62 (Vienna, 1876).] I have not yet exhausted the sources from which I could bring evidence of the widespread presence of the elements of this mythical creation in America.

But probably I have said enough to satisfy the reader on this point.

At any rate it will be sufficient if I close the list with some manifest fragments of the myth, picked out from the confused and generally modern reports we have of the religions of the Athabascan race.

This stem is one of the most widely distributed in North America, extending across the whole continent south of the Eskimos, and scattered toward the warmer latitudes quite into Mexico.

It is low down in the intellectual scale, its component tribes are usually migratory savages, and its dialects are extremely synthetic and of difficult phonetics, requiring as many as sixty-five letters for their proper orthography.