Sicth Report of the Committee, consisting of Dr. H. B. Tytor,
Mr. W. Buioxam, Sir DaniEL Witson, Dr. G. M. Dawson, General
Sir H. Lerroy, and Mr. R. G. Hauipurton, appointed to im-
vestigate the physical characters, languages, and wmdustrial
and social condition of the North-Western Tribes of the

Dominion of Canada.
[MAP.]

THe Committee have been able once more to secure the services of Dr.
Boas, who has drawn up the bulk of the report on the tribes of British
Columbia. This is accompanied by a linguistic map, and preceded by
remarks on British Columbian ethnology by Mr. Horatio Hale. The
grant made to the Committee was supplemented by 500 dollars from the
Canadian Government, and the Committee suggest that each member of
the Dominion Parliament should be supplied with one copy of the report.
The Committee ask for reappointment, and for a grant of 200I.

Remarks on the Hthnology of British Columbia: Introductory to the Second
General Report of Dr. Franz Boas on the Indians of that Province. By
Horatio Hate.

A reference to the map annexed to this report will show at a glance
those striking characteristics of British Columbian ethnography which
were described in my remarks prefixed to the report of 1889.1 These
peculiarities are the great number of linguistic stocks, or families of
languages, which are found in this comparatively small territory, and
the singular manner in which they are distributed, especially the sur-
prising variety of stocks clustered along the coast, as contrasted with
the ‘ wide sweep’ (to use the apt words of Dr. G. M. Dawson) ‘of the
languages of the interior.’ To this may be added the great number of
dialects into which some of these stocks are divided. The whole of the
interior east of the coast ranges, with a portion of the coast itself, is
occupied by tribes belonging to three families—the Tinneh, the Salish
(or Selish), and the Kootenay (or Kutonaqa). What is especially
notable, moreover, is the fact that, according to the best evidence we
possess, all the tribes of these three stocks are intruders, having penetrated
into this region from the country east of the Rocky Mountains. In the
third report of this Committee (1887) are given the grounds for conclud-
ing that the Kootenays formerly resided east of these mountains, and
_ were driven across them by the Blackfoot tribes. In the fourth report

| It should be mentioned that this map has, on my suggestion, been framed on
the plan of my ‘ Ethnographic Map of Oregon,’ though necessarily on a smaller scale
- (see vol. vii. of the United States Exploring Expedition under Wilkes : ‘ Ethnography
and Philology,’ p. 197). ‘The two maps are, in fact, complements of each other.
Those who desire to study this subject thoroughly, however, should refer to the valu-
able maps of Mr. W. H. Dalland of Drs. Tolmie and Dawson, the former appended
to the Report of Dr. George Gibbs to the Smithsonian Institution on the ‘ Tribes of
Western Washington and North-Western Oregon,’ in vol. i. of Powell’s Contributions
to North American Ethnology (1877), and the latter attached to their Comparative
Vocabularies of the Indian Tribes of British Columbia, published by the Canadian
Government (1884). These maps are on a much larger scale and supply many
_ important details.

1 H 6