United States.  On consultation with the band, these marks of authority were finally awarded to WABEZHAIS.  Presents, including the last of my dry goods, were then distributed.  Among them, was a small piece of fine scarlet cloth, but too little to make a present to each.  The divider of the goods, which were given in camp, who was Indian, when he came to this tore it into small strips, so as to make a head-band or baldric for each.  The utmost exactness of division was observed in everything.

ORIFICES FOR TREADING OUT RICE.—­I saw artificial orifices in the ground near our encampment.  On inquiry, I learned that these were used for treading out the wild rice.  A skin is put in these holes which are filled with ears.  A man then treads out the grain.  This appears to be the only part of rice making that is performed by the men.  The women gather, dry, and winnow it.

A LIVE BEAVER.—­The Indians brought into camp one morning, while I was at Rice Lake, a young beaver; an animal more completely amphibious, it would be difficult to find.  The head and front part of the body resemble the muskrat.  The fore legs are short, and have five toes.  The hind legs are long, stout, and web-footed.  The spine projects back in a thick mass, and terminates in a spatula-shaped tail, naked and scale-form.  The animal is young, and was taken about ten days ago.  Previously to being brought in, it had been taken out in a canoe into the lake, and immersed.  It appeared to be cold, and shivered slightly.  Its hair was saturated with water, and it made use of its fore paws in attempts to express the water, sometimes like a cat, and at others, like a squirrel.  It sat up, like the latter, on its hind legs, and ate bread in the manner of a squirrel.  In this position it gave some idea of the kangaroo.  Its color was a black body, brownish on the cheeks and under the body.  The eye small and not very brilliant.  Its cry is not unlike that of a young child.  The owner said, it would eat rice and fish.  It was perfectly tamed in this short time, and would run to its owner.

NOTICES OF NATURAL HISTORY.—­I took out of the bed of the river, in the descent below Red Cedar Lake, a greenish substance attached to stone, having an animal organization resembling the sponge.  In our descent, the men caught, and killed with their poles, a proteus.  The wild rice, which fills this part of the river, is monoecious.  The river abounds in muscles, among which the species of unios is common, but not of large size, so far as we observed.  The forest growth improves about this point, and denotes a better soil and climate.  Pine species are still present, but have become more mixed with hard wood, and what the French canoe-men denominate “Bois Franc.”

VALUE OF THE FOLLEAVOINE FORK.—­The name by which this tributary of the Chippewa is called, on the Lake Superior side, namely, Red Cedar, is quite inappropriate.  Above Rice Lake it is characterized by the wild rice plant, and the name of Folleavoine, which we found in use on the Mississippi border, better expresses its character.  The lower part of the stream appears to be not only more plenteous in the class of resources on which an Indian population rely, but far better adapted to the purposes of agriculture, grazing, and hydraulics.