A large class of Indian dialects have been analysed by Du Ponceau, a writer whose high philosophical reputation, great candour, and perfect knowledge of the dialects he examined, render his researches eminently deserving of attention. In early youth he was secretary to Court Ghebelin. But though a native of France, he passed the principal part of his life in the United States, in the employment of the Government of that country. His essay on the “Algonquyn Dialects of North America,” was elicited from him at a very advanced period of life by a prize offered in Paris, for which he was the successful competitor. By means of his familiar acquaintance with the languages of the Indian Tribes, it is related that he proved a person, whose narrative at one time excited considerable interest both in this country and in France to be an impostor; Hunter, the author of a work professing to give an authentic account of his captivity among the Indian Tribes. In his treatise on those languages, though for the most part he declines to generalize and professes to wish rather to furnish data for others, Du Ponceau expresses himself nevertheless, decidedly adverse to the views of those writers who conceive the Indian Tribes to be descendants of colonists from the Asiatic continent. The Indians and their languages he views as indigenous products of the American soil. After alluding in general terms of respect to the memory of that celebrated writer, he assails with national vivacity Grotius’s conclusion with respect to the primitive language, which forms the motto of this work, quoting from Dante a passage in which it is intimated that the primitive language of Man must have perished at the “General Deluge!” More ample proofs of the connexion of the dialects examined by Du Ponceau with those of the Old World, occur hereafter. In this place I must confine myself to one remarkable example. With reference to the names given by the Indians to the great object of their worship, Du Ponceau states the result of his analysis to be that the names of the Supreme Being in all the Indian dialects he has explored, primarily mean “a Spirit.” But there is one instance, he adds, in which he has not been able to verify this conclusion, viz. in that of the dialect of the Abenaki tribe. It is true, he remarks, that “Father Raffles” had made a statement tending to show that in this instance there was no exception to the general rule he (Du Ponceau) had adopted, for, according to Father Raffles, in the dialect of the Abenaki the name of the Supreme Being was Ke tsi Niou esk ou, and these words K etsi “_Ni ou eskou_,” mean the Great “_Spirit_ or Genius;” while the name of the Evil Being was Matsi “_Nioueskou_,” and these terms mean the Evil “Spirit or Genius.”