Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/62



46 HOWARD MALCOLM BALLOU

belonging to the library of Oberlin College, and the librarian at Oberlin afterwards discovered a second similar copy.

The writer has just discovered two more pages of this little book pages 5 and 6, two specimens of which were used in the binding of the copy of the 20-page First Book presented by Mr. Hall to Dr. Anderson of the A. B. C. F. M., and the Library of Congress has made a similar discovery in their copy, as has also the E. E. Ayer Library of Chicago.

The book is bound in blue paper, strengthened by printed paper, which on being steamed apart proved to be two copies of one leaf of the discarded book.

Specimens of the four outer pages have similarly been found by him at the Massachusetts Historical Society and by the librarian of Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon.

Other owners of the 20-page Nez-Perces First Book in the original paper binding may find by examination against a strong light that they too possess pages of the pioneer 8-page book which were utilized by Mr. Hall when binding his work of August, 1839. Pages 3 and 4 are as yet unknown.

The 8-page book was printed in one signature of eight pages. It was almost immediately abandoned, for reasons explained in letters following.

Mr. Himes' account, which was based on information fur- nished him by Dr. Myron Eells, purporting to be a condensa- tion of a diary kept by Mr. Spalding at the time, continues:

"On July 10 the style of alphabet was agreed upon, it hav- ing been decided to adopt the one used in the Sandwich Islands. This was done at Kamiah by Doctor and Mrs. Whitman, Mr. Spalding and wife, Rev. A. B. Smith and wife and Mr. Hall.

On Aug. 1 the printing of another book was commenced in the new alphabet and by the 15th, 500 copies were com- pleted."

The statement that the Hawaiian alphabet was adopted by the missionaries stationed within the sphere of the Nez-Perces language is of course inaccurate. The Hawaiian alphabet con- sists of only 12 letters, a, e, i, o, u, h, k, 1, m, n, p, and w, written in that order, while according to the statement by Mr. Spalding already quoted the Nez-Perces language required in addition the letters q, s, t, and y.