l meeting at
my office. In the election for officers I was honored by being selected
its President. A deep interest in historical letters had been manifested
by this institution since its organization in 1828, particularly in the
history of the aboriginal tribes, and means have been put on foot for
the collection of facts. To these, the recent and extraordinary
settlement of the country by emigration from the Bast, has added a new
branch of inquiry, respecting town, county, and neighborhood
settlements. Much of this is held in the memory of old persons, and will
be lost if not gleaned up and preserved in the shape of narratives.
Resolutions for this purpose were adopted, and an appeal made to the
legislature to facilitate the collection of pamphlets and printed
documents. Men live so rapidly now that few think of posterity; society
hastens at a horse's pace, and we pass over so large a surface in so
short a time, that the historian and antiquarian will stand aghast, in a
few years, and exclaim "would that more minute facts were within
our reach!"

_23d_. The Department at Washington instructs me to examine additional
and unsatisfied claims arising under the 5th article of the treaty of
March 28th, 1836, and, after submitting them to the Indians, to report
them for payment.

_28th_. Very different are the diurnal scenes enacted from those which
passed before my eyes at the ice-closed post of Mackinack last winter.
Yet in one respect they are entitled to have a similar effect on my
mind; it is in the craving that exists to fill the intervals of business
with some moral and intellectual occupation that may tend to relieve it
of the tedium of long periods of leisure. When a visitor is dismissed,
or a transaction is settled, and the door closes on a man habituated to
mental labor, the ever-ready inquiry is, What next? To sit still--to do
nothing absolutely but to turn over the thoughts of other men, though
this be a privilege, is not ultimate happiness. There is still a void,
which the desire to be remembered, or something else, must fill.

_31st_. Gen. Cass writes from Paris that he is on the eve of setting
out, with his family, for the Levant, to embark on a tour to the East,
to visit the ancient seats of oriental power. "We proceed directly to
Toulon, where we shall embark on board the frigate Constitution. From
thence we touch at Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, Naples, and Sicily, and then
proceed to Alexandria. After seeing