[Footnote 37:  This specimen was sent to the New York Lyceum, where it was determined to be an undescribed species, and named Fringilia vespertina, or evening grosbec.]

8th.  The ice on the river still admits of the passage of horse trains, and the night temperature is quite wintry, although the power of the sun begins to be sensibly felt during the middle and after part of the day.

9th.  A friend recently at Washington writes from Detroit under the date of the 12th March:  “A proposition was submitted to a committee of the Senate, soon after my arrival in the city, by the Secretary of War, for the establishment of the office of Superintendent of Mines.  To this office, had the project been carried into execution, you would have been appointed.  But shortly before I left there, it was thought more expedient to sell all the mines than to retain them in the hands of the government.  Of course, if this plan be adopted, as I think it will be, the other will be superseded.”  Here, then, drops a project, which I had conceived at Potosi, and which has been before my mind for some four years, and which I am still satisfied might have been carried through Congress, had I given my personal attention to the subject, during the present session.  I have supposed myself more peculiarly qualified to fill the station indicated, than the one I now occupy.  And I accepted the present office under the expectation that it would be temporary.  When once a project of this kind, however, is superseded in the way this has been, it is like raising the dead to bring it up again; and it is therefore probable that my destiny is now fixed in the North-West instead of the South-West, for a number of years.  I thought I had read Franklin’s maxims to some purpose; but I now see that, although I have observed one of them in nine cases, I missed it in the tenth:—­

     “He that by the plough would thrive,
      Himself must either hold, or drive.”

I trusted, in the fall, that I could safely look on, and see this matter accomplished.

As to the mines, they will still require a local superintendent.  They cannot be sold until there are some persons to buy, and it is not probable such extensive tracts of barren lands can be disposed of in years.  Meantime, the rents of the mines are an object.  The preservation of the public timber is an object.  And the duties connected with these objects cannot be performed, with justice to the government, and convenience to the lessees, without a local agent.  In proportion as some of the districts of mineral lands are sold, others will claim attention; and it may be, and most probably will be, years before the intention of Congress, if expressed by law, can be fully carried into effect.

Life has more than one point of resemblance to a panorama.  When one object is past, another is brought to view.  The same correspondent adds:  “Mr. Calhoun has come to the determination to authorize you to explore the River St. Peter’s this season.  I think you may safely make the necessary arrangements, as I feel confident the instructions will reach you soon after the opening of the navigation.”