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Show OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. LV giving continuous record of events in a life and other cases of particular exploits and occurrences. The manner in which pictographs have long been employed by the North American Indians, showing their advance from simple objective representations to true ideographs, is then discussed, and instances are given of their expression of abstract ideas of emblems and of symbols. Indications for classification are noted by identifying the pictographers through their general style or type and through the presence of characteristic objects. Modes of interpretation are recommended, with cautions originating in experience. Attention is invited to the important bearing of conventionalization, hints are given for avoiding errors, and, finally, practical suggestions are submitted intended to assist investigation and simplify its record. Under every heading several examples appear, with requisite graphic illustrations. The circumstances under which Colonel Mallery entered upon the study of pictography, as above explained, are both fortunate and exceptional. Some of the writers who have dealt with the subject, either in treatises or in fragmentary notices, have regarded in the nebulous light of hieroglyphic symbols the specimens of petroglyphs or other forms of picture writing treated by them, while others have endeavored to distort them into alphabets, and still others have disparaged them as idle scrawls. The first studies of Colonel Mallery were upon the remarkable chart before mentioned, which was altogether objective and practical, though beautifully illustrating ideography. His next study in this direction, sign language, was also practical, objective, and ideographic, showing instructive parallels with the Dakota calendar and with other forms of pictography then thoroughly interpreted. He therefore approached the subject from a point of view the reverse of that taken by most previous writers. There was in him no bias toward a mystic interpretation, or any predetermination to discover an occult significance in pictographs, whether on rocks, skins, or bark. The probability appeared, from his actual experience, that the interpretation was a simple and direct, not a mysterious and involved process, and the |