mind, of sea-water.  I have cast about, to find a sonorous form of elision, in which it may come into popular use, but find nothing more eligible than I-go-mee, or Igoma.  A more practical word, in the shape of a new compound, may be made in Algoma, a term in which the first syllable of the generic name of this tribe of the Algonquin stock, harmonizes very well with the Indian idea of goma (sea), giving us, Sea of the Algonquins.  The term may be objected to, as the result of a grammatical abbreviation, but if not adopted practically, it may do as a poetical synonym for this great lake.  Such is, at least, the result of a full discussion of these names, with the very best speakers of the language.

30th.  The Wild Rice Plant.—­Having received a request for some of this native grain to send abroad, and knowing that the smoked rice, such as the Indians usually bring in, will not germinate, I this day dispatched my interpreter in a canoe, with some Indians, to the northern shores of the straits to gather some of it for seed; the result was successful.  This plant may be deemed a precious gift of nature to the natives, who spread over many degrees of northern latitude.  They call it mon-o-min, a compound descriptive phrase, which differs only from their name for the zea maize in putting an o—­the third syllable—­for the imperative future in dau.

Sept. 1st.  Indian Trade.—­Congress has provided a code of laws to regulate this, the object of which is a good one, and the provisions of the various enactments appear to be founded on the highest principles of justice and benevolence.  It is still a question, it appears to me, whether some of these provisions do not merely sanction by the forms of law what was formerly done, not always well, without it, and whether the measure of protection which they afford to the tribes against the cupidity of the whites is very efficacious.  It was heretofore pretended by the British traders that all this country belonged to Great Britain, and they told the Indians that the war of 1812 would settle all this.  It did so; but, contrary to their wishes and the predictions to the Indians, it settled it precisely on the basis of the treaty of 1783, which ran the boundary line through the straits of Saint Mary’s and Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods.  As soon as the smoke of the war cleared off, namely, in 1816, Congress enacted that British traders and capital should be excluded from the American lines, that no British subjects should receive licenses to trade, and that all such persons who went inland in subordinate capacities should be bonded for by the American traders who employed them.  This law seemed to bear particularly on this section of country, and is generally understood to have been passed to throw the old North West Company, and other British traders, trading on their own account, out of this hitherto very lucrative branch of trade.  John Jacob Astor, of New York, went immediately to