“I was glad to see your article.  It is an able, and temperate, and practical view of the subject (N.A.R., Ap. 1829), grossly exaggerated, and grossly misunderstood.”

May 19th.  IDEA OF LAKE TIDES.—­Maj.  W. writes:  “If you see Silliman’s Journal, you will observe an article on the subject of the Lake Tides, as Gen. Dearborn calls them, in which he has inserted some hasty letters I wrote to him on this subject, without, however, ever expecting to see them in such a respectable guise.  The Governor made some more extended observations at Green Bay.  If you can give anything more definite in relation to the changes of Lake Superior, pray let me have a letter, and we will try to spread before Mr. Silliman a better view of the case.  I have no idea that anything in the shape, of a tide exists, The Governor is of the same opinion.”

To these opinions I can merely add, Amen.  It requires more exactitude of observation than falls to the lot of casual observers, to upset the conclusions of known laws and phenomena.

26th.  NEW INDIAN CODE.—­Mr. Wing, the delegate in Congress, forwards to me a printed copy of the report of laws proposed for the Indian department.  It denotes much labor on the part of the two gentlemen who have had it in hand, and will be productive of improvement.  I should have liked a bolder course, and not so careful a respect all along, for what has previously been done.  Congress requires, sometimes, to be instructed, or informed, and not to be copied in its attempts to manage Indian, affairs.

Every paper brings accounts of removals and appointments under the new administration; but nothing, so far as I can judge, that promises much, in this way, of material benefit to Indian affairs.  The department at head-quarters has been, so far as respects fiscal questions, wretchedly managed, and is over head and ears in debt, and the result of all this mal-administration is visited on the frontiers, in the bitter want of means for the agents, sub-agents, and mechanics, and interpreters, who are obliged to be either suspended, or put on short allowance.  Doubtless, Gen. Jackson, who is a man of high purpose, would remedy this thing, if the facts were laid before him.

30th.  MASONRY.—­It has recently been discovered, that there is a hidden danger in this ancient fraternity, and that society has been all the while sitting, as it were, on the top of a volcano, liable, at any moment, to burst.  Such, at least, appear to be the views of some politicians, who have seized upon the foolish and apparently criminal acts of some lack-wits in western New York, to make it a new political element for demagogues to ride.  Already it has reached these hitherto quiet regions, and zealots are now busy by conventions, and anxious in hurrying candidates up to the point.  “Anti-masonic” is the word, a kind of “shibboleth” for those who are to cross the political “fords” of the new Jordan.