classes of natural history spoken of, it is not only unjust in a high degree, but an evidence of overweening self-complaisance, imprecision of thought, or arrogance.  No trait of the American scientific character has been more uniformly and highly approbated, by the foreign journals of England, France, and Germany, than its capacity to accumulate, discriminate, and describe facts.  For fourteen years past Silliman’s Journal of Science, though not exclusively devoted to natural sciences, has kept both the scientific and the popular intelligent mind of the public well and accurately advised of the state of natural science the world over.  Before it, Bruce’s Mineralogical Journal, though continued but for a few years, was eminently scientific, Cleaveland’s Mineralogy has had the effect to diffuse scientific knowledge not only among men of science, but other classes of readers.  In ornithology, in conchology, and especially in botany, geology and mineralogy, American mind has proved itself eminently fitted for the highest tasks.

A REMINISCENCE.—­When I returned from the West to the city of New York in 1819, Mr. John Griscomb was a popular lecturer on chemistry in the old almshouse.  He apprised me that the peculiar friable white clay, which I had labeled chalk from its external characters, contained no carbonic acid.  It was a chemical fact that impressed me.  I was reminded of this fact, and of his friendly countenance, ever after, on receiving a letter of introduction from him by a Mr. William R. Smith, with three volumes of his writings (28th May).  I am satisfied that we store up the memory of a kind or friendly act, however small (if it be done in a crisis of our affairs), as long as, and more tenaciously than, an unkind one.

VOYAGE INLAND.—­At length, all things being ready, I embarked at the head of the portage of the St. Mary’s, and proceeded to the small sandy plain at the foot of Point Iroquois, at the entrance into Lake Superior, where I encamped.  To this point I was accompanied by Mrs. Schoolcraft and the children, and Lt.  Allen and the Miss Johnstons, the day being calm and delightful, and the views on every hand the most enchanting and magnificent.  While at Detroit during the winter, I had invited Dr. Douglass Houghton to accompany me to vaccinate the Indians.  He was a man of pleasing manners and deportment, small of stature, and of a compact make, and apparently well suited to withstand the fatigues incidental to such a journey.  He was a good botanist and geologist—­objects of interest to me at all times; but especially so now, for I should have considered it inexcusable to conduct an expedition into the Indian country, without collecting data over and above the public duties, to understand its natural history.  I charged myself, on this occasion, more particularly with the Indian subject—­their manners and customs, conditions, languages, and history, and the policy best suited to advance them in the scale of thinking beings, responsible for their acts, moral and political.