All the tribes dispersed over the territory comprised in the basin of the St. Lawrence, were at this period divided into two groups, the Algonquin and Huron-Iroquois, classified according to their respective languages. To each of these mother tongues belonged dialects more or less numerous, according to the sub-divisions of the tribes who spoke them. The Algonquins were scattered under various names over perhaps more than a half of the territory south of the St. Lawrence and east of the Mississippi. Several branches of the same widely-extended family were also to be found wandering in Canada to the north of the St. Lawrence. The five confederate tribes of the Hurons inhabited the peninsula included between Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario. The Iroquois stretched from the borders of Vermont to Western New York, and from the lakes, to the head waters of the Ohio, Susquehanna, and Delaware. They, too, formed a confederation of five tribes, and are commonly known as the Five Nations. The Hurons and the Iroquois are said to have received their names from the French--the former in allusion to the French word _hure_, a head of hair, these savages being distinguished by a singular mode of dressing theirs; the latter from their frequent repetition of the word "_hiro_," "I have said it," the ordinary termination of the warriors' harangues. When the early missionaries began to study the Indian dialects, they were much astonished to find them characterized by remarkable richness and variety of expression, as well as regularity of construction. Notwithstanding gradual alterations, they still retain much of their traditionary character, being, in fact, less liable to change than written language, because of the ridicule with which the Indian visits any attempt at innovation on the point. One peculiarity of the American tongues is their singular power of extending the primitive signification of words by the addition of new syllables to the original term. Taking the verb for his starting point, the Indian is enabled, by prefixing, inserting, and adding syllables, to form at last some word which will not only express the action in question, but include at once, subject, object, time, place, and modifying circumstances. If he is shown an article with which he is unacquainted, he will ask its use, and then adding word to word at pleasure, he will at last give it a name comprising perhaps an entire definition. For sake of sound, the chain of words is sometimes linked by syllables of no particular significance. Strictly speaking, the Indian tongues consist only of the verb, which may be said to absorb all the other parts of speech. Declensions, articles, and cases are deficient; the adjective has a verbal termination; the idea expressed by the noun takes a verbal form; every thing is conjugated, nothing declined. The conjugation changes with every slight variation in the action spoken of. For instance, the same word will not express two