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the language was destitute of regularity, that it was varied without any rule or reason, that it was in vain to attempt to find out its grammatical construction, but we must ourselves settle the language & bring the people to it. Such were the views thrown out at the time of our arrival here. Such notions led Mr Rogers & myself to search into the grammatical construction of the lan- guage & our efforts have been attended with so much success that we have been enabled to find out some of the most important principles of grammatical construc- tion. The construction is indeed intricate, but as to regularity it will not differ by a comparison with other languages. Mr Sp. held on upon his peculiar notions with such a wonderful tenacity, that he would not give up untill long after he found himself far in the rear of every other one who pretended to learn the Nez Perces. He seems to have no taste for philological inquiries."

Mr. Hall, writing to the Rev. Rufus Anderson from

Fort Vancouver, March 15, 1840, says:

"I should have been happy to have done more in this department, and, after the expectations held out by Mr. Spalding, was greatly disappointed in not finding more ready. But I believe Mr. Spalding did not discover, till vrithin the past year, that he knew very little of the lan- guage ; and not then till he saw those who came two years later, going far ahead of him in its acquisition. The book now printing was prepared by Dr. W. Mr. Smith & j.Ir. Rogers, who has, probably, as good if not the best knowledge of the language of any in the mission."

An important misconception has been perpetuated regarding the identity of the press, which is still in ex- istence, and exhibited in the rooms of the Oregon State Historical Society in Portland.

The little press for many years bore a placard claim- ing that it was not only the pioneer press in Oregon, but was also the identical original Hawaiian mission press sent out to the Sandwich Islands in 1819 with the first missionaries in the brig Thaddeus, and first operated there in 1822.

As recently as 1917 a replica of the press was paraded