8th.  Mr. Palfrey acknowledges the safe arrival of my article for the North American Review.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions decline $6000 for the abandoned missionary house at Mackinack, offered under the view of its being converted into a dormitory for receiving Indian visitors at that point under the provisions of the treaty of 1836.

17th.  Received a letter of thanks from old Zachariah Chusco, the converted Jos-sa-keed, for kindness.

23d Received a commission from Gov.  Mason, appointing me a regent of the University of Michigan.

22d.  The Historical Society of Michigan hold their annual meeting at my office.  In the election for officers I was honored by being selected its President.  A deep interest in historical letters had been manifested by this institution since its organization in 1828, particularly in the history of the aboriginal tribes, and means have been put on foot for the collection of facts.  To these, the recent and extraordinary settlement of the country by emigration from the Bast, has added a new branch of inquiry, respecting town, county, and neighborhood settlements.  Much of this is held in the memory of old persons, and will be lost if not gleaned up and preserved in the shape of narratives.  Resolutions for this purpose were adopted, and an appeal made to the legislature to facilitate the collection of pamphlets and printed documents.  Men live so rapidly now that few think of posterity; society hastens at a horse’s pace, and we pass over so large a surface in so short a time, that the historian and antiquarian will stand aghast, in a few years, and exclaim “would that more minute facts were within our reach!”

23d.  The Department at Washington instructs me to examine additional and unsatisfied claims arising under the 5th article of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, and, after submitting them to the Indians, to report them for payment.

28th.  Very different are the diurnal scenes enacted from those which passed before my eyes at the ice-closed post of Mackinack last winter.  Yet in one respect they are entitled to have a similar effect on my mind; it is in the craving that exists to fill the intervals of business with some moral and intellectual occupation that may tend to relieve it of the tedium of long periods of leisure.  When a visitor is dismissed, or a transaction is settled, and the door closes on a man habituated to mental labor, the ever-ready inquiry is, What next?  To sit still—­to do nothing absolutely but to turn over the thoughts of other men, though this be a privilege, is not ultimate happiness.  There is still a void, which the desire to be remembered, or something else, must fill.