Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably traced, and doing the fame by thofe of the red men of Afia, there will be found probably twenty in America, for one in Afia, of [ ^95 ] thofe radical languages, fo called becaufe, if they were ever the fame they have loft all refemblance to one another. A fe- paration into dialefts may be the work of a few ages only, but for two dialers to recede from one another till they have loft all veftiges of their common origin, muft require an immenfe courfe of time; per- haps not lefs than many people give to the age of the earth. A greater number of thofe radical changes of language having taken place among the red men of Ame- rica, proves them of greater antiquity than thofe of Afia.
I will now proceed to ftate the nations and numbers of the Aborigines which ftill exift in a refpeftable and independent form. And as their undefined boundaries would render it difficult to fpecify thofe only which may be within any certain limits, and it may not be unacceptable to prefent a more general view of them, I will reduce within the form of a cata- logue all thofe within, and circumjacent to, the United States, whofe names and numbers have come to my notice. Thefe are taken from four different lifts, the firft of which was given in the year 1759 to General Stanwix by George Croghan, deputy agent for Indian affairs under Sir William Johnfon ; the fecond was drawn up by a French trader of confiderable note, refident among the Indians many years, and annexed to Colonel Bouquet's printed account of his expedition in 1764. The third was made out by Captain Hut- chins, who vifited moft of the tribes, by order, for the purpofe of learning their numbers in 1768. And the fourth by John Dodge, an Indian trader, in 1779, except the numbers marked^, which are from other information.
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