iman's
Journal_, you will observe an article on the subject of the _Lake
Tides_, as Gen. Dearborn calls them, in which he has inserted some hasty
letters I wrote to him on this subject, without, however, ever expecting
to see them in such a respectable guise. The Governor made some more
extended observations at Green Bay. If you can give anything more
definite in relation to the changes of Lake Superior, pray let me have a
letter, and we will try to spread before Mr. Silliman a better view of
the case. I have no idea that anything in the shape, of a tide exists,
The Governor is of the same opinion."

To these opinions I can merely add, Amen. It requires more exactitude of
observation than falls to the lot of casual observers, to upset the
conclusions of known laws and phenomena.

_26th_. NEW INDIAN CODE.--Mr. Wing, the delegate in Congress, forwards
to me a printed copy of the report of laws proposed for the Indian
department. It denotes much labor on the part of the two gentlemen who
have had it in hand, and will be productive of improvement. I should
have liked a bolder course, and not so careful a respect all along, for
what has previously been done. Congress requires, sometimes, to be
instructed, or informed, and not to be copied in its attempts to manage
Indian, affairs.

Every paper brings accounts of removals and appointments under the new
administration; but nothing, so far as I can judge, that promises much,
in this way, of material benefit to Indian affairs. The department at
head-quarters has been, so far as respects fiscal questions, wretchedly
managed, and is over head and ears in debt, and the result of all this
mal-administration is visited on the frontiers, in the bitter want of
means for the agents, sub-agents, and mechanics, and interpreters, who
are obliged to be either suspended, or put on short allowance.
Doubtless, Gen. Jackson, who is a man of high purpose, would remedy this
thing, if the facts were laid before him.

_30th_. MASONRY.--It has recently been discovered, that there is a
hidden danger in this ancient fraternity, and that society has been all
the while sitting, as it were, on the top of a volcano, liable, at any
moment, to burst. Such, at least, appear to be the views of some
politicians, who have seized upon the foolish and apparently _criminal
acts_ of some lack-wits in western New York, to make it a new political
element for demagogues to ride. Already it has reached these hither