.B. TYLOR, whose admirable chapters on gesture speech in his
_Researches into the Early History of Mankind_ have in a great degree
prompted the present inquiries, that eminent authority did not see fit
to discredit it. He repeats the report as he received it, in the words
that "the same signs serve as a medium of converse from Hudson Bay to
the Gulf of Mexico." Its truth or falsity can only be established by
careful comparison of lists or vocabularies of signs taken under test
conditions at widely different times and places. For this purpose
lists have been collated by the writer, taken in different parts of
the country at several dates, from the last century to the last month,
comprising together several thousand signs, many of them, however,
being mere variants or synonyms for the same object or quality, some
being repetitions of others and some of small value from uncertainty
in description or authority, or both.

ONCE PROBABLY UNIVERSAL IN NORTH AMERICA.

The conclusion reached from the researches made is to the effect
that before the changes wrought by the Columbian discovery the use of
gesture illustrated the remark of Quintilian upon the same subject
(l. xi, c. 3) that "_In tanta per omnes gentes nationesque linguae
diversitate hic mihi omnium hominum communis sermo videatur._"

Quotations may be taken from some old authorities referring to widely
separated regions. The Indians of Tampa Bay, identified with the
Timucua, met by Cabeca de Vaca in 1528, were active in the use of
signs, and in his journeying for eight subsequent years, probably
through Texas and Mexico, he remarks that he passed through many
dissimilar tongues, but that he questioned and received the answers
of the Indians by signs "just as if they spoke our language and we
theirs." Michaelius, writing in 1628, says of the Algonkins on or near
the Hudson River: "For purposes of trading as much was done by signs
with the thumb and fingers as by speaking." In Bossu's _Travels
through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana_,
_London_, 1771 (Forster's translation), an account is given of
Monsieur de Belle-Isle some years previously captured by the Atak-apa,
who remained with them two years and "conversed in their pantomimes
with them." He was rescued by Governor Bienville and was sufficiently
expert in the sign language to interpret between Bienville and the
tribe. In Bushmann's _Spuren_, p. 424, there is a reference to the
"Accocessaw