He spent nearly two months in Mzab where he translated Beni Mzab the Kitab of the Nile and the Chronicle of Abu Zakaria Yahyá ibn Abi Bakr al-Warjalani, which were religious and legislative histories that described the origins of the Ibadi sect.
Masqueray then taught history and African antiquity at the School of Arts in Algiers before being appointed the Paul Bert Director in 1878.
This influenced his friend Jules Ferry to embrace Berber culture and resulted in four schools being opened in Kabylie in 1881.
His work "Formation des Cités chez les populations sédentaires de l'Algérie" had a lasting influence in academia.
He refuted the colonial idea sedentary and nomadic lifestyles were associated with race and instead argued that these ways of life were determined by their environment.