s on the west side of the Colorado, two hundred miles
southwest of Nacogdoches," who use thumb signs which they understand:
"_Theilen sich aber auch durch Daum-Zeichen mit, die sie alle
verstehen._"

Omitting many authorities, and for brevity allowing a break in the
continuity of time, reference may be made to the statement in Major
Long's expedition of 1819, concerning the Arapahos, Kaiowas, Ietans,
and Cheyennes, to the effect that, being ignorant of each other's
languages, many of them when they met would communicate by means
of signs, and would thus maintain a conversation without the least
difficulty or interruption. A list of the tribes reported upon by
Prince Maximilian von Wied-Neuweid, in 1832-'34, appears elsewhere
in this paper. In Fremont's expedition of 1844 special and repeated
allusion is made to the expertness of the Pai-Utes in signs, which is
contradictory to the statement above made by correspondents. The same
is mentioned regarding a band of Shoshonis met near the summit of the
Sierra Nevada, and one of "Diggers," probably Chemehuevas, encountered
on a tributary of the Rio Virgen.

Ruxton, in his _Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains_, _New
York_, 1848, p. 278, sums up his experience with regard to the Western
tribes so well as to require quotation: "The language of signs is
so perfectly understood in the Western country, and the Indians
themselves are such admirable pantomimists, that, after a little use,
no difficulty whatever exists in carrying on a conversation by such
a channel; and there are few mountain men who are at a loss in
thoroughly understanding and making themselves intelligible by signs
alone, although they neither speak nor understand a word of the Indian
tongue."

Passing to the correspondents of the writer from remote parts of
North America, it is important to notice that Mr. J.W. Powell, Indian
superintendent, reports the use of sign language among the Kutine,
and Mr. James Lenihan, Indian agent, among the Selish, both tribes
of British Columbia. The Very Rev. Edward Jacker, while contributing
information upon the present use of gesture language among the Ojibwas
of Lake Superior, mentions that it has fallen into comparative neglect
because for three generations they had not been in contact with
tribes of a different speech. Dr. Francis H. Atkins, acting assistant
surgeon, United States Army, in forwarding a contribution of signs
of the Mescalero Apaches remarks: "I th