2d. The languages of New Zealand, Tonga, and Malay have no declension of nouns, nor conjugation of verbs. The purposes of declension are answered by particles and prepositions. The distinctions of person, tense, and mode are expressed by adverbs, pronouns, and other parts of speech. This rigidity of the verb and noun is absolute, under every order of arrangement, in which their words can be placed, and their meaning is not helped out, by either prefixes or suffixes.
I read Plutarch's "Life of Marcellus," to observe whether it bore the points of resemblance to Washington's military character, suggested by Marshall.
3d. Abad signifies abode, in Persian. Abid denotes where he is, or dwells, in Chippewa.
I refused, on an invitation of Mr. Ermatinger, to alter the resolution formed on the seventh ultimo, as to one mode of evening's amusement.
4th. A loud meteoric report, as if from the explosion of some aerial body, was heard about noon this day. The sound seemed to proceed from the south-west. It was attended with a prolonged, or rumbling sound, and was generally heard. Popular surmise, which attempts to account for everything, has been very busy in assigning the cause of this phenomenon.
A high degree of cold has recently been experienced. The thermometer stood at 28° below zero at one o'clock this morning. It had risen to 18° at day-break--being the greatest observed degree of cold during the season. It did not exceed 4° above zero during any part of the day.
5th. A year ago to-day, a literary friend wrote to me to join him in preparing a Gazetteer of the State of New York, to supplant Spafford's. Of the latter, he expresses himself in the letter, which is now before me, in unreserved terms of disapprobation. "It is wholly unworthy," he says, "of public patronage, and would not stand in the way of a good work of the kind; and such a one, I have the vanity to believe, our joint efforts could produce. It would be a permanent work, with slight alterations, as the State might undergo changes. My plan would be for you to travel over the State, and make a complete geological, mineralogical, and statistical survey of it, which would probably take you a year or more. In the mean time, I would devote all my leisure to the collection and arrangement of such other materials as we should need in the compilation of the work. I doubt not we could obtain the prompt assistance of the first men in the State, in furnishing all the information required. Our State is rapidly increasing in wealth and population, and I am full in the faith that such a work would sell well in different parts of the country."
6th. I did nothing to-day, by which I mean that it was given up to visiting and talking. It is Dr. Johnson, I think, who draws a distinction between "talk and conversation." It is necessary, however, to assign a portion of time in this way. "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly," is a Bible maxim.
7th. The garrison library was this morning removed from my office, where it had been placed in my charge on the arrival of the troops in July, the state of preparations in the cantonment being now sufficiently advanced to admit its reception. A party of gentlemen from the British garrison on Drummond Island came up on a visit, on snow shoes. The distance is about 45 miles.
8th. I commenced reading Holmes on "The Fulfilment of the Revelation of St. John," a London work of 1819. The author says "that his explanation of the symbols is founded upon one fixed and universal rule--that the interpretation of a symbol is ever maintained; that the chronological succession of the seals, trumpets, and vials is strictly preserved; and that the history contained under them is a uniform and homogeneous history of the Roman empire, at once comprehensive and complete."--Attended a dining-party at Mr. Johnston's.
9th. Continued the reading of Holmes, who is an energetic writer, and appears to have looked closely into his subject. The least pleasing trait in the work is a polemic spirit which is quite a clog to the inquiry, especially to those who, like myself, have never read the authors Faber, Cunningham, and Frere, whose interpretations he combats. For a clergyman, he certainly handles them without gloves.
10th. The principal Indian chief of the vicinity, Shingabawossin, sent to inquire of me the cause of the aerial explosion, heard on the 4th. At four I went to dine with Mr. Ermatinger on the British shore.
11th. I did something, although, from the round of visiting and gayety which, in consequence of our Drummond Isle visitors, has existed for a few days, but little, at my vocabulary. At half-past four, I went to dine with Lieutenants Morton and Folger in the cantonment. The party was nearly the same which has assembled for a few days, in honor of the foreign gentlemen with us. In the evening a large party, with dancing, at Mr. Johnston's.
12th. I read Lord Erskine's Letter to Lord Liverpool on the policy to be pursued by Great Britain in relation to Greece and Turkey. The arguments and sentiments do equal credit to his head and heart, and evince no less his judgment as a statesman, than they do his taste and erudition as a scholar. This interesting and valuable letter breathes the true sentiments of rational liberty, such as must be felt by the great body of the English nation, and such as must, sooner or later, prevail among the enlightened nations of the earth. How painful to reflect that this able appeal will produce no favorable effect on the British ministry, whose decision, it is to be feared, is already made in favor of the "legitimacy" of the Turkish government!
At four o'clock, I laid by my employments, and went to dine at the commanding officer's quarters, whence the party adjourned to a handsomely arranged supper table at Capt. Beal's. The necessity of complying with times and occasions, by accepting the current invitations of the day, is an impediment to any system of intellectual employment; and whatever the world may think of it, the time devoted to public dinners and suppers, routs and parties, is little better than time thrown away.
"And yet the fate of all extremes is such;
Books may be read, as well as men, too much."
13th. I re-perused Mackenzie's "History of the Fur Trade," to enable me more fully to comprehend the allusions in a couple of volumes lately put into my hands, on the "Disputes between Lord Selkirk and the North West Company," and the "Report of Trials" for certain murders perpetrated in the course of a strenuous contest for commercial mastery in the country by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Finding an opportunity of sending north, I recollected that the surveyors of our northern boundary were passing the winter at Fort William, on the north shore of Lake Superior; and wrote to one of the gentlemen, enclosing him some of our latest papers.
14th. The gentlemen from the neighboring British post left us this morning. I devoted the day to my Indian inquiries.
15th. I commenced a vocabulary of conversation, in the Odjibwa.
17th. Native Mythology.--According to Indian mythology, Weeng is the God of sleep. He has numerous emissaries, who are armed with war clubs, of a tiny and unseen character. These fairy agents ascend the forehead, and knock the individual to sleep. Pope's creation of Gnomes, in the Rape of the Lock, is here prefigured.
18th. It has been said that the Indian languages possess no monosyllables. This remark is not borne out with regard to the Chippewa. Marked as it is with polysyllables, there are a considerable number of exceptions. Koan is snow, ais a shell, mong a loon, kaug a porcupine, &c. The number of dissyllables is numerous, and of trisyllables still more so. The Chippewa has no auxiliary verbs. The Chippewa primitive pronouns are, Neen, Keen, and Ween (I, Thou, He or She). They are rendered plural in wind and wau. They are also declined for tense, and thus, in the conjugation of verbs, take the place of our auxiliary verbs.
19th.