21st.  Judge McDonnel, of Detroit, reached the island with Captain Clark of St. Clair, these gentlemen having been engaged since spring, in a careful and elaborate appraisement of the Indian improvements, under the 8th article of the treaty of 28th March, 1836.  They commenced their labor in the Grand River Valley, and continued it along the entire eastern coast of Lake Michigan, to Michilimackinack, not omitting anything which could, by the most liberal construction, be considered “as giving value to the lands ceded.”  Not an apple tree, not a house, or log wigwam, and not an acre, once in cultivation, though now waste, was omitted.

They report the whole number of villages in this district at twenty-two, the whole number of improvements at 485, and the gross population at 3,257 souls.  This population live in log and bark dwellings of every grade, cultivate 2477 acres of land, on which there are 3,212 apple trees; besides old fields, the aggregate value of which is put at $74,998.  They add that these appraisements have been deemed everywhere fully satisfactory to the Indians.

23d.  A poor decrepit Indian woman, who was abandoned on the beach by her relatives some ten days ago, applied for relief.  It is found that she has been indebted for food in the interim to the benevolence of Mrs. Lafromboise.

23d.  “I take the liberty,” says A. W. Buel, Esq., of Detroit, “of addressing you concerning the little book in my possession, touching the early history of New France and the Iroquois.  You may recollect, perhaps, that on one occasion last winter or spring, when you were in this city, I had some conversation with you concerning it.  It is written in French, of old orthography, and was published at Paris, A. D. 1658.  It purports to have been written by a Jesuit, Paul Le Jeune; I am however, inclined to think that it was not all written by him, inasmuch as the orthography of the same Indian words varies in different parts of the book.  It is rather a small duodecimo volume and contains about 210 pages, of rather coarse print.  To give you a better idea of the contents, I will mention the titles of the several chapters.”  These are omitted.

“A few others are appended.  The early history of the Iroquois, and of our own country, even after its settlement by Europeans, you are well aware, is buried in great obscurity.  Even Charlevoix’s Histoire de Nouvelle France, I believe, has never been translated into English.  I have never seen it, if it has been.  That work I suppose to be at present the starting point in the history of the Iroquois and New France, as regards minuteness of detail.