(Kulanapan), Costanoan, Esselenian, Yokuts (Mariposan), Shoshonian, Shastan, Moquelumnan and possibly Washoan; (4) Yanan; (5) Yuman. Suggestions of even larger groups than any of these have also been made. It may be that, judged by certain criteria, the Kootenay, Shoshonian, Iroquoian and Siouan may belong together, but this is merely tentative. It is also possible, from the consideration of morphological peculiarities, that some if not all of the languages of the so-called "Palaeo-Asiatic" peoples of Siberia, as Boas has suggested (_Science_, vol. xxiii., n.s., 1906, p. 644), may be included within the American group of linguistic stocks. Indeed Sternberg (_Intern. Amer.-Kongr._ xiv., Stuttgart, 1904, pp. 137-140) has undertaken to show the relationship morphologically of one of these languages, the Giliak (of the island of Saghalin and the region about the mouth of the Amur), to the American tongues, and its divergence from the "Ural-Altaic" family of speech. Here, however, more detailed investigations are needed to settle the question. General character of Indian languages. At one time the opinion was widely prevalent that primitive languages changed very rapidly, sometimes even within a generation, and the American Indian tongues were rather freely used as typical examples of such extreme variation. The error of this view is now admitted everywhere, and for the speech of the New World aborigines Dr Franz Boas states (_Hndb. Amer. Ind._ pt. i., 1907, p. 759): "There is, however, no historical proof of the change of any Indian language since the time of the discovery comparable with that of the language of England between the 10th and 13th centuries." Another statement that has obtained currency, appearing even in otherwise reputable quarters sometimes, is to the effect that some of the vocabularies of American Indian languages consist of but a few hundred words, one being indeed so scanty that its speakers could not converse by night, since darkness prevented resort to the use of gesture. This is absolutely contrary to fact, for the vocabularies of the languages of the American Indians are rich, and, according to the best authority on the subject, "it is certain that in every one there are a couple of thousand of stem words and many thousand words, as that term is defined in English dictionaries" (Boas). The number of words in the vocabulary of the individual Indian is also much greater than is generally thought to be the case. It was long customary, even in "scientific" circles, to deny to American Indian tongues the possession of abstract terms, but here again the authority of the best recent investigators is conclusive, for "the power to form abstract ideas is, nevertheless, not lacking, and the development of abstract thought would find in every one of the languages a ready means of expression" (Boas). In this connexion, however, it should be remembered