ey generally wake up a
little too late. Mineral specimens here are not various. I have
collected a few in order to show my friends, who can draw inferences
from them. Shells have had a principal hand in the formation of this
peninsula. They form the ninety-ninth part of the rock in this quarter.
It is a most convenient formation, being worked almost as easily as
clay, and yet it makes substantial walls. Frost, I presume, would play
the deuce with it. But that is a thing not much known here. I have not
yet had the pleasure to fix my northern eye on a piece of ice this
winter, though there has been a cream thickness of it once or twice. A
pitcher frozen over here makes more noise than the river frozen over at
Detroit. The frogs have piped here all winter--happy dogs. I have been
out at all times and in all places, and I don't think my nose has been
blue but once since I have been here--I have not been blue myself once.
I have not yet been to Ponce de Leon's spring. But there are some
springs here of a wondrous look. They are so transparent that the fish
can scarce believe themselves there in their own element. The Mackinack
waters are almost turbid to them. They have a most sulphurous odour, and
_might_ renew a man's youth, but it must be at the expense of all sweet
smells. I would rather keep on than go back on such conditions.

"In the fight which Lieut. Powell had with the Indians, a Doctor Lutner
was killed, who was a scientific man, and had joined the expedition to
botanize, &c. He had already done something in that way, and would have
done much more. Such a life is a great loss."

CHAPTER LXII.

Indiana tampered with at Grand River--Small-pox in the Missouri
Valley--Living history at home--Sunday schools--Agriculture--Indian
names--Murder of the Glass family--Dr. Morton's inquiries respecting
Indian crania--Necessity of one's writing his name plain--Michigan
Gazetteer in preparation--Attempt to make the Indian a political
pack-horse--Return to the Agency of Michilimackinack--Indian skulls
phrenologically examined--J. Toulmin Smith--Cherokee question--Trip to
Grand River--Treaty and annuity payments--The department accused of
injustice to the Indians.

1838. _March 2d_. LIEUT. E. S. SIBLEY, U.S.A., called at the office,
and reported certain things which had been put into the heads of the
Indians of Grand River, by interested persons, which they had at the
recent annuity payments, requested him to state to me.