“This is the anniversary of our national independence, and ought to be celebrated with thanksgiving and praise to God.  Alas! how it is perverted.”

22d.  Mr. Green, of the Missionary Rooms, Boston, again writes about the Mackinack Mission.  “I believe that my views accord very nearly with your own, as to what it would be desirable to do, provided the suitable persons could be procured to perform the work.  There is a great deficiency in well qualified laborers.  We can generally obtain persons who will answer our purpose, if we will wait long enough, but it often happens, in the mean time, that the circumstances so change that the proposed plan becomes of doubtful expediency.  We have been continually on the lookout, since Mr. Ferry left Mackinack, for some one to fill his place, but as yet have found no one, and have no one in view.”

28th.  Mr. W. Fred. Williams, of Buffalo, communicates information respecting three boxes of specimens of natural history, which I lost in the fall of 1821.  “My conversation with you having made me acquainted with the fact that you once lost two boxes of minerals and one of shells, I have been rather on the lookout for information respecting them, and am now able to inform you as to what became of them, and to correct the statement which I made (as I said) on supposition of the manner in which Edgerton became possessed of them.

“In the spring of 1832, a stranger from Troy or Albany came to Mr. Edgerton, at Utica, and told him that he had two boxes of minerals which he had received from Mr. Schoolcraft, and that if he (E.) would label them, he (E.) might take what he wished to retain for his trouble.  He said, also, that he was about to establish a school at Lockport, but, knowing nothing of mineralogy, he wished to get the specimens labeled.  Mr. Edgerton unpacked the boxes, took a few for himself, labeled and repacked the rest, and returned them to the stranger.

“The box of shells was left at the tavern of Levi Cozzens, in Utica, where they remained two years, waiting for some one to claim them; about this time Mr. C., closing up his concern, opened the box and gave the shells to his children for playthings, and sent the mocock of sugar (which had your name on or about it) to his mother.  If the person who had the minerals still remains at Lockport, perhaps they may be recovered, but the shells are all destroyed.”

The minerals referred to consisted of choice and large specimens of the colored and crystaline fluates of lime from Illinois, and the attractive species and varieties of sulphates of barytes, sulphurets of lead, radiated quartz, &c. &c., from Missouri, which I had revisited in 1821.  They were fine cabinet specimens, but contained no new species or varieties.  Not so with the fresh-water shells.  They embraced all the species of the Wabash River, whose entire length I had traversed that year, from its primary forks to its entrance into the Ohio.  Among them were some new things, which would, at that time, have proved a treat to my conchological friends.