heir systematic employment
unnecessary. Such signs may be, first, unconnected with existing
oral language, and used in place of it; second, used to explain or
accentuate the words of ordinary speech, or third, they may consist
of gestures, emotional or not, which are only noticed in oratory
or impassioned conversation, being, possibly, survivals of a former
gesture language.

From correspondence instituted it may be expected that a considerable
collection of signs will be obtained from West and South Africa,
India, Arabia, Turkey, the Fiji Islands, Sumatra, Madagascar, Ceylon,
and especially from Australia, where the conditions are similar
in many respects to those prevailing in North America prior to the
Columbian discovery. In the _Aborigines of Victoria, Melbourne_,
1878, by R. Brough Smythe, the author makes the following curious
remarks: "It is believed that they have several signs, known only to
themselves, or to those among the whites who have had intercourse
with them for lengthened periods, which convey information readily
and accurately. Indeed, because of their use of signs, it is the firm
belief of many (some uneducated and some educated) that the natives of
Australia are acquainted with the secrets of Freemasonry."

In the _Report of the cruise of the United States Revenue steamer
Corwin in the Arctic Ocean, Washington_, 1881, it appears that
the Innuits of the northwestern extremity of America use signs
continually. Captain Hooper, commanding that steamer, is reported
by Mr. Petroff to have found that the natives of Nunivak Island, on
the American side, below Behring Strait, trade by signs with those
of the Asiatic coast, whose language is different. Humboldt in his
journeyings among the Indians of the Orinoco, where many small
isolated tribes spoke languages not understood by any other, found the
language of signs in full operation. Spix and Martius give a similar
account of the Puris and Coroados of Brazil.

* * * * *

It is not necessary to enlarge under the present heading upon the
signs of deaf-mutes, except to show the intimate relation between sign
language as practiced by them and the gesture signs, which, even
if not "natural," are intelligible to the most widely separated of
mankind. A Sandwich Islander, a Chinese, and the Africans from the
slaver Amistad have, in published instances, visited our deaf-mute
institutions with the same result of free and pleasurab