Here in North America exists a splendid field for this study, but until recently it has been sadly neglected. This neglect has been largely due to the attitude of the people at large, an attitude of apathy and contempt for anything “Indian.” Opportunities that can never come again have been allowed to pass heedlessly away. We have not half realised the importance of collecting the linguistic treasures that are scattered across the length and breadth of the country, partly because of the foolish and narrow estimate of the Amerind which for so long a time dominated the public mind. We have despised his languages because we thought he did not bathe with sufficient frequency! “To draw conclusions from the exterior appearance of a people on their language,” exclaims Gatschet, “and to suppose that a man not worth looking at cannot speak a language worth studying, would be the acme of superficiality.” Remnants of tribes have died out and their language unrecorded has died with them even within a comparatively few years.[29] As an example of the necessity for prompt investigation, an incident mentioned by Putnam may be cited. In a conversation with a gentleman whom he had recently met, he learned of Mrs. Oliver’s acquaintance with the Karankawas of Texas, and her knowledge of their language. Now it happened that Gatschet had made a fruitless search in Texas for some trustworthy information regarding the language of this extinct tribe, and when Putnam sent him Mrs. Oliver’s vocabulary he was delighted and immediately paid a visit to the old lady, obtaining much additional information about these Amerinds, among whom Mrs. Oliver had spent her early life. Within three months afterward she died. That the Amerind has no literature is true if by literature we mean only written books, for outside of Yucatan and Mexico there were no native books, and the Spaniards burned all they could find of these, but if we accept the enormous number of legends, myths, songs, and ceremonial lore mnemonically recorded, as literature, and they surely become literature when we write them down, then the Amerind is not so poor in this respect as has been generally considered. [Illustration: EASTERN FAÇADE OF THE TEMPLE OF XOCHICALCO, STATE OF MORELOS, MEXICO Photographed by M. H. Saville for the American Museum of Natural History ] In North America, as in other parts of the world, the various language stocks occupy areas differing enormously in proportions. Some are confined to small tracts, while others, as mentioned above, are spread over wide territory. The Algonquian stock, for instance, occupied an immense area while the Zuñian is a mere spot in the expanse of New Mexico. More than thirty of the stocks lie within the Pacific region, six on the banks of the Klamath River alone.