Jan. 29th. Chester Dewy, Professor, &c., in Williams College, Mass., writes a most kind and friendly letter, in which he presents various subjects, in the great area of the West, visited by me.
Chalk Formation.--"Mr. Jessup, of Philadelphia, told me that he believed you doubted respecting the chalk of Missouri, in which you found nodules of flints. I wish to ask if this be fact. From the situation, and characters and uses, you might easily be led into a mistake, for such a bed of any other earth would be far less to be expected, and be also a far greater curiosity."
Petrosilex, &c.--"By the way, I received from Dr. Torrey a curious mixture of petrosilex and prehnite in radiating crystals, which was sent him by you, and collected at the West. He did not tell me the name, but examination showed me what it was."
Tufa from Western New York.--"To day, a Quaker from Sempronius, New York, has shown me some fine tufa. I mention it, because you may, in your travels, be able to see it. He says it covers an acre or more to a great depth, is burned into excellent lime with great ease, and is very valuable, as no good limestone is found near them. Some of it is very soft, like agaric mineral, and would be so called, were it not associated with beautiful tufa of a harder kind."
Geology of America.--"You have explored in fine situations, to extend the knowledge of the geology of our country, and have made great discoveries. I congratulate you on what you have been able to do; I hope you may be able, if you wish it, to add still more to our knowledge."
Jan. 29th. Mr. McNabb says: "I have just received a specimen of excellent pit-coal from Tioga county, Pennsylvania, near the head of the south branch of the Tioga River, and about twenty miles south from Painted Post, in Steuben County. The quantity is said to be inexhaustible, and what renders it of still greater importance is, that arks and rafts descend from within four or five miles of the mines."
New Gazetteer of New York.--Mr. Carter writes (Feb. 5th) inauspiciously of the course of affairs at Washington, as not favoring the spirit of exploration. He proposes, in the event of my not receiving the contemplated appointment, the plan of a Gazetteer of New York, on an enlarged and scientific basis. "I have often expressed to you my opinion of the Spafford Gazetteer of this State. It is wholly unworthy 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 mineralogical, and geological, 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."
Feb. 18th. Professor Dewy writes, vindicating my views of the Huttonian doctrines, respecting the formation of secondary rocks, which he had doubted, on the first perusal of my memoir of the fossil tree of Illinois.
Feb. 20th. Caleb Atwater, Esq., of Circleville, Ohio, the author of the antiquarian papers in the first volume of Archaeologiae Americana, writes on the occasion of my geological memoir. He completely confounds the infiltrated specimen of an entire tree, in the external strata, and of a recent age, which is prominently described in my paper, with ordinary casts and impressions of organic remains in the elder secondary rock column.
Feb. 24th. Mr. McNabb communicates further facts and discoveries of the mineral wealth, resources, and prospects of Western New York and Pennsylvania.
* * * * *
Narrative Journal.--Professor Silliman (March 5th) communicates an extract of a letter to him from Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., of Hartford, to whom he had loaned my Narrative.
"I have been very much entertained with the tour to the western lakes. I think Mr. Schoolcraft writes in a most agreeable manner; there is such an entire absence of affectation in all he says, as well as his manner of saying it, that no one can help being exceedingly pleased, even if the book had not in any other respect a great deal of merit. The whole seems such real and such absolute matter of fact, that I feel as if I had performed the journey with the traveller.
"All I regret about it is that it was not consistent with his plans to tell us more of what might be considered the domestic part of the expedition, the character and conduct of those who were of the party, their health, difficulties, opinions, and treatment of each other, &c. &c. As his book was a sort of official work, I suppose he thought this would not do, and I wish he now would give his friends (and let us be amongst them) a manuscript of the particulars that are not for the public. Mrs. W. has also been as much pleased as myself."
Under the date of March 22d, Sir Humphrey Davy, in a private letter to Dr. Hosack, says:--
"Mr. Schoolcraft's narrative is admirable, both for the facts it develops and for the simplicity and clearness of the details; he has accomplished great things by such means, and offers a good model for a traveler in a new country. I lent his book to our veteran philosophical geographer, Major Rennel, who was highly pleased with it; copies of it would sell well in England."
Dr. Silliman apprises me that Professor Douglass expects my geological report as part of his work.
Having now finished my geological report, I determined to take it to Washington. On reaching New York, I took lodgings at the Franklin House, then a private boarding-house, where my friends, Mr. Carter and Colonel Haines, had rooms. While here, I was introduced one day to a man who subsequently attracted a good deal of notice as a literary impostor. This was a person named Hunter. He said that he derived this name from his origin in the Indian country. He had a soft, compliant, half quizzical look, and appeared to know nothing precisely, but dealt in vague accounts and innuendoes. Having gone to London, the booksellers thought him, it appears, a good subject for a book, and some hack was employed to prepare it. It had a very slender basis in any observations which this man was capable of furnishing; but abounded in misstatements and vituperation of the policy of this government respecting the Indians. This fellow is handled in the Oct. No. of the North American Review, for 1825, in a manner which gives very little encouragement to literary adventurers and cheats. The very man, John Dunn, of Missouri, after whom he affected to have been named, denies that he ever heard of him.
I had, thus far, seen but little of the Atlantic, except what could be observed in a trip from New Orleans to New York, and knew very little of its coasts by personal examination. I had never seen more of the Chesapeake than could be shown from the head of that noble bay, and wished to explore the Valley of the Potomac. For this purpose, I took passage in a coasting vessel at New York, and had a voyage of a novel and agreeable kind, which supplied me with the desired information. At Old Point Comfort, I remained at the hotel while the vessel tarried. In ascending the Potomac one night, while anchored, a negro song was wafted in the stillness of the atmosphere. I could distinctly hear the following words:--
Gentlemen, he come from de Maryland shore,
See how massa gray mare go.
Go, gray, go,
Go, gray, go;
See how massa gray mare go.
I reached Washington late in March, and sent in my geological report on the 2d of April. Mr. Calhoun, who acknowledged it on the 6th, referred it to the Topographical Bureau. Some question, connected with the establishment of an agency in Florida, complicated my matter. Otherwise it appeared to be a mere question of time. The Secretary of War left me no room to doubt that his feelings were altogether friendly. Mr. Monroe was also friendly.
Additional Judicial District in Michigan.--J.D. Doty, Esq., wrote to me (April 8th) on this subject. So far as my judgment and observation went, they were favorable to this project. Besides, if I was to become an inhabitant of the district, as things now boded, it would be desirable to me to dwell in a country where the laws, in their higher aspects, were periodically administered. I had, therefore, every reason to favor it.
Skeptical Views of the Mosaical Chronology.--Baptiste Irvine, Esq., in referring to some criticism of his in