Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/153

Rh But imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues ſpoken in America, it ſuffices to diſcover the following remarkable fact. Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably traced and doing the ſame by thoſe of the red men of Aſia, there will be found probably twenty in America, for one in Aſia, of thoſe radical languages, ſo called becauſe, if they were ever the ſame they have loſt all reſemblance to one another. A ſeparation into dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but for two dialects to recede from one another till they have loſt all veſtiges of their common origin, muſt require an immenſe courſe of time; perhaps not leſs than many people give to the age of the earth. A greater number of thoſe radical changes of language having taken place among the red men of America, proves them of greater antiquity than thoſe of Aſia.

I will now proceed to ſtate the nations and numbers of the Aborigines which ſtill exiſt in a reſpectable and Independent form. And as their undefined boundaries would render it difficult to ſpecify thoſe only which may be within any certain limits, and it may not be unacceptable to preſent a more general view of them, I will reduce within the form of a catalogue all thoſe within, and circumjacent to, the United States, whoſe names and numbers have come to my notice. Theſe are taken from four different liſts, the firſt of which was given in the year 1759 to general Stanwix by George Croghan, deputy agent for Indian affairs under Sir William Johnſon; the ſecond was drawn up by a French trader of conſiderable note, reſident among the Indians many years, and annexed to colonel Bouquet's printed account of his