had expected. He sent reassuring messages to his wife and children at home, promising to rest a day or so at the comfortable hotel. But there was a return of unfavorable symptoms the next afternoon, and though no immediate danger was apprehended, it was thought best to telegraph to his son, Dr. Walter E. Elwell of the Togus Military Home, who went to Bar Harbor by the next train. But he arrived just too late to find his father living. During the night, Mr. Elwell, who was tenderly cared for by his dearly loved daughter, in the intervals of relief from pain, (which it was now known proceeded from an affection of the heart), pleasantly made plans with her for the journey homeward, and suggested forms of telegrams that would be most reassuring to the family at home. He was always very considerate in such matters. At half-past seven o'clock, Wednesday morning, July 16, 1890, after a brief paroxysm of pain, while resting in the arms of his daughter, he started up, with an exclamation of wonder, "Oh, what!" These were his last words for his soul had taken flight.

I cannot better conclude this imperfect sketch of the life and character of my long-time associate and friend, than by quoting the estimate of the man written by Hon. George F. Talbot, which appears in the resolutions adopted by the Fraternity Club, when his death was announced to that association.

In the intimacy of our conversations and discussions, we have learned more and more to value his modesty, the urbanity of his manners, his admirable powers of expression in both written and oral language, his scholarly tastes and those gifts of a successful author which seemed to have fitted him for a larger literary sphere, and a wider public recognition than he actually attained.

Urged by a genuine enthusiasm no research dismayed him, and no industry wearied him. The subjects of his frequent public addresses were always well adapted to the popular taste, as well as the popular instruction, and he was able to unfold them in a graphic and pleasing style, enlivened by anecdotes, and lighted by flashes of spontaneous humor, so far as to impress his ideas upon his delighted audiences.

A genial optimism determined the trend of his opinions. His faith was large and liberal; his heart enthusiastic and hopeful. His mind was reverent and devout, and his spirit cheered itself in the assurance that goodness and wisdom were at the center of the universe and would bring all things at last to the best issues. He believed in his country and its great destinies, in the world and its redemption, in men and that they all have their good side.

Perhaps his intellectual forte was history; and he was fond of bringing, to depict the customs and manners of people of earlier times, his close and minute observation, his power of vivid description, and his kindly humor.... Indeed, it seems that with the mental equipment he had, Mr. Elwell, if the editorship of a successful paper had not too much absorbed his time, might have prepared himself by training and study for the higher walks of historical composition, and have enrolled his name among the historians whose works survive the age in which they are produced.

In our meetings, though his share of literary work was always done promptly, and with a degree of excellence that kept the standard of quality high, he spoke too rarely. Never tedious or commonplace, he only broke his customed silence to utter something pithy and striking, some new view that had escaped the general notice, often coming with chivalric generosity to the defense of some maligned person or some decried cause.

THE ABNAKIS

AND THEIR ETHNIC RELATIONS.

BY JAMES P. BAXTER.

Read before the Maine Historical Society, March 27, 1890.

THE origin and history of the Pre-Columbian inhabitants of America possess for the student of Anthropology an ever increasing interest. Not only is the attention attracted at every turn by constantly accumulating collections of the archaic belongings of the peoples who once occupied this vast continent; but the facilities presented him for exploration are such, that he may with a minimum expenditure of physical and pecuniary capital, personally study the most interesting remains, which a decade past could be reached only by exhausting and dangerous adventure.

When Europeans, the Spaniard and Englishman, first set foot upon this continent, the one upon its southern, the other upon its northern shores, they found it peopled with men unlike themselves in complexion, language, and modes of life. If they traveled in any direction, they found that these people themselves differed in language and appearance, as well as in those arts, which minister to man's comfort and promote his civilization. Without regard, however, to these differences, they applied to them all the common, and perhaps not wholly inappropriate, title of Indians, a term which, for convenience, we may properly adopt.

There was, however, a wide difference between the men who occupied the southern, and those who occupied the northern portion of the continent; between the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Abnakis of Maine. The former had attained a degree of civilization which we hardly yet appreciate, but of which we are learning much through study of their architectural, sculptural and textual remains, which almost rival in beauty some of the admired achievements of old world art; while the latter lived in rude booths, or tents of bark, and wandered from place to place half naked, or, at best, clothed with the skins of savage beasts to which they seemed akin; indeed, had one traversed the continent northward from the Gulf of Mexico, while these peoples flourished, he would soon have experienced a loss of most of those conditions which make for civilization, and long before reaching the North Atlantic seaboard, he would have found himself face to face with an almost hopeless barbarism. The questions which would persistently have presented themselves to him, are the same which present themselves to the student, who to-day, in thought, takes the same journey; questions which relate to origin and antiquity, and to which answers must largely be derived from archæological remains, though we may learn something from early explorers, and may not altogether overlook tradition.

An early theory of the origin of the Indians of America was, that they were emigrants from the Asiatic coast, probably by the way of Behring strait; but this theory was in time overshadowed by that ad

vanced by Morton, and which was based upon that illustrious scientist's study of the crania of tribes inhabiting widely separated parts of the continent. This theory briefly stated was that the Indians of America were indigenous to the continent: that they differed from all other races in essential particulars, not excepting the Mongolian race. That the analogies of language; of civil and religious institutions, and the arts, were derived from a possible communication with Asian peoples; or, perhaps, from mere coincidences "arising from similar wants and impulses in nations inhabiting similar latitudes:" and that the Indian inhabitants of America, excepting the polar tribes, were of one race and species, "but of two great families, which resemble each other in physical, but differ in intellectual character;" and finally that all the crania which he had studied belonged to "the same race, and probably to the Toltecan family." To this theory Agassiz lent the weight of his great name, as it so well accorded with his own theory, that, "men must have originated in nations, as the bees have originated in swarms, and as the different social plants have covered the extensive tracts, over which they have naturally spread." It is, however, evident that the autocthonic theory, which for a time passed almost unquestioned, is fast losing ground; indeed, it has become evident that in accepting it, Agassiz did not submit it to the test to which he was wont to subject questions within his own special field of investigation, but welcomed it as favoring a scheme to which he had become wedded. This change in opinion finds its warrant in Morton's