EXPEDITION INTO LAKE SUPERIOR.—­“I do not answer you officially,” says Gov.  C. “concerning the expedition into Lake Superior, because I shall expect you will be here in the last vessel, to attend the meeting of the council, and Mr. Brush speaks with certainty-upon the subject.  As Mr. Irwin has resigned, and there is no provision for ordering a new election, your district will be wholly unrepresented unless you attend.  In the mean time I have received the sum allowed for this service, which you can draw for whenever you please.  There is no doubt but the matter will go on.  After you arrive here, and We have conversed together, I will restate the project of a more extended expedition, agreeably to your suggestions, and submit it to the department.  I agree with you fully, that the thing should be enlarged, to embrace the persons and objects you suggest.  It would be an important expedition, and not a little honorable to you, to have the direction of it, as it will be the first authorized by the administration.”

WINTER SESSION OF THE COUNCIL.—­On the 16th of November, I embarked in a large boat at St. Mary’s with a view of reaching Mackinack in season to take the last vessel returning down the lakes.  The weather was hazy, warm, and calm, and we could not descry objects at any considerable distance.  If we were not in “Sleepy Hollow” while descending the broad valley and stretched out waters of the St. Mary’s, we were, at least, in such a hazy atmosphere, that our eyes might almost as well have been shut.  It seemed an interlude in the weather, between the boisterous winds of autumn and the severe cold of December.  In this maze I came down the river safely, and proceeded to Mackinack, where I remained several days before I found a vessel.  These were days of pleasing moral intercourse at the mission.  I do not recollect how many days the voyage lasted, but it was late in the evening of a day in December, dark and very muddy when the schooner dropped anchor off the city, and I plodded my way from the shore to the Old Stone Mansion House in Detroit.

HISTORICAL DISCOURSE.—­Mr. Madison, the Ex-president, transmits a very neat and terse note of acknowledgment for a copy of my address, in the following words, which are quite a compensation for the time devoted to its composition:—­

“J.  Madison, with his respects to Mr. Schoolcraft, thanks him for the copy of his valuable discourse before ’the Historical Society of Michigan.’  To the seasonable exhortation it gives to others, it adds an example which may be advantageously followed.” (Oct. 23d.)

HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF RHODE ISLAND.—­I received a copy of a circular issued by this institution (Nov. 1), asking Congress for aid in the transcription of foreign historical manuscripts.  “We alone, (almost,)” say the committee, “among nations, have it in our power to trace clearly, certainly, and satisfactorily, at a very trifling expense, the whole of our career, from its very outset, throughout