account
of their execution. The Cortes has been established in Spain, and there
floats a rumor that the _Saint_, the adored Ferdinand, has fled to
France. The public debates in France seem to me to thunder forth, as the
precursor of some event which will yet violently agitate the country.
(Napoleon was now in St. Helena.) The stormy wave of discord has not
subsided. The temple of ambition is not overthrown, and party spirit
will rush to inhabit it. The convulsive struggle for independence in the
South (America) still continues, but civil war appears about to
interrupt its progress. At home all is quiet. A virtuous chief
magistrate and a wise administration must benefit a people so PRONE TO
DOMESTIC FACTION."

This gave me the first glimpse of home and its actualities, and the
letter was refreshing for the sympathies it expresses, after long months
of tugging over portages, and looking about to arrange in the mind
stratifications, to gather specimens of minerals, and fresh water
shells, and watch the strange antics which have been cut over the whole
face of the north-west by the Boulder Group of Rocks.

_Sept_. 6. Mr. C.C. Trowbridge writes from Michilimackinack: "I forward
the specimens collected by Mr. Doty and myself, on the tour (from Green
Bay, on the north shore, to Michilimackinack). The most interesting will
probably be the organic remains. They were collected in Little Noquet
Bay, on the N.E. side, where ridges of limestone show themselves
frequently. Near the top of the package you find a piece of limestone
weighing about two pounds, of which the upper stratum was composed;
there are two pieces of the lower stratum, resembling blue pipestone.
The middle stratum was composed of these remains. About ten miles N.E.
of Great Bay de Noquet, we found flint, or hornstone, in small
quantities in the limestone rocks. There is also a specimen of the
marble, which we saw little of; but since our arrival I am informed
that a large bluff, composed of the same, is seen 30 to 40 miles from
this. The gypsum I picked up on St. Martin's Islands."

On reaching Detroit, Gov. Cass invited Capt. Douglass and myself to
recruit ourselves a few days at his "old mansion of the ancient era." I
examined and put in order my collection of specimens, selecting such as
were designed for various institutions. A local association of persons
inclined to foster literary efforts, under the name of "Detroit Lyceum,"
elected me a member. The int