heavy boats, we embarked a day later.  The whole expedition, with flags and music, was spread out over miles, and formed an impressive and imposing spectacle to the natives, who saw their “closed lake,” as Superior was called in 1820, yield before the Anglo-Saxon power.  The weather was fine, the scenery enchanting, and the incidents such as might fill a volume.[45] We were eighteen days in traversing the lake by its shores and bays.  The distance is about 530 miles, which gives an average of thirty miles per day.

[Footnote 45:  Vide “Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes, of the Character and Customs of the Chippewa Indians, and of Incidents connected with the Treaty of Fond du Lac, by Thomas L. McKenney.”  Baltimore, Fielding Lucas, 1827; one vol. 8vo., 493 pp.]

On reaching the post of Fond du Lac, of St. Louis, near the point where that bold stream deploys below the Cabotian Mountains,[46] we found a large assemblage of Indians from every part of the wide-spread Chippewa territories.  It embraced delegations from the extreme sources of the Mississippi, the Rainy Lake borders, and Old Grand Portage, besides the entire American borders of Lake Superior and the Rice Lake region, the sources of the Wisconsin, Chippewa, and St. Croix valleys.  The negotiations were held under a large bower, supported by posts, and provided with rude seats.  The principles of the treaty of Prairie du Chien, of 1825, were fully explained and assented to.  They ceded the right to explore and take away the native copper and copper-ores, and to work the mines and minerals in the country.  They agreed to surrender the murderers still inland, who belonged to the misguided war party of 1824.  They fully acknowledged the sovereign authority of the United States, and disclaimed all connection whatever with foreign powers.  They stipulated that the boundary lines of the treaty of Prairie du Chien should be carried out in 1827 with the Menomonies and Winnebagoes, in the region of the sources of the Fox, Wisconsin, and Menomonee rivers.  They provided for an Indian school at St. Mary’s, and made some further important stipulations respecting their advance in the arts and education, through the element of their half-breeds.  The effects of this treaty were to place our Indian relations in this quarter on a permanent basis, and to ensure the future peace of the frontier.  My agency was now fixed on a sure basis, and my influence fully established among the tribes.  During the treaty I had been the medium of placing about forty silver medals, of the first, second, and third classes, on the necks of the chiefs.  A list of their names is appended.

[Footnote 46:  From Cabot.]

While the Commissioners were engaged in the treaty, an effort was made, under their direction, to get out the large copper-boulder on the Ontonagon.  It was entrusted to Col.  Clemens, of Mount Clemens, and a Mr. Porter.  The trucks and ropes taken inland by them proved inadequate.  They then piled up the dry trees in the valley on the rock, and set them on fire.  They found this effort to melt it inefficacious.  They then poured on water from the river on whose brink it lays.  This cracked off some of the adhering rock.  And this attempt to mutilate and falsify the noblest specimen of native copper on the globe was the result of this effort.