_The Indian Gallery._--This is the collection mentioned heretofore by our American correspondent (No. 609), and a most interesting one it is. It contains more than 300 portraits of distinguished Indians, men and women of different tribes, all painted from life; and in many instances the identical dress, weapons, &c. are exhibited which they wore when their portraits were taken; and 200 other paintings, representing Indian customs, games, hunting-scenes, religious ceremonies, dances, villages, and said to contain above 3000 figures: in brief, it is a pictorial history of this interesting and fast-perishing race. It includes, too, a series of views of the Indian country; and we have seen nothing more curious than some of the scenes on the Upper Missouri and Mississippi, the general accuracy of which is beyond question. Mr. Catlin has spent seven years in wandering among the various tribes, for the sole purpose of perfecting this collection. As he observes, "it has been gathered, and every painting has been made from nature, by my own hand; and that, too, when I have been paddling my canoe or leading my packhorse over and through trackless wilds, at the hazard of life. The world will surely be kind and indulgent enough to receive and estimate them as they have been intended, as true and fac-simile traces of individual and historical facts, and forgive me for their present unfinished and unstudied condition as works of art." The value of this collection is increased by the fact that the red men are fast perishing, and will probably, before many years have passed, be an extinct race. If proof of this were wanting, we have it in the facts recorded in the catalogue, of the devastation which the smallpox has lately spread among them. Of one tribe, the hospitable and friendly Mandans, as Mr. Catlin calls them, 2000 in number when he visited them and painted their pictures, living in two permanent villages on the Missouri, 1800 miles above its junction with the Mississippi, not one now exists! In 1837 the smallpox broke out among them, and only thirty-five were left alive; these were subsequently destroyed by a hostile tribe, which took possession of their villages: and thus, within a few months, the race became extinct--not a human being is believed to have escaped. ----*---- THE ART-UNION.