The broad differences between the American Indians, as a body, when compared with even the most anomalous of the tribes of the Old World, were such as would naturally engender on the part of the earliest investigators--those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--an opinion in favour of a general fundamental unity amongst the several sections of them. This was the effect of the natural tendency of the human mind to connect with each other those things which disagree with certain others rather than the result of any definite series of comparisons. The Brazilian and the Mohawk equally agreed in disagreeing with the Laplander, or Negro; and this common difference was enough to bring them within the same class. The observed facts which first had a tendency to disturb this notion, were, most probably, those connected with the languages. These really differ from each other to a very remarkable extent--an extent which to any partial investigator seems unparalleled; but an extent which the general philologist finds to be no greater than that which occurs in Caucasus, in the Indo-Chinese frontier, and in many parts of Africa. The phænomena, however, which the multiplicity of mutually unintelligible tongues spoken within limited areas exhibited, were first made known in the case of the languages of America; and, as new facts, they were not likely to be undervalued. On the contrary, another natural tendency of the human mind, viz., a readiness to exaggerate difference in cases where similarity had been expected, was allowed full play; and not only were the really remarkable phænomena of philological diversity overstated, but the inferences from them rather exceeded than fell short of their legitimate compass. A measure of the extent to which this was carried may be collected from the following extract from Prichard,--"We owe the earliest information respecting the languages of America to the missionaries sent from time to time by the kings of Spain at the instigation of the Pope, with the view of converting the native inhabitants to the Christian religion. Many of these persons devoted immense labour to the acquisition of the idioms of various tribes, with the intention of qualifying themselves for the effectual performance of their duties. They represent the number of distinct languages spoken in the New World as very great. Abbé Gilii, who wrote a history of the Orinoco and collected specimens of the languages spoken in different districts with which he was acquainted, says that if a catalogue were formed of all the idioms of the continent, they would be found to be 'non molte moltissime,' but 'infinite, innumerabili.' Abbé Clavigero declares that he had cognisance of thirty-five different idioms spoken by races within the jurisdiction of Mexico. Father Kircher, a celebrated philologer of his time, after consulting the Jesuits assembled in Rome on the occasion of a general congregation of the order in 1676, informs us that those