tice and benevolence, the Republic, if not the parent
monarchy, fully recognized, by tracing to these tribes the fee of the
soil, and by punctually paying its value, as established by public
treaties, at all times.

_26th_. Mr. T.G. Anderson, of Drummond Island, transmits a translation
of the Lord's Prayer, in Odjibwa, which he requests to be examined.

_Feb. 5th_. No State seems comparable, for its enterprise and rapid
improvements, to New York. Mr. E.B. Allen, who recently removed from
this remote village to Ogdensburgh, New York, expresses his agreeable
surprise, after seven years' absence in the West, at the vast
improvements that have been made in that State. "There is a spirit of
enterprise and energy, that is deeply interesting to men of business and
also men of science."

_March 1st_. Dr. Martyn Paine, of New York, proposes a system of
philosophic exchanges. The large and fine collection of mineralogical
and geological specimens which I brought from Missouri and other parts
of the Mississippi valley in 1819, appears to have had an effect on the
prevalent taste for these subjects, and at least, it has fixed the eyes
of naturalists on my position on the frontiers. Cabinets of minerals
have been in vogue for about nine or ten years. Mr. Maclure, of
Philadelphia, Colonel Gibbs, of New Haven, and Drs. De Witt, Bruce and
Mitchill, of New York, and above Profs. Silliman and Cleveland, may be
said to have originated the taste. Before their day, minerals were
regarded as mere "stones." Now, it is rare to find a college or academy
without, at least, the nucleus of a cabinet. By transferring my
collection here, I have increased very much my own means of intellectual
enjoyment and resistance to the power of solitariness, if it has not
been the means of promoting discovery in others.

* * * * *

_4th. Fatalism_,--An Indian, called Wabishkipenace, _The White Bird_,
brings an express mail from the sub-agency of La Pointe, in Lake
Superior. This proved to be the individual who, in 1820, acted as one of
the guides of the exploring expedition to the Copper Rock, on the
Ontonagon River. Trifles light as air arouse an Indian's suspicions, and
the circumstance of his being thus employed by the government agents,
was made use of by his fellows to his prejudice. They told him that this
act was displeasing to the Great Spirit, who had visited him with his
displeasure. Whatever influence this idea had