of duties, in the performance of which there was a wide field for
honorable exertion, and, if it was embraced, also of historical inquiry
and research. The taste for natural history might certainly be
transferred to that point, where the opportunity for discovery was the
greatest. At any rate, the trial of a residence on that remote frontier
might readily be made, and I may say it was in fact made only as a
temporary matter. It was an ancient agency in which General Harrison
had long exercised his superior authority over the fierce and wild
tribes of the West, which was an additional stimulus to exertion, after
its removal to Lake Superior.

I called the next day on Mr. Calhoun, to express my obligation, and to
request instructions. For the latter object, he referred me to General
Cass, of Detroit, who was the superintendent of Indian affairs on the
North-Western frontier, and to whom the policy of pushing an agency and
a military post to that point is, I believe, due.

I now turned my face to the North, made a brief stay in New York,
hurried through the western part of that State to Buffalo, and ascended
Lake Erie to Detroit. At this point I was attacked with fever and ague,
which I supposed to have been contracted during a temporary landing at
Sandusky. I directed my physician to treat it with renewed doses of
mercury, in quick succession, which terminated the fever, but completely
prostrated my strength, and induced, at first tic douloureux, and
eventually a paralysis of the left cheek.

The troops destined for the new post arrived about the beginning of
July. They consisted of a battalion of the 2d Regiment of Infantry,
under Colonel Brady, from garrison duty at Sackett's Harbor, and they
possessed every element of high discipline and the most efficient
action, under active officers. Brady was himself an officer of Wayne's
war against the Indians, and had looked danger steadily in the face on
the Niagara frontier, in the Late War. In this condition, I hastily
snatched up my instructions, and embarked on board the new steamer
"Superior," which was chartered by the government for the occasion. It
was now the 2d of July.

Before speaking of the voyage from this point, it may be well to refer
to another matter. The probability of Professor Douglass publishing the
joint results of our observations on the expedition of 1820, appeared
now unfavorable. Among the causes of this, I regarded my withdrawal to a
remote poi