Excerpt from Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, in Boston, April 25, 1855

The origin, the peculiarities, and the languages of the aborigines of North America are objects of study, to which the members of this Society have considered themselves bound to give their earliest and constant attention. The first volume of the Archaeologia Americana contains the copious work of Mr. Caleb Atwater, an indefatigable member of this Society, on the Indians in and near the Valley of the Ohio. This treatise was formerly attacked and depreciated; but it has gained respect from the support of subsequent and independent researches. The larger part of the second volume of the Archaeologia Americana is occupied by a synopsis of the N orth-american Indian tribes, and vocabularies of their languages, from the pen of Albert Gallatin, a member of this Society, whose accurate scholarship adorned every subject that he treated. This Society must remember with high satisfaction, not only the privilege of publishing a book of such eminent authority, but also that the book was completed by the learned author in the Se ciety's hall, for the advantage of using the rare mate rials of the library. The result of all that has been done, to ascertain the history and condition of these aborigines before the incursion of the Europeans, is obscure and unsatisfactory: but the languages are more definite objects, on which, throughout the exist ence of this Society, and particularly in later years, much labor of learned men, in and for the Society, has been expended, of which the fruit is immature;but it is hoped that it will not be ultimately lost. It would be improper to give a public detail of efforts of this kind, which have excited much interest and expectation but the same reserve is not necessary in regard to the valuable service liberally offered by Porter C. Bliss, Esq., of New Haven, in transferring to this Society large and important vocabularies of Indian languages which he has prepared, and in making other acquisitions of the same kind for the Society in his travels in the West.

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