I wish to inform the visitors to my Collection that, having some years since become fully convinced of the rapid decline and certain extinction of the numerous tribes of the North American Indians; and seeing also the vast importance and value which a full _pictorial history_ of these interesting but dying people might be to future ages--I sat out alone, unaided and unadvised, resolved (if my life should be spared), by the aid of my brush and my pen, to rescue from oblivion so much of their primitive looks and customs as the industry and ardent enthusiasm of one lifetime could accomplish, and set them up in a _Gallery unique and imperishable_, for the use and benefit of future ages. I devoted eight years of my life exclusively to the accomplishment of my design, and that with more than expected success. I visited with great difficulty, and some hazard to life, forty-eight tribes (residing within the United States, British, and Mexican Territories), containing about half a million of souls. I have seen them in their own villages, have carried my canvas and colours the whole way, and painted my portraits, &c., from the life, as they now stand and are seen in the Gallery. The collection contains (besides an immense number of costumes and other manufactures) near six hundred paintings, 350 of which are _Portraits_ of distinguished men and women of the different tribes, and 250 _other Paintings_, descriptive of _Indian Countries_, their _Villages_, _Games_, and _Customs_; containing in all above 3000 figures. As this immense collection 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 pack-horse over and through trackless wilds, at the hazard of my 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 life and historical facts_, and forgive me for their present unfinished and unstudied condition as works of art. GEO. CATLIN. INDIAN PORTRAITS. CERTIFICATES. ----*---- I hereby certify that the persons whose signatures are affixed to the certificates used below, by Mr. Catlin, are officers in the service of the United States, as herein set forth: and that their opinions of the accuracy of the likenesses, and correctness of the views, &c., exhibited by him in his "Indian Gallery," are entitled to full credit, J. E. POINSETT, Secretary of War, Washington. ----*----