of civilized beings
inhabit that part of the world, it is not to be wondered at that so
little knowledge about it exists. I went from Green Bay, with the
Express, where but few people ever travel, which was attended with
fatigue and danger; but the journey produced this conviction on my mind,
that the Michigan Territory has in it a great extent of fine country.

I regard Green Bay, at the mouth of Fox River, and Chicago, as two
very important positions, particularly the latter. For many years I have
felt a most anxious desire to see the country between Chicago and the
Illinois (River), where it has generally been, ignorantly, supposed that
only a small sum would be wanting to open a communication between them.
By traveling on horseback through the country, and down the Illinois, I
have conceived a different and more exalted opinion of this
communication, and of the country, than I had before, while I am
convinced that it will be attended with a much greater expense to open
it than I had supposed.[41]

[Footnote 41: The Illinois Canal now exists here.]

I, with my two companions, found your fossil tree, in the Des Plaines,
with considerable labor and difficulty. This I anticipated, from the
commonly reputed opinion of the uncommon height of the waters. With your
memoir in my hand, we rode up and down the waters till the pursuit was
abandoned by the others, while my own curiosity and zeal did not yield
till it was discovered. The detached pieces were covered with twelve to
twenty inches of water, and each of us broke from them as much as we
could well bring away. I showed them to Col. Benton, the Senator in St.
Louis; to Major O'Fallon; Col. Strother, and other gentlemen there; to
Mr. Birkbeck in Wanboro'; to Mr. Rapp in Harmony; and to a number of
different people, through the countries I traveled, till my arrival
in Virginia.

"On my arrival here (Philadelphia), I handed the pieces to Mr. Solomon
W. Conrad, who delivers lectures on mineralogy, which he made partly the
subject of one of his lectures. Since that, I had a piece of it made
into a hone, and I had marked on it, 'Schoolcraft's Fossil Tree.'

"Brooke's _Gazetteer_, improved by Darby, has been ready for delivery
three or four months, and is allowed to be a most valuable book. He is,
I am sorry to say, truly poor, while his labor is incessant. He set out,
several weeks since, to deliver lectures, in the country, where he will
probably continue through the su