Soon after my arrival in the city, as soon as it was generally known, through the newspapers, where I was located, I was carried by Geo. Folsom, Esq. to the dwelling house of Albert Gallatin, in Beekman street. He and his lady received me most cordially, as “a man, whom they had ardently desired to see, (as they assured me) during the last thirty years.” I found Mrs. Gallatin a most interesting old lady, surrounded by the neighboring ladies of that vicinity, to whom she politely introduced me. After a brief interview with these ladies below stairs, we proceeded (Mr. Folsom and myself) to Mr. Gallatin’s library room, where we found him engaged in his favorite study of the Indian languages of America. Perhaps I am in an error, but as I understood him, Mr. Gallatin had taken the Indian words as spelt by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portugese, Americans, &c. as the true pronunciation of Indian words, which by the Indians themselves, had never been written. If he had done so, the true pronunciation of the Indians themselves had seldom been reached. Having been myself engaged in writing down the language of the Sioux, I am aware of the difficulty of catching the exact sound of each word, and the difficulty too, of expressing the exact sound of the word, by means of our alphabet. I saw at a glance the difficulty of his position. I hinted at this circumstance, but Mr. Gallatin did not fully comprehend my meaning, and so I dropped the subject. No alphabet now in use among men, can convey all the sounds of any Indian language, now or ever spoken in North America. Of this fact I feel assured from my own knowledge of Indian languages. The perfect knowledge of these languages is more curious than useful, perhaps, in as much as the Indians themselves will soon be gone, before the Anglo-Americans, whose march and conquests will soon obliterate every vestige of the aboriginals of America. Our regrets may and will follow the disappearance of the Indians from the face of the globe, but their doom is certain, and not far off, in point of time. Our legislative bodies, from the best of motives, are endeavoring to preserve Indian names of places, rivers, mountains, &c., but our gross ignorance of Indian languages, prevents us from even retaining proper names. _Hoo_, for instance, in some Indian dialects, means elk, and _uk_ is river, so _Hoosuk_ means “elks river.” “_Sooske_,” means hunting, and “_hannah_,” in a Delaware dialect, means river. _Sooskehannah_ means “hunting river,” which we call Susquehanna river.