It is needless for my purpose to enumerate the many small tribes which made up this great group. The more prominent were the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, the Abnakis of Maine, the Pequots and Narragansets, in New England, the Mohegans of the Hudson, the Lenape on the Delaware, the Nanticokes around Chesapeake Bay, the Pascataway on the Potomac, and the Powhatans and Shawnees further south; while between the Great Lakes and the Ohio river were the Ottawas, the Illinois, the Pottawatomies, the Kikapoos, Piankishaws, etc. The dialects of all these were related, and evidently at some distant day had been derived from the same primitive tongue. Which of them had preserved the ancient forms most closely, it may be premature to decide positively, but the tendency of modern studies has been to assign that place to the Cree--the northernmost of all. We cannot erect a genealogical tree of these dialects. It is not probable that they branched off, one after another, from a common stock. The ancient tribes each took their several ways from a common centre, and formed nuclei for subsequent development. We may, however, group them in such a manner as roughly to indicate their relationship. This I do on the following page:-- Cree, Old Algonkin, Montagnais. Chipeway, Ottawa, Pottawattomie, Miami, Peoria, Pea, Piankishaw, Kaskaskia, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kikapoo. Sheshatapoosh, Secoffee, Micmac, Melisceet, Etchemin, Abnaki. Mohegan, Massachusetts, Shawnee, Minsi, } Unami, } Unalachtigo,} Nanticoke, Powhatan, Pampticoke. Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Sheyenne. Granting, as we must, some common geographical centre for these many dialects, the question where this was located becomes an interesting one.