P. 24. Auriferous Gravels of California. The principal reference is J. D. Whitney, The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California, pp. 258-288 (Cambridge, Mass., 1879). Professor Whitney believes that the evidence is sufficient to attribute the mortars, pestles, beads, etc., found in the auriferous gravels to late pliocene man. But Dr. Joseph Leidy describes equine skulls, molars, incisors, etc., found in these gravels, thirty-five to forty feet below the surface, “not differing in any respect from those of the modern horse,” and “unchanged in texture” (see ibid., p. 257). Dr. Leidy informs me personally that for such reasons he gravely doubts the antiquity of the formation, and distrusts the great age of the human relics it contains.

P. 27. PalÆolithic Implements. Reports of the discovery of very large numbers of supposed palÆolithic implements in various parts of the United States have been collected and published by Mr. Thomas Wilson in the Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1887-88, pp. 677-702. These implements, however, are called palÆolithic from their form and workmanship only, and not from the stratigraphic relations in which they were found. As palÆolithic forms often survived in the riper culture of the neolithic age, the only positive proof of their older origin must be that they are found in undisturbed relation to older strata.

P. 33. Remains of Man in the Equus Beds. What American geologists call the Equus Beds are those which yield in abundance the bones of various species of fossil horse, as E. major, occidentalis, excelsus, barcenÆi, fraternus, crenidens, etc., most of which have been determined by Dr. Joseph Leidy and Prof. E. D. Cope. The principal localities of these beds are: 1. The Oregon Desert; 2. The country of the Nueces, in southwestern Texas; and 3. The valley of Mexico. The horizon to which these beds should be referred was considered by Prof. King to be the Upper Pliocene; but by Prof. G. K. Gilbert, Dr. Joseph Leidy, and I think, by Prof. Cope, it is rather held to be pleistocene or early quaternary, probably as old as the great glacial phenomena of the Continent. According to Cope and Gilbert, rude stone implements have undoubtedly been found in place in the Equus beds of Nevada, California and Southwestern Texas. See the American Naturalist, 1889, p. 165; Proc. Acad. Nat. Sciences, Phila., 1883, p. 134, sq.

Pp. 106, 108. Kwakiutl and Nootka Stocks. After the pages referred to had been printed, I received, through the kindness of Mr. Horatio Hale, advance sheets of the Sixth Annual Report of the Committee of the British Association on the tribes of the Northwest Coast, prepared by Dr. Franz Boas, with an introduction by Mr. Hale, and including eighteen vocabularies. Dr. Boas’ researches furnish clear evidence of a connection between the Kwakiutl and the Nootka tongues, and there is little doubt that they are distantly related. An instructive article on the physical characteristics of the Indians of the North Pacific coast is contributed by Dr. Boas to the American Anthropologist for January, 1891. His conclusion is: “Each tribe appears composed of many types, but in each we find a marked prevalence of a certain type.”

P. 123. Supposed Connection of Sonoran Languages with the Maya Stock. In his Etudes AztÈques, published in the Museon, 1890, p. 506, M. W. Baligny endeavors to show a connection between the vocabularies of Sonoran languages and the Maya dialects. His strong points are some of the numerals and the personal pronouns of the first and second person. I have elsewhere given good reasons for not depending on these pronominal analogies in American languages (see Essays of an Americanist, p. 396). And as to the numerals, “dont la ressemblance est Évidente” (according to him), when the Sonoran tongues disagree with the Nahuatl, they have almost always clearly borrowed from the Yuma stem, as in “two,” guoca, kuak (see Vocabs., antÉ, pp. 335, 336).

P. 163. Language of the Ramas. Since my negative observations about the Ramas were in type, I have received a short vocabulary of their language from the Rev. W. SiebÄrger, Moravian missionary on the Musquito coast. The orthography is German.

My informant writes me that the Ramas are about 250 in number, and are all Christians and able to speak and write English, except a few very old persons. Their language will probably be extinct in a few years. They are confined to their island in Blewfield Lagoon. It is particularly interesting, therefore, to fix their affinities before the opportunity passes. From the above vocabulary I think there is little doubt but that they are a branch of the Changuina or Dorasque stock, described pp. 174, 175. The following words attest this, the Changuina forms being from A. L. Pinart’s Vocabulario Castellano-Dorasque, Dialectos Chumulu, Gualaca y Changuina (Paris, 1890):

The numerals for “two” and “three,” puk sak, pang sak, are doubtless the Cuna pocua, pagua. The Ramas, therefore, belong to the Isthmian tribes, and formed the vanguard of the South American immigration into North America. What time they moved northward and possessed themselves of their small island is unknown, but it was probably after the conquest. Mr. SiebÄrger writes me: “They were always kept under, even ill-treated, by the Musquito Indians, and are still very submissive and teachable.”

The following errata should be noted:

P. 69, line 3; for Nehaunies read Nahaunies.

Pp. 89, 95, 98 and 101, the numbers of the sections should read 7, 8, 9, 10, instead of 5, 6, 7, 8.

P. 169, line 17, for maternal read paternal.

P. 197, for Morropas read Malabas.

P. 251, line 11, for Wapiana read Woyawoi.

Transcriber’s Note: the listed errata have been corrected.