ASSUMING these dialects to be of common stock, it is not difficult to discover some of the causes which have led to at least a few of the changes, the final result of which has been that the conversation of the Tuscarora is almost unintelligible to the Mohawk, and that in turn partially so to the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca.

Which has the best claim to priority, as being the fundamental, cannot yet be decided, for while popular tradition and some philologic deductions might give to the Mohawk that claim, the extreme isolation of the Tuscaroras may have caused them to adhere more rigidly to the mother-tongue.

To me the Tuscarora dialect seems to be the most replete in itself, as can be seen in its table of numerals, where no such mélange appears as in the other dialects.

M. Cuoq, in his valuable "Etudes Philologiques sur quelques langues Sauvages de l'Amérique," entitles his second section "Principles of the Iroquois Grammar," and then proceeds to lay down. the principles of the Mohawk grammar.

For this he gives no reason, which, however, probably was that he was more conversant with the Mohawk, having labored so long among that tribe, and rightly judging that the same grammatical and syntactic construction could be applied to the whole group.

The brochure of M. Cuoq is in his native language, the French, and his vast linguistic knowledge has enabled him to fathom the Indian languages with all their marvellous and astonishing phenomena, and to penetrate their sense in all its shades. At the same time as the grammatical construction is made to conform as far as possible to the French as its model, and to appeal more particularly to those of that nationality who would use it as a standard of comparison or as an aid to its understanding, it seems that

while accepting it as representing the Mohawk, it is quite unnecessary that the grammatical construction of the other five dialects should be as fully elaborated in order to institute a comparison, even if it were possible for me to accomplish it. Those who are familiar with the wonderful research displayed in the brochure of M. Cuoq, and who cannot fail to admit its great value as a contribution to Indianology, must however deplore the almost merciless censoriousness which the author has displayed toward his forerunners, the pioneers in the science, so that it is not remarkable that in the last two decades no one has ventured into this Iroquois warpath, waiting forsooth until this Titan had laid down his pen, mightier indeed than the tomahawk of those whose language he had conquered. It is therefore not without serious misgivings that an unpretentious woman takes up the glaive, depending upon her zeal in the cause but willing to sacrifice her own vulnerable opinions if the national gallantry of so competent a critic will permit them to become a point d'attaque and thereby secure other contributions from this retired savant.

The great conformity in the dialects of the six tribes would alone give us authority to assume that in some pre-traditionary epoch they existed as one tribe, and many evidences go to show that so great were their power and skill that they, in that age, supplanted the fierce Algonquins.

It may then be supposed that, either the better to procure their food, or for the protection of their usurped territory, they separated themselves into at least three divisions, the Seneca, Mohawk and Tuscarora, the Mohawk later sending off the Onondagas and Oneidas as offshoots, and the Senecas doing the same by the Cayugas. Five of them at least were known to the first French settlers who, recognizing their affinity, termed them, as a whole, the Iroquois. How or why the Tuscaroras were located so far to the south we can only conjecture. It may have been that they might there serve as an outpost to protect the other tribes in their incursions among the Creeks and other belligerent savages. It was probably during this period, embracing centuries perhaps, that the changes began which have resulted in the six distinct dialects of the Iroquois and probably others not included in that name.

These variations mainly consist: 1. In modifications of the vowel which changes very materially the sound of words which,