tained on the way by the closing of the (N. Y.) canal, as I have as yet received nothing from you. The plan of your proposed narrative I like much, and I hope the work will be given to the public as early as possible. Dr. Houghton did not come to New York, but has settled himself (as you doubtless know) at Detroit." 10th. Lyman M. Warren writes from Lake Superior: "Our country at present is in a very unsettled state, caused by the unhappy wars between the Sioux and Chippewas. The latter have been defeated on Rum River-six men and one woman killed. All our Chippewas are looking to you for protection, as they consider themselves wronged by the Sioux, the latter being, and constantly hunting within the Chippewa territory. I am afraid that a very extensive war will commence the ensuing summer, through this region, and the whole upper country, if some effectual method is not adopted to stop it."

This war has all the bitterness of a war of races-it is the great Algonquin family against the wide-spread Dacota stock-the one powerful in the east, the other equally so in the west. And the measures to be adopted to restrain it, and to curb the young warriors on both sides, who pant for fame and scalps, must ever remain, to a great extent, ineffective and temporary, so long as they are not backed up by strong lines of military posts. Mr. Calhoun was right in his policy of 1820.

The Rev. Mr. Boutwell writes from the same region: "We rejoice that you enter so fully into our views and feelings relative to the intellectual and moral improvement of the Indians, and rest assured we can most heartily unite with you in bidding God speed, to such as are willing to go and do them good."

14th. John Sunday, a Chippewa evangelist from Upper Canada among the Chippewas of Lake Superior, writes from the Bay of Keweena, where he is stationed during the winter :

"I received your kind letter. I undersand you-you want here the Indians from this place. I will tell you what to the Indians doing. They worshiped Idol God. They make God their own. I undersand Mr. D., he told all Indians not going to hear the word of God. So the Indians he believed him. He tell the Indians do worship your own way. Your will get heaven quick is us. So the Indians they do not care to hear the word of God.

"But some willing to hear preaching. One family they love to

come the meeting. That Indian, by and by, he got ligion. He is happy now in his heart. After he got ligion that Indian say, Indian ligion not good. I have been worship Idol god many years. He never make happy. Now I know Jesus. His ligion is good, because I feel it in my heart. I say white people ligion very good. That Indian he can say all in Lord's prayer and ten commandments, and apostle creed by heart. Perhaps you know him. His name is Shah-wau-ne-noo-tin.

"I never forget your kindness to me. I thing I shall stay here till the May. I want it to do what the Lord say."

Aside from his teaching among the Chippewas, which was unanswerably effective, this letter is of the highest consequence to philology, as its variations from the rules of English syntax and orthography, denote some of the leading principles of aboriginal construction, as they have been revealed to me by the study of the Indian language. In truth he uses the Indian language to a considerable extent, according to the principles of the Chippewa syntax.

Thus it is perceived from the letter, which is printed verbatim1. That the letter t is not uttered when standing between a consonant and vowel, as in "understand."

2. The want and misuse of the prepositions of, from, and to. 3. The use of the participial form of the verb for the indicative.

4. The use of pronouns immediately after nouns to which they

refer.

5. The interchange of d for t, and g for k, as in do for to, and "thing" for think.

6. The suppression of the sound of r altogether, as heard in re, and religion, &c.

7. Confounding the perfect past with the present tense.

8. The misuse of the indefinite article, which is wanting in the Indian.

9. The habitual non-use of the imperative mood.

10. The transitive character of verbs requiring objective inflections, for the nominative, &c.

11. The absence of simple possessives.

12. The want of the auxiliary verbs have, are, is, &c.

John Sunday came to St. Mary's in the autumn of 1832. His

prayers and exhortatory teaching completely non-plussed the Chippewas. They heard him refute all their arguments in their own language. He had, but a short time before, been one like themselves-a Manito worshiper, an idler, a drunkard. He produced a great sensation among them, and overthrew the loose fabric of their theology and mythology with a strong hand. I had never before heard the Chippewa language applied to religion, and listened with great interest to catch his phrases. I was anxious to hear how he would get along in the use of the dual pronoun we, as applied to inclusive and exclusive persons. He spoke at once of the affections as they exist between a father and his children, and addressed the Deity at all times as Nosa, which is the term for my father. He thus made God the inclusive head of every family, and brushed away the whole cobweb system of imaginary spirits, of the native Jossakeed, Medas, and Wabanos.

March 7th. "My heart was made glad," writes Mr. Boutwell from Lake Superior, "that Providence directed you to Detroit at a season so timely, bringing you into contact with the great and the good-giving you an opportunity of laying before them facts relative to the condition of the Indians, which eventuated in so much good. We do indeed rejoice in the formation of the 'Algic Society,' which is, I trust, the harbinger of great and extensive blessings to this poor and dying people."

8th. Mr. L. M. Warren reports from La Pointe, at the head of Lake Superior: "Since my last, Mr. Ayer has arrived from Sandy Lake. He reports that there have been two war parties sent out against the Sioux, by the Sandy Lake Band, thirty or forty men each, without accomplishing anything. Afterwards a third party of sixty men assembled and went out under the command of Songegomik-a young chief of distinguished character of the Sandy Lake Band. They discovered a Sioux camp of nineteen lodges, and succeeded in approaching them before daylight undiscovered, until they reached, in the form of a circle, within ten yards. They then opened a tremendous fire, and, as fast as the Sioux attempted to come from their lodges, they were shot dead. The yelling of Indians, screaming of women, and crying of children were distressing. One Sioux escaped unhurt, and notified a neighboring camp. Their approach to the assistance of their friends was ascertained by a distant firing of guns. The Chippewas, who by

this time had exhausted their-ammunition, began, and effected a retreat, leaving nineteen of their enemy dead, and forty wounded. This victory was achieved without the loss of a man on the part of the Chippewas.

"Since that battle was fought, a body of one hundred Sioux have attacked a fortified camp of the Mille Lac and Snake River band, and killed nine men and one woman."

13th. Mr. Trowbridge writes from Detroit: "We have just heard of the adjournment of Congress; a new tariff has been passed, together with a law empowering the President to enforce the collection of duties by calling in aid the force of the Union. These bills are accompanied by Mr. Clay's Law of Compromise, providing for the gradual reduction of duties to a revenue standard. So that the dreaded Carolina question will, it is supposed, blow over, leaving the Union as it was. The great men, too, who have been on opposite sides of this question, have shaken hands at parting, and this is looked upon as another auspicious sign.

"The release of the missionaries in Georgia, having settled that disagreeable and disgraceful affair to the State, although not done with that magnanimity which ought to have characterized the proceeding, leaves no general question at issue, but the Indian question; and from the prudent measures of government in that regard, it is to be hoped that that also will be, at length, amicably arranged.

"I mention these facts because I am told that no newspapers will be sent to the upper country."

18th. Lieut. J. Allen, U. S. A., way topographer on the recent expedition, sends me maps of Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Itasca Lake, to be used in my narrative of the journey to the source of the Mississippi River. Correspondents appear solicitous for a published account of this expedition, and frequently allude to it, and to the opportunity it gave for extending our knowledge of the geology and natural history of the country.

April 8th. Dr. J. B. Crawe, of Waterton, N. Y., proposes an interchange of specimens in several departments of science. Hon. Micah Sterling, of the same place, commends to my notice Dr. Richard Clark, who is ordered on this frontier, as a "young man of merit and respectability." My correspondence with naturalists, in all parts of the Union, and my list of exchanges, had, indeed,

for some years been large and active, and was by no means diminished since my last two expeditions. But new sympathies have beenawakened, particularly during the last two years, with philanthropists and Christians, which added greatly to the number of my correspondents, without taking from its gratifications.

12th. Rev. Ansel R. Clark of Hudson, Ohio, an agent of the Education Society, writes on the importance of that cause, on the state and prospects of American society, the spread of vital morals in neighborhoods on the great line of the frontiers, Indian civilization, &c. In connection with the last topic, he acknowledges the receipt of the proceedings published by the Algic Society, and expresses his interest in its objects.

This society, by its standing committee here, received Elder John Sunday in the autumn, furnished him with lodgings while at the place, and an outfit for his missions to the Indians at Keweena Bay in Lake Superior. It also furnished John Cabeach and John Otanchey-all converted Chippewas from the vicinity of Toronto, U. C., with the means of practical teaching and traveling among various bands of the Northern Chippewas. It sent an express in the month of January to La Pointe, L. S., to communicate with the mission family there, with their papers, letters, &c. Regular monthly meetings of the St. Mary's committee were held, and the proceedings denote the collection of much information of high interest to the cause of the red man.

15th. I was anxious now to extend the sphere of my observation to Europe. I had been engaged twelve consecutive years out of a period of fifteen (omitting 1823, 1828, 1829 and 1830) in journeys chiefly in the great Valley of the Mississippi, the vast flanks of the Rocky Mountains, the Upper Lakes, and the northwestern frontiers. And I began to sigh for a prospect of older countries and institutions. The time seemed favorable, in my mind, for such a movement, and I wrote to a friend high in influence at Washington, on the subject. In a reply of this date, he throws, with adroitness, cold water on the subject. He weighs matters in scales which will only keep their equipoise at the place of the seat of government; and, if I may say so, require their equipoise to be kept up by casting on the golden weights of political expediency. Like those seemingly mysterious charms which produce