24th.  Washington Irving kindly encloses me a letter to Colonel Aspinwall of London, commending to him my contemplated publication on the oral legends of the North American Indians.  “I regret to say,” he adds, “that the last time he wrote to me, he was in great uneasiness, apprehending the loss of one of his daughters, who appeared to be in a rapid decline.”

25th.  Mrs. Jameson, on returning from her trip to the lakes, writes for my opinion on the causes of the phenomenon of the rise in the waters of the lakes.  Alluding to this subject, the Superintendent of the works in the Ohio says:  “The water of Lake Erie, which has been rising for many years, and has attained a height unequaled in the memory of man, seems to have attained its maximum, and to have commenced its reflux.  Since the first day of June last, as I have ascertained by means of graduated rods at different points along the coast of Lake Erie, the water has fallen perpendicularly nineteen inches, and is still falling.  The meteorological character of the present season, as compared with that of several previous seasons, clearly shows the cause of the rise and fall of the lakes not to be periodical, as has heretofore been asserted, but entirely accidental.  For several years the summers have been cloudy and cold, with a prevalence of easterly winds and rainy weather.  The last summer has been excessively warm for the whole season, and of exceeding drought.  When it is remembered that the amount of water evaporated over the surface of these vast bodies of water, during a period of warm sunny weather, greatly exceeds that which passes the outlet of one of these lakes (Niagara River, for example), the cause of the phenomenon is apparent.”—­See Mr. Barrett’s inquiries, ante.

26th.  The New York Star publishes a notice of Delafield’s Antiquities.  This handsomely printed and illustrated work contains four things that are new to the antiquarian inquirer:  1.  A theory by the author, by which he conceives the Indian race to be descended from the ancient Cuthites, who are Hamitic.  This is wrong. 2.  A curious and valuable pictographic map of the migration of the Aztecs, not heretofore printed.  This is an acquisition. 3.  A disquisition of Dr. Lakey, of Cincinnati, on the superiority of the northern to the southern race of red men.  This seems true. 4.  A preface, by Bishop McIlvaine, showing the importance in all inquiries of the kind, of keeping the record of the Bible strictly in view.  This is right.

27th.  The Houston Telegraph of this date gays:  “A party of about eighty men from Bastrop County, accompanied by Castro and forty Lipan warriors, recently made an expedition into the Comanche country, and, near the San Saba, attacked and routed a large body of Comanches, who, with their women and children, were encamped on a small branch of the stream.  About thirty of the Comanche warriors were killed in the engagement, many huts