13th.  The Chippewa Indians say that the woods and shores, bays and islands, are inhabited by innumerable spirits, who are ever wakeful and quick to hear everything during the summer season, but during the winter, after the snow falls, these spirits appear to exist in a torpid state, or find their abodes in inanimate bodies.  The tellers of legends and oral tales among them are, therefore, permitted to exercise their fancies and functions to amuse their listeners during the winter season, for the spirits are then in a state of inactivity, and cannot hear.  But their vocation as story tellers is ended the moment the spring opens.  The shrill piping of the frog, waking from his wintry repose, is the signal for the termination of their story craft, and I have in vain endeavored to get any of them to relate this species of imaginary lore at any other time.  It is evaded by some easy and indifferent remark.  But the true reason is given above.  Young and old adhere to this superstition.  It is said that, if they violate the custom, the snakes, toads, and other reptiles, which are believed to be under the influence of the spirits, will punish them.

It is remarkable that this propensity of inventing tales and allegories, which is so common to our Indians, is one of the most general traits of the human mind.  The most ancient effort of this kind by far, in the way of the allegorical, is in the following words:  “The Thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the Cedar, saying, give thy daughter to my son to wife:  and there passed by a wild beast and trod down the Thistle.” (2 Kings, xiv. 9.)

April 5th.  A representative in Congress writes from Washington:  “The House moves very slowly in its business—­that is, the business of the nation.  The principal object seems to be to make or unmake a President.”

6th.  The Rev. Benj.  Dorr, of Christ Church, Philadelphia, commends to my attentions a Mr. Wagner, a gentleman of intelligence, refinement, and scientific tastes, who leaves that city on a tour to the lakes and St. Anthony’s Falls.  “His object is to see as much as possible, in one summer’s tour, of our great Western World, and I hope he may stop a short time at Mackinack, that he may have an opportunity of forming your acquaintance, of seeing your beautiful island, and examining your splendid cabinet of minerals, which would particularly interest him, as he, has a taste for geological studies.”

8th.  Hon. A. Vanderpool, M.C. from N.Y., observes:  “The Senate has, by the casting vote of the Vice President, decided in favor of the Seneca treaty, i.e., that the Indians shall be removed.  Much opposition has been made to the treaty, as you will perceive from the speech of Senator Linn, which I send you.”

It has been alleged against this treaty that it was carried through by the zealous efforts of the persons holding (by an old compact) the reversionary right to the soil after the Senecas should decide to leave it, and that the obvious interests of these persons produced an undue influence on this feature in the result.  It is averred that the Tonewonda band of the Senecas, who hold a separate and valuable reservation on the banks of the Tonewonda River, opposed the proposition altogether, and refused to place their signatures to the instrument.