for collecting linguistic material are growing fewer day by day, as tribes are consolidated upon reservations, as they become civilized, and as the older Indians, who alone are skilled in their language, die, leaving, it may be, only a few imperfect vocabularies as a basis for future study.  History has bequeathed to us the names of many tribes, which became extinct in early colonial times, of whose language not a hint is left and whose linguistic relations must ever remain unknown.

It is vain to grieve over neglected opportunities unless their contemplation stimulates us to utilize those at hand.  There are yet many gaps to be filled, even in so elementary a part of the study as the classification of the tribes by language.  As to the detailed study of the different linguistic families, the mastery and analysis of the languages composing them, and their comparison with one another and with the languages of other families, only a beginning has been made.

After the above statement it is hardly necessary to add that the accompanying map does not purport to represent final results.  On the contrary, it is to be regarded as tentative, setting forth in visible form the results of investigation up to the present time, as a guide and aid to future effort.

Each of the colors or patterns upon the map represents a distinct linguistic family, the total number of families contained in the whole area being fifty-eight.  It is believed that the families of languages represented upon the map can not have sprung from a common source; they are as distinct from one another in their vocabularies and apparently in their origin as from the Aryan or the Scythian families.  Unquestionably, future and more critical study will result in the fusion of some of these families.  As the means for analysis and comparison accumulate, resemblances now hidden will be brought to light, and relationships hitherto unsuspected will be shown to exist.  Such a result may be anticipated with the more certainty inasmuch as the present classification has been made upon a conservative plan.  Where relationships between families are suspected, but can not be demonstrated by convincing evidence, it has been deemed wiser not to unite them, but to keep them apart until more material shall have accumulated and proof of a more convincing character shall have been brought forward.  While some of the families indicated on the map may in future be united to other families, and the number thus be reduced, there seems to be no ground for the belief that the total of the linguistic families of this country will be materially diminished, at least under the present methods of linguistic analysis, for there is little reason to doubt that, as the result of investigation in the field, there will be discovered tribes speaking languages not classifiable under any of the present families; thus the decrease in the total by reason of consolidation may be compensated by a corresponding increase through discovery.  It may even be possible that some of the similarities used in combining languages into families may, on further study, prove to be adventitious, and the number may be increased thereby.  To which side the numerical balance will fall remains for the future to decide.