Some years ago the Smithsonian Institution printed a small vocabulary of
the Chinook Jargon, furnished by Dr. B.R. Mitchell, of the U.S. Navy, and
prepared, as we afterwards learned, by Mr. Lionnet, a Catholic priest, for
his own use while studying the language at Chinook Point. It was submitted
by the Institution, for revision and preparation for the press, to the
late Professor W.W. Turner. Although it received the critical examination
of that distinguished philologist, and was of use in directing attention
to the language, it was deficient in the number of words in use, contained
many which did not properly belong to the Jargon, and did not give the
sources from which the words were derived.

Mr. Hale had previously given a vocabulary and account of this Jargon in
his "Ethnography of the United States Exploring Expedition," which was
noticed by Mr. Gallatin in the Transactions of the American Ethnological
Society, vol. ii. He, however, fell into some errors in his derivation of
the words, chiefly from ignoring the Chihalis element of the Jargon, and
the number of words given by him amounted only to about two hundred and
fifty.

A copy of Mr. Lionnet's vocabulary having been sent to me, with a request
to make such corrections as it might require, I concluded not merely to
collate the words contained in this and other printed and manuscript
vocabularies, but to ascertain, so far as possible, the languages which
had contributed to it, with the original Indian words. This had become the
more important, as its extended use by different tribes had led to
ethnological errors in the classing together of essentially distinct
families. Dr. Scouler, whose vocabularies were among the earliest bases of
comparison of the languages of the northwest coast, assumed a number of
words, which he found indiscriminately employed by the Nootkans of
Vancouver Island, the Chinooks of the Columbia, and the intermediate