24th.  I received instructions from Washington respecting recent murders of Chippewas by the Sioux.  This is a constantly recurring topic for the action of an Indian agent.  Unfortunately, his powers in the matter are only advisory.  The intercourse act does not declare it a crime for one Indian nation to make reprisals, club in hand, on another Indian nation, on the area in which their sovereignty is acknowledged.  It only makes it a criminal offence to kill a white man in such a position, for which his nation can be invaded, and the murderer seized and delivered up to justice.

28th.  Ottawance, chief of the Beaver Islands, died last summer (1834).  Kin-wa-be-kiz-ze, or Man of the Long Stone (noun inanimate), called to day, and announced himself as the successor, and asked for the usual present of tobacco, &c.  By this recognition of the office, his authority was sought to be confirmed.

29th.  Dr. Julius, of Prussia, visited me, being on his return from Chicago.  He evinced a deep interest in the history of the Indian race.  He remarked the strong resemblance they bore in features and manners to the Asiatics.  He had remarked that the Potawattomies seem like dogs, which he observed was also the custom of the Tartars; but that the eyes of the latter were set diagonally, whereas the American Indians had theirs parallel.  In other respects, he saw great resemblances.  He expressed himself as greatly interested in the discovery of an oral literature among the Indians, in the form of imaginative legends.

Gen. Robert Patterson, of Philadelphia, with his daughter and niece, make a brief visit, on their way from Chicago and the West, and view the curiosities of the island.  These visits of gentlemen of wealth, to the great area of the upper lakes, may be noticed as commencing with this year.  People seem to have suddenly waked up in the East, and are just becoming aware that there is a West—­to which they hie, in a measure, as one who hunts for a pleasant land fancied in dreams.  But the great Mississippi Valley is a waking reality.  Fifty years will tell her story on the population and resources of the world.

Sept. 12th.  Received instructions from the Department, to ascertain whether the Indians north of Grand River would sell their lands, and on what terms.  The letter to which this was a reply was the first official step in the causes which led to the treaty of March 28th, 1836.  A leading step in the policy of the Department respecting the tribes of the Upper Lakes.

15th.  The great lakes can no longer be regarded as solitary seas, where the Indian war-whoop has alone for so many uncounted centuries startled its echoes.  The Eastern World seems to be alive, and roused up to the value of the West.  Every vessel, every steamboat, brings up persons of all classes, whose countenances the desire of acquisition, or some other motive, has rendered sharp, or imparted a fresh glow of hope to their eyes.  More persons, of some note or distinction, natives or foreigners, have visited me, and brought me letters of introduction this season, than during years before.  Sitting on my piazza, in front of which the great stream of ships and commerce passes, it is a spectacle at once novel, and calculated to inspire high anticipations of the future glory of the Mississippi Valley.