On June 13, Brevet Lieut. Col. Garrick Mallery, U.S.A., at the request of the Secretary of the Interior, joined my corps under orders from the honorable Secretary of War, and since that time has been engaged in the study of the statistics and history of the Indians of the western portion of the United States.
In April last, Mr. A. S. Gatschet was employed as a philologist to assist in the ethnographic work of this Survey. He had previously been engaged in the study of the languages of various North American tribes. In June last at the request of this office he was employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to collect certain statistics relating to the Indians of Oregon and Washington Territory, and is now in the field. His scientific reports have since that time been forwarded through the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs to this office. His work will be included in a volume now in course of preparation.
Dr. H. O. Yarrow, U.S.A., now on duty at the Army Medical Museum, in Washington, has been engaged during the past year in the collection of material for a monograph on the customs and rites of sepulture. To aid him in this work circulars of inquiry have been widely circulated among ethnologists and other scholars throughout North America, and much material has been obtained which will greatly supplement his own extended observations and researches.
Many other gentlemen throughout the United States have rendered me valuable assistance in this department of investigation. Their labors will receive due acknowledgment at the proper time, but I must not fail to render my sincere thanks to these gentlemen, who have so cordially and efficiently co-operated with me in this work.
A small volume, entitled “Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages,” has been prepared and published. This book is intended for distribution among collectors. In its preparation I have been greatly assisted by Prof. W. D. Whitney, the distinguished philologist of Yale College. To him I am indebted for that part relating to the representation of the sounds of Indian languages; a work which could not be properly performed by any other than a profound scholar in this branch.
I complete the statement of the office-work of the past season by mentioning that a tentative classification of the linguistic families of the Indians of the United States has been prepared. This has been a work of great labor, to which I have devoted much of my own time, and in which I have received the assistance of several of the gentlemen above mentioned.
In pursuing these ethnographic investigations it has been the endeavor as far as possible to produce results that would be of practical value in the administration of Indian affairs, and for this purpose especial attention has been paid to vital statistics, to the discovery of linguistic affinities, the progress made by the Indians toward civilization, and the causes and remedies for the inevitable conflict that arises from the spread of civilization over a region previously inhabited by savages. I may be allowed to express the hope that our labors in this direction will not be void of such useful results.
In 1878 no report of the Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region was published, as before its completion the question of reorganizing all of the surveys had been raised, but the work was continued by the same methods as in previous years.
The operations of the Bureau of Ethnology during the past fiscal year will be briefly described.
In the plan of organization two methods of operation are embraced: