ities
giving them.

Many of these copies have been returned with valuable annotations, not
only of correction but of addition and suggestion, and are now being
collated again into one general revision.

The above statement will, it is hoped, give assurance that the work of
the Bureau of Ethnology has been careful and thorough. No scheme has
been neglected which could be contrived and no labor has been spared
to secure the accuracy and completeness of the publication still in
preparation. It may also be mentioned that although the writer has
made personal observations of signs, no description of any sign has
been printed by him which rests on his authority alone. Personal
controversy and individual bias were thus avoided. For every sign
there is a special reference either to an author or to some one or
more of the collaborators. While the latter have received full
credit, full responsibility was also imposed, and that course will be
continued.

No contribution has been printed which asserted that any described
sign is used by "all Indians," for the reason that such statement is
not admissible evidence unless the authority had personally examined
all Indians. If any credible person had affirmatively stated that a
certain identical, or substantially identical, sign had been found by
him, actually used by Abnaki, Absaroka, Arikara, Assiniboins, etc.,
going through the whole list of tribes, or any definite portion of
that list, it would have been so inserted under the several tribal
heads. But the expression "all Indians," besides being insusceptible
of methodical classification, involves hearsay, which is not the kind
of authority desired in a serious study. Such loose talk long delayed
the recognition of Anthropology as a science. It is true that some
general statements of this character are made by some old authors
quoted in the Dictionary, but their descriptions are reprinted, as
being all that can be used of the past, for whatever weight they may
have, and they are kept separate from the linguistic classification
given below.

Regarding the difficulties met with in the task proposed, the same
motto might be adopted as was prefixed to Austin's _Chironomia_: "_Non
sum nescius, quantum susceperim negotii, qui motus corporis exprimere
verbis, imitari scriptura conatus sim voces._" _Rhet. ad Herenn_, 1.3.
If the descriptive recital of the signs collected had been absolutely
restricted to written or printed words the wo