loving friends. It was certainly an event to be booked, that two civilians so soldered down to the habits of city life in different lines as the Doctor and the Major, should have extended their summer excursion as far as Michilimackinack. But it was a farther evidence of enterprise, and the love of the picturesque, that they should have taken an Indian canoe, and a crew of engagees, at that point, and ventured to visit the Pictured Rocks in Lake Superior. "Life on the Lakes" (the title of Dr. G.'s book) was certainly a widely dif ferent affair to "Life in New York."

31st. Circumstances had now inclined the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes of Indians to cede to the United States a portion of their extensive territory. Game had failed in the greater part of it, and they had no other method of raising funds to pay their large outstanding credits to the class of traders, and to provide for an interval of transition, which must indeed happen, in view of their future improvement, between the hunter and agricultural state.

The Drummond Island band had, for a year or two, advocated a sale. The Ottawas of the peninsula determined to send a delegation to Washington on the subject. I could not hesitate as to the course which duty prescribed to me, under these important circumstances, and determined to proceed to Washington, although the Secretary and acting Governor of the Territory, Mr. Horner, on being consulted by letter, refused his assent to this step. His want of proper information on the subject, being but recently come to the territory, did not appear to be such as to justify me in remaining on the island, while the question had been carried by the Indians themselves to, and was, probably, to be decided at Washington before another season. I determined, therefore, to proceed to Washington, taking one of the latest vessels for the season, on their return from the ports on Lake Michigan.

Nov. 2d. Mr. Featherstonehaugh writes to me from Galena, on his return from his geological reconnoisance in the north-west, sketching some of the leading events of his progress:

"Desirous of giving you a passing notice of my progress, I make time, a few moments' leisure, to say that, when I had entered the Terre Bleu River, which you remember is that tributary of the St. Peter's I was anxious to visit, I found I could not penetrate to the Coteau de Prairie from that quarter, and no resource was left to me but to return, or go about three hundred miles higher up, where

I was aware I should meet a pretty insolent set of fellows amongst the Yanktons and Tetons. The Sioux, who had committed pretty bad Indian murders amongst the Chippewas, were in great numbers about Lac qui Parle, and there was no avoiding them. However, it was in the line of the duty I had undertaken, and I was willing to run some risks to see them. They were a precious set when I got to them, but by prudence and presents I got along with them, and, having began to sputter a little Sioux, I took courage, left my canoe and men there, and took a guide and interpreter and pushed on to Lac Traverse, and from thence to Coteau de Prairie, the head waters of the St. Peter's, and to within four days' march of the Mandan Village. Here I wheeled about back, afraid of winter. Indeed, on my arrival at Lac Traverse, the weather was bitterly cold, and wood and water were sometimes found with great difficulty, in the intermediate prairies. The day I left Fort Snelling, the thermometer was very low, the snow six or eight inches deep on the ground; in fact it was quite winter, and all were of opinion, at the fort, that ice would form and drive in a few days.

"I found Mr. Keating's account of the Mississippi, and especially of the St. Peter's, most surprisingly erroneous, and old Jonathan Carver's book, which he is constantly denouncing, very accu

rate.

"I ascertained, to my perfect satisfaction, the termination of the horizontal beds of sandstone of carboniferous limestone formation, and came upon the outcrop of the adjacent granite, just where I expected to find the primary rocks."

"You will greatly oblige me by communicating to me your opinion, approximatively, of the course held by the primary rocks south of Lake Superior, as far as you are acquainted with it, or with the edges of the secondary rocks, which have a junction line with, or near them. I found no primary rocks on my way from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien. The rocks in place at Fort Winnebago, are secondary sandstone of the carboniferous series."

2d. The question of "inscriptions" on rocks by the aborigines has recently attracted some attention. Dr. Thomas H. Webb, of Providence, Rhode Island, in a letter of this date, notifying me of my election as an honorary member of the Rhode Island Historical Society, calls my attention to this subject. "In your last work," he remarks, "you allude to some hieroglyphics on a tree. Have

you particularly examined any on rocks; and if so, were they mere paintings, or were they inscribed thereon? If the latter, in what manner do they appear to have been done-pecked in with a pointed instrument, or chizzled out? Are they simply representations of men and animals, without method in their arrangement, or combinations of these, with other characters bearing evidence of greater design? Will you be kind enough to furnish me with the locations of those with which you are acquainted? Is it possible for me to procure drawings of them? Do you know any one living near such rocks, whom I could hire to take copies of them, and upon the accuracy of whose work reliance can be placed?

"I do not wish finished views-correct drawings of the charac ters with a pen will be amply sufficient for my purposes; although I should not object to outlines of the rocks themselves. I would also ask if some of the 'relics of things that have passed away,' which are found so abundantly in the west, e. g., articles of pottery, iron and copper implements, &c., can be procured by purchase, or in the way of exchange for minerals, or in some other way?"

Imprimis-no "iron" implements have ever been found. Secondly, no observations not made by an antiquarian can be relied

on.

9th. I embarked for Detroit, on board a schooner under command of an experienced navigator (Capt. Ward), just on the eve, unknown to us, of a great tempest, which rendered that season memorable in the history of wrecks on the great lakes. We had scarcely well cleared the light-house, when the wind increased to a gale. We soon went on furiously. Sails were reefed, and every preparation made to keep on our way, but the wind did not admit of it. The captain made every effort to hug the shore, and finally came to anchor in great peril, under the highlands of Sauble. Here we pitched terribly, and were momently in peril of being cast on shore. In the effort to work the ship, one of the men fell from the bowsprit, and passed under the vessel, and was lost. It was thought that our poor little craft must go to the bottom; it seemed like a chip on the ocean contending against the powers of the Almighty. It seemed as if, agreeably to Indian fable, Ishkwondameka himself was raising a tempest mountain high for some sinister purposes of his own. But, owing to the skill of the old lake mariner, we eventually triumphed. He never faltered in the

darkest exigency. For a day and night he struggled against the elements, and finally entered the straits at Fort Gratiot, and he brought us safely into the port of our destination.

On reaching Detroit, the lateness of the season admonished me to lose no time in making my way over the stormy Erie to Buffalo, whence I pursued my journey to New York. I reached the latter city the day prior to the great fire, in December. I took lodgings at the Atlantic Hotel, which is near the foot of Broadway, and immediately west of the great scene of conflagration. The cold was so bitter while the fire raged that I could not long endure the open air, which seemed to be surcharged with oxygen. I reached Philadelphia the 19th, and Washington a day or two after.

CHAPTER LVI.

Florida war-Startling news of the Massacre of Dade-Peoria on the Illinois-Abanaki language-Oregon-Things shaping for a territorial claim -Responsibility of claim in an enemy's country-A true soldier-Southern Literary Messenger-Missionary cause-Resources of Missouri-Indian portfolio of Lewis-Literary gossip-Sir Francis Head-The Crane and Addik totem-Treaty of March 28th, 1836, with the Ottawas and Chippewas--Treaty with the Saginaws of May 20th-Treaty with the Swan Creek and Black River Chippewas of May 9th--Return to Michilimackinack-Death of Charlotte, the daughter of Songageezhig.

1836. THE year opened with the portentous news of Indian hostilities. The massacre of Major Dade and his entire command on the waters of the Wythlacootche River in Florida, and the prospect of an Indian war in Florida, excited great sensation in all circles. I was at the Secretary of War's domicil one evening, when he first received and read out the shocking details. The same night troops were ordered to be put in motion from every point in the Union, to be concentrated in that territory; and the greatest activity pervaded the departments. Gen. Jackson expressed himself with energy on the subject. He had formerly conducted a successful campaign against the Seminoles, but he could not be persuaded that there were more than five hundred of this tribe in the whole territory. This led him to believe that the troops actually put in motion for the field of action, were fully adequate to cope with the enemy, and promptly to put them down.

Jan. 4th. The American Lyceum request me to prepare a paper for their sixth anniversary.

6th. I received a letter from my former pastor, Rev. J. Porter, at Peoria, Ill., denoting him to be in a new field of ministerial labor.

"I bade adieu to my dear people at Chicago, on the second Sabbath in November, and commenced my labors here on the fourth