23d. Letters from Washington speak of the treasury as being low in specie funds.

24th. Sales of the lands of the Swan Creek and Black River Chippewas, are made at the Land Office in Detroit, in conformity with the treaty of May 9th, 1836. The three years that have elapsed in this operation, have brought the prices of lands from the summer heat to the zero of prices.

27th. Na, in the Algonquin language, means excellent or transcendent, and wa, motion. Thus the names of two chiefs who visited me to day on business, are Na-geezhig, excellent or transcendent day, and Ke-wa-geezhig, or returning cloud. Whether the word geezhig shall be rendered day, or cloud, or sky, depends on the nature of its prefix. To move back is ke-wa, and hence the prefixed term to the latter name.

June 4th. Received from Col. De Garme Jones, Mayor of Detroit, sundry manuscript documents relative to the administration of Indian affairs of Gov. Hull, of the dates of 1807, '8 and '9.

Mr. Johnstone, of Aloor, near Edinburgh, Scotland, brings me a note of introduction from Gen. James Talmadge, of New York. Mr. J. is a highly respected man at home, and is traveling in America to gratify a laudable curiosity.

7th. Reached Mackinack, on board the steamer Great Western, Capt. Walker.

10th. The Albany Evening Journal has a short editorial under the head of Algic Researches: "Such is the title of a work from our countryman Schoolcraft, which the Harpers have just published, in two volumes. It consists of Tales and Legends, which the Author has gleaned in the course of his long and familiar intercourse with the children of the Forest, illustrating the mental powers and characteristics of the North American Indians.

"Mr. Schoolcraft has traveled far into the western wilds. He has lived much with the Indians, and has studied their character thoroughly. He is withal a scholar and a gentleman, whose name is a sufficient guarantee for the excellence of all he writes."

11th. I set out to complete the appraisement of the Indian improvements on the north shore of Lake Huron, under the 8th article of the treaty of March 28th, 1836.

12th. Paid the Indians of L'Arbre Croche villages at Little

Traverse Bay, the amount of the appraisement of their public improvements, made under the treaty of 1836.

13th. Proceed to Grand Traverse Bay, to view the location of a mission by Messrs. Dougherty and Fleming. Found it located on the sands, near the bottom of the bay, where a vessel could not unload, at a point so utterly destitute of advantages that it would not have been possible to select a worse site in the compass of the whole bay, which is large, and abounds in ship harbors. Condemned the site forthwith, and the same day removed the site of operations to Kosa's village, on a bay near the end of the peninsula. I afterwards encamped on the open lake shore, behind a sand drift, to avoid the force of the wind, and, as soon as the waters of the lake lulled, made the traverse to the Beaver Islands, to appraise the value of the Indian improvements at that place, and, having done this, put across to the main shore north, for the same purpose. In this trip Mr. Turner accompanied me to keep the lists, and Dr. Douglass to vaccine the Indians, the latter of whom reported 214 persons as having submitted to receive the virus.

The Albany papers continue to publish notices of Algic Researches. The Argus of the 13th June, says: "Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft has added another to his claims upon the consideration of the reading public, by a recent work (from the press of the Messrs. Harper), entitled 'Algic Researches, comprising inquiries respecting the mental characteristics of the North American Indians.' It is the first of a series, which the author promises to continue at a future day, illustrative of the mythology, distinctive opinions, and intellectual character of the aborigines. These volumes comprise their oral tales, with preliminary observations and a general introduction. The term Algic, is introduced by the author, in a generic sense, for all the tribes, with few exceptions, that were found in 1600 spread out between the Atlantic and the Mississippi. "To those who care to look into the philosophy of the Indian character, these oral fictions will be read with interest. They are curious in themselves, and not less so as a material step in the researches that may serve, in the sequel, to unveil the origin, as well as the intellectual traits, of these tribes. They will at least establish the fact of 'an oral imaginative lore' among the aborigines of this continent, of which they give us faithful specimens.

"Probably no man in this country is better qualified to pursue

these researches than Mr. Schoolcraft. A long residence in the Indian country, and official intercourse with the tribes, have given him an access to the Indian mind which few have enjoyed, and which none have improved to a greater extent by habits of observation and philosophical investigation. A residence at Mackinaw is of itself calculated to beget, as it is to gratify, a taste for the prosecution of these inquiries. It is described by Miss Martineau as 'the wildest and tenderest piece of beauty that she had yet seen on God's earth.' It is indeed a spot of rare attractiveness. Standing upon the promontory, in the rear of the fort and town, the view embraces to the north the head waters of the Huron and the faroff isles of St. Martin, to the west Green Isle and the straits of Mackinaw, and to the east and south Bois Blanc and the Great Lake. It is a delightful summer retreat, and many are the legends and reminiscences of the scenes of enjoyment passed here in absolute, and we are assured happy, exclusion from the outward world, during the winter months. It has been regarded, at no distant day, as important not only as the rendezvous of the Fur Companies' agents and employers and the Indian traders, but as a government military post. It is still a great resort of the northern Indians. Often their lodges and their bark canoes, of beautiful construction, line the pebbly shore; and the aboriginal habits and mental characteristics may be studied on the spot.

"It is to be hoped that Mr. S. will resume the course of inquiry and research that he has marked out for himself; and that he will be induced to give to the public the results of his long and intimate familiarity with the Indian life and character."

17th. The Detroit Daily Advertiser, of this day, has the following critical notice on the work of Algic Researches, under the head of Indian Tales and Legends.

"This work has just been offered for sale at our bookstores, and we strongly recommend it to all those who feel an interest in the character of our aborigines. It is well known to many of us here, that Mr. Schoolcraft has, for the last several years, been industriously engaged in collecting facts which illustrate the 'mythology, distinctive opinions, and intellectual character' of the Indians. His researches have embraced 'their oral tales, fictitious and historical; their hieroglyphics, music, and poetry; and the grammatical structure of their languages, the principles of their construction,

and the actual state of their vocabulary.' The materials he has now on hand afford him the means of fulfilling this extensive plan, and this 'first series' is only a leading publication.

"When the position which Mr. S. has occupied for the last seventeen or more years is recollected, as well as his fitness and exertions to improve all its advantages, we shall at once see the benefit to the literary and scientific world which his researches in these various departments are likely to produce. The subjects which have engaged his attention are regarded with deep interest by the philanthropist, the philologist, the archæologist, as well as many other liberal inquirers, both in Europe and America, who, amid the scanty facts, cursory observations, and hurried, random conjectures of those who have been favored with a comparatively near view of them, have lamented the want of such deliberate investigations and comparative examinations, continued with sober judgment through a long series of years, as are now offered to the public. We trust that a proper and enlightened patronage will warrant Mr. Schoolcraft in completing his design. No man, possessing his qualifications, has enjoyed his advantages. He has been able to take up, at his leisure, the scattered links of a broken chain, and fit them together. A chaos of aboriginal facts will be reduced, under his hand, to some degree of order.

"Mr. Schoolcraft and Mr. Catlin have done more to preserve the fleeting traits of aboriginal character and history than all their predecessors in this field of inquiry, and none can follow them with the same success, as none can have the same range of subjects before them. The scene is changing with each year, and the past, with respect to the Savages, does not recur. They fall back with no hope to recover lost ground; they diminish with no hope to increase again; they degenerate with no hope to revive in physical or moral strength. Those who have seen them most during the last few years, have seen them best. After observers will find mere fragments, or a heterogeneous mass, in which all original identity is distorted or gone.

"The Tales now published must not be estimated for their intrinsic merit alone. They may have less variety of construction, less beauty of imagination, less singularity of incident, than belong to oriental tales, the productions of more refined times, or more excitable people. But the estimate must not be comparative.

They are to be regarded as the type of aboriginal mind, as the measure of intellectual power of our Sons of the Forest; as speaking their sentiments, their hopes and their fears, whatever they were or are, whether elevated or depressed, whether raising the race or sinking it in the scale of untutored nations. Whether they prove a poverty of mental energy, a feebleness of imagination, a want of invention, or the reverse, cannot affect the value of these volumes in the opinion of those who look into them for evidences of the true character of the Indians. Mr. Schoolcraft, or any other gentleman of taste and skill, might have formed out of these materials a series of Tales, highly finished in their unity and design, strikingly colored by fancy, such as would have caught the popular whim. But this was not his object. He has been honest in his renderings of the aboriginal sense, whether pointed or mystical, of the Indian's mythology, whether intelligible or obscure; of their shadowy glimpses of the past and the future; of the beginning and end of things, without alteration or embellishment. Such a work was wanted, and such a work was expected from Mr. Schoolcraft.

"If we have room, we will quote one or two of the shorter tales, such as 'Mon-daw-min, or the origin of Indian corn,' and the ‘Celestial Sisters,' both of which are very characteristic, and show, under the garb of much figurative beauty, how Indians appreciate the blessings of a kind Providence, and, how his domestic affections may glow and endure. Indeed, there are few of these tales that would not give interest to our columns, and we shall be pleased to give our readers an occasional taste, provided we thereby induce them to supply themselves with the full feast in their power."

20th. It is stated that the oldest town in the United States is St. Augustine, Florida, by more than forty years. It was founded forty years before Virginia was colonized. Some of the houses are yet standing which are said to have been built more than three centuries ago, that is to say, about 1540. De Soto landed in Florida in 1539. Narvaez, in his unfortunate expedition, landed in 1537. Both these expeditions were confined to the exploration of the country west and north of the Bay of Espiritu Santo, reaching to the Mississippi. De Soto crossed the latter into the southeastern corner of the present State of Missouri, and into the area of Arkansas, where he died.