“I found Mr. Keating’s account of the Mississippi, and especially of the St. Peter’s, most surprisingly erroneous, and old Jonathan Carver’s book, which he is constantly denouncing, very accurate.

“I ascertained, to my perfect satisfaction, the termination of the horizontal beds of sandstone of carboniferous limestone formation, and came upon the outcrop of the adjacent granite, just where I expected to find the primary rocks.”

“You will greatly oblige me by communicating to me your opinion, approximatively, of the course held by the primary rocks south of Lake Superior, as far as you are acquainted with it, or with the edges of the secondary rocks, which have a junction line with, or near them.  I found no primary rocks on my way from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien.  The rocks in place at Fort Winnebago, are secondary sandstone of the carboniferous series.”

2d.  The question of “inscriptions” on rocks by the aborigines has recently attracted some attention.  Dr. Thomas H. Webb, of Providence, Rhode Island, in a letter of this date, notifying me of my election as an honorary member of the Rhode Island Historical Society, calls my attention to this subject.  “In your last work,” he remarks, “you allude to some hieroglyphics on a tree.  Have you particularly examined any on rocks; and if so, were they mere paintings, or were they inscribed thereon?  If the latter, in what manner do they appear to have been done—­pecked in with a pointed instrument, or chizzled out?  Are they simply representations of men and animals, without method in their arrangement, or combinations of these, with other characters bearing evidence of greater design?  Will you be kind enough to furnish me with the locations of those with which you are acquainted?  Is it possible for me to procure drawings of them?  Do you know any one living near such rocks, whom I could hire to take copies of them, and upon the accuracy of whose work reliance can be placed?

“I do not wish finished views—­correct drawings of the characters with a pen will be amply sufficient for my purposes; although I should not object to outlines of the rocks themselves.  I would also ask if some of the ‘relics of things that have passed away,’ which are found so abundantly in the west, e.g., articles of pottery, iron and copper implements, &c., can be procured by purchase, or in the way of exchange for minerals, or in some other way?”

Imprimis—­no “iron” implements have ever been found.  Secondly, no observations not made by an antiquarian can be relied on.

9th.  I embarked for Detroit, on board a schooner under command of an experienced navigator (Capt.  Ward), just on the eve, unknown to us, of a great tempest, which rendered that season memorable in the history of wrecks on the great lakes.  We had scarcely well cleared the light-house, when the wind increased to a gale.  We soon went on furiously.  Sails were reefed, and every preparation