8th.  Mr. L. M. Warren reports from La Pointe, at the head of Lake Superior:  “Since my last, Mr. Ayer has arrived from Sandy Lake.  He reports that there have been two war parties sent out against the Sioux, by the Sandy Lake Band, thirty or forty men each, without accomplishing anything.  Afterwards a third party of sixty men assembled and went out under the command of Songegomik—­a young chief of distinguished character of the Sandy Lake Band.  They discovered a Sioux camp of nineteen lodges, and succeeded in approaching them before daylight undiscovered, until they reached, in the form of a circle, within ten yards.  They then opened a tremendous fire, and, as fast as the Sioux attempted to come from their lodges, they were shot dead, The yelling of Indians, screaming of women, and crying of children were distressing.  One Sioux escaped unhurt, and notified a neighboring camp.  Their approach to the assistance of their friends was ascertained by a distant firing of guns.  The Chippewas, who by this time had exhausted their ammunition, began, and effected a retreat, leaving nineteen of their enemy dead, and forty wounded.  This victory was achieved without the loss of a man on the part of the Chippewas.

“Since that battle was fought, a body of one hundred Sioux have attacked a fortified camp of the Mille Lac and Snake River band, and killed nine men and one woman.”

18th.  Mr. Trowbridge writes from Detroit:  “We have just heard of the adjournment of Congress; a new tariff has been passed, together with a law empowering the President to enforce the collection of duties by calling in aid the force of the Union.  These bills are accompanied by Mr. Clay’s Law of Compromise, providing for the gradual reduction of duties to a revenue standard.  So that the dreaded Carolina question will, it is supposed, blow over, leaving the Union as it was.  The great men, too, who have been on opposite sides of this question, have shaken hands at parting, and this is looked upon as another auspicious sign.

“The release of the missionaries in Georgia, having settled that disagreeable and disgraceful affair to the State, although not done with that magnanimity which ought to have characterized the proceeding, leaves no general question at issue, but the Indian question; and from the prudent measures of government in that regard, it is to be hoped that that also will be, at length, amicably arranged.

“I mention these facts because I am told that no newspapers will be sent to the upper country.”

18th.  Lieut.  J. Allen, U.S.A., way topographer on the recent expedition, sends me maps of Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Itasca Lake, to be used in my narrative of the journey to the source of the Mississippi River.  Correspondents appear solicitous for a published account of this expedition, and frequently allude to it, and to the opportunity it gave for extending our knowledge of the geology and natural history of the country.