vere, Geezhikud.
Sea, Meer, More, Gitchigomi.
Book, Buch, Llyfer, Muzzenyegun.

This topic requires, however, to be investigated on a broad scale. It is
merely adverted to here. It is among the western nations that inquiries
should be extended.

_Feb. 4th_. I received a diploma of membership from the Georgia
Historical Society, forwarded in accordance with a previous notice; and
a few days after, through the medium of the Hon. A.S. Porter, the first
volume of their transactions. Southern zeal quite outdoes us, in our
literary efforts here of late. The truth is, men have speculated so
wildly, they have no money to devote to historical or literary plans. A
correspondent writes me (Feb. 12th) on these visionary plans of
investment.

"H. wants me to go farther in the Cass Front; But I am determined to
fall in the rear, as I have written to him. For the last three years I
have been going on the Dutch plan, which, had I always pursued, I should
now have had $10,000 in gold in my trunk, instead of having ten thousand
trunks full of _ground_."

_7th_. Dick says that there are about 60,000 species in the animal
kingdom. Of these, 600 species are mammalia, or sucklings, mostly
four-footed; 4,000 birds, 3,000 fish, 700 reptiles, 44,000 insects,
about 3,000 shell fish, and 80 to 100,000 animalcula, invisible to the
naked eye. Perhaps these species may reach to 300,000 altogether. Yet
here are no estimates for plants, ferns, mosses, madrepores, extinct
fossil species, minerals and rocks. What a field for the naturalist! Yet
Pope could exclaim--

"Say what the use, were finer optics given,
T' inspect a mite--not comprehend the heaven."

We are, in fact, equally and as much in want of microscopic and
telescopic knowledge.

_20th_. An Indian, a Chippewa, recently visited the office, whose name
is Nageezhik. This is one of the simplest compounds. I spent some time,
however, with the man and his companions to get its exact etymology.
_Geezhik_ is the sky, or visible firmament, seen through the clouds. The
word denotes two phenomena: first, something visible to the eye that is
fixed and does not move, which is implied by the root _geezh_, and the
inflection _ik_, which seems applicable to all inanimate substances, to
denote the fact of their substantivity. The sky is thus described
apparently as a created, or made thing. _Na_ (the _aa_ in Aaron) is a
qualifying particle of very general us