How many different linguistic families were identified according to the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution?

According to the annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, created by John Powell in 1886, there are 58 Indian linguistic families. This research showed that different languages were spoken by pre - Columbian in the United Stated.

The Bureau of American Ethnology was created in 1879 and its purpose was to collect ethnographic and linguistic information related to Indians in North America. In order to carry out this investigation, a very complex project was designed by John Powel, publishing partial results through annual reports and bulletins.