to time, within the present limits of the United States, by cession or relinquishment from the various Indian tribes, either through the medium of friendly negotiations and just compensation, or as the result of military conquest.  Such a work, if accurate, would form the basis of any complete history of the Indian tribes in their relations to, and influence upon the growth and diffusion of our population and civilization.  Such a contribution to the historical collections of the country should comprise: 

1st.  A series of maps of the several States and Territories, on a scale ranging from ten to sixteen miles to an inch, grouped in atlas form, upon which should be delineated in colors the boundary lines of the various tracts of country ceded to the United States from time to time by the different Indian tribes.

2d.  An accompanying historical text, not only reciting the substance of the material provisions of the several treaties, but giving a history of the causes leading to them,, as exhibited in contemporaneous official correspondence and other trustworthy data.

3d.  A chronologic list of treaties with the various Indian tribes, exhibiting the names of tribes, the date, place where, and person by whom negotiated.

4th.  An alphabetic list of all rivers, lakes, mountains, villages, and other objects or places mentioned in such treaties, together with their location and the names by which they are at present known.

5th.  An alphabetic list of the principal rivers, lakes, mountains, and other topographic features in the United States, showing not only their present names but also the various names by which they have from time to time been known since the discovery of America, giving in each case the date and the authority therefor.

INDIAN BOUNDARIES.

The most difficult and laborious feature of the work is that involved under the first of these five subdivisions.  The ordinary reader in following the treaty provisions, in which the boundaries of the various cessions are so specifically and minutely laid down, would anticipate but little difficulty in tracing those boundaries upon the modern map.  In this he would find himself sadly at fault.  In nearly all of the treaties concluded half a century or more ago, wherein cessions of land were made, occur the names of boundary points which are not to be found on any modern map, and which have never been known to people of the present generation living in the vicinity.

In many of the older treaties this is the case with a large proportion of the boundary points mentioned.  The identification and exact location of these points thus becomes at once a source of much laborious research.  Not unfrequently weeks and even months of time have been consumed, thousands of old maps and many volumes of books examined, and a voluminous correspondence conducted with local historical societies or old settlers, in the effort to ascertain the location of a single boundary point.