about 100 separate cards each with a scripture text, chapter, or sermonette on it, about 1,000 illustrations in all. The same being the matter of the dictionary proper reproduced on separate cards, the diagram on one side and the text on the other. The front matter and the type measurements do not, however, appear on the cards. Though poor as art, the drawings are of some value to the student.
This is the most ambitious work extant on the subject of Sign Language, but seems to be quite unknown to most ethnologists, and is not in any library, so far as I can learn, except the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Public Library, the Library of Prof. J. C. Elsom of Wisconsin State University, and my own collection.
Of the 75 copies issued, only these 5 have been accounted for, but cards comprising the dictionary part were issued to the extent of 100,000 in sets of 571 each, and the reading matter on cards to the number of over 27,000.
1910. The Sign Language, by Prof. J. Schuyler Long, State School for the Deaf, Council Bluffs, Iowa, published at Washington, D. C., 1910. A valuable dictionary of about 1,500 signs used by the deaf, with 500 admirable photographic illustrations. Of these signs a large number seem to be arbitrary, but many are evidently of good construction and quite acceptable to Indian sign-talkers.
To these should be added:
1832. La Mimica, by Andrea de Jorio. “La mimica degli antichi investigata nel Gestire Napoletano.” Napoli, 1832, 8vo, 372 pp., 21 plates.
This interesting Italian work on Sign Language was written to show that the gestures figured on antique vases, etc., may be explained by their modern parallels, especially as observed in Naples. The 21 plates illustrate about one hundred of these gestures—about half of these are reproduced in Mallery’s 1881 publication.
1854. Dactylologie by Louis de Mas-Latrie. “Dictionnaire de Paleographie.” Tome Quarante-septième, pp. 179 to 366.
An extended study of Finger-talking as used by the deaf, the savages, etc. About 30 American Indian signs are described and compared with those of the deaf. No illustrations.
1878. The Gesture Language, by E. B. Tyler, in his studies in “Early History of Mankind,” third edition, 1878, pp. 14–81.