elect and learned institution, of which Mr. Gallatin was the
central figure. One of its members said in 1871, 'Mr. Gallatin's house
was the true seat of the society, and Mr. Gallatin himself its
controlling spirit. His name gave it character, and from his purse
mainly was defrayed the cost of the two volumes of the "Transactions"
which constitute about the only claim the society possesses to the
respect of the scientific world.' To the first of these volumes,
published in 1845, Mr. Gallatin contributed an "Essay on the
semi-civilized nations of Mexico and Central America, embracing
elaborate notes on their languages, numeration, calendars, history, and
chronology, and an inquiry into the probable origin of their
semi-civilization." In this he included all existing certain knowledge
of the languages, history, astronomy, and progress in art of these
peoples. A copy of this work he sent to General Scott, then in the city
of Mexico after his triumphant campaign, inclosing a memorandum which he
urged the general to hand to civilians attached to the army. This was a
request to purchase books, copies of documents, printed grammars, and
vocabularies of the Mexican languages, and he authorized the general to
spend four hundred dollars in this purpose on his account. In the second
volume, published in 1848, he printed the result of his continued
investigations on the subject which first interested him, as an
introduction to a republication of a work by Mr. Hale on the "Indians of
Northwest America." This consisted of geographical notices, an account
of Indian means of subsistence, the ancient semi-civilization of the
Northwest, Indian philology, and analogic comparisons with the Chinese
and Polynesian languages. These papers Mr. Gallatin modestly described
to Chevalier as the 'fruits of his leisure,' and to Sismondi he wrote
that he had not the requisite talent for success in literature or
science. They nevertheless entitle him to the honorable name of the
Father of American Ethnography.

In 1837 Mr. Wheaton, the American minister at Berlin, requested Mr.
Gallatin to put the Baron von Humboldt in possession of authentic data
concerning the production of gold in the United States. Humboldt had
visited the Oural and Siberian regions in 1829, at the request of the
Emperor of Russia, to make investigations as to their production of the
precious metals. Mr. Gallatin was the only authority in the United
States on the subject. Later von