repid and energetic officer who had planned
and executed this scheme of western exploration gave me a copy of his
official letter to the Secretary of War, warmly approbating the conduct
of Capt. Douglass and myself, as members of the expedition. All its
results were attended with circumstances of high personal gratification.

I left Detroit on the 13th of October at 4 o'clock P.M., in the steamer
"Walk-in-the-Water," the first boat built on the Lake waters, and
reached Black Rock at 7 o'clock in the morning of the 17th, being a
stormy passage, in a weak but elegant boat, of eighty-seven hours. Glad
to set my foot on dry land once more, I hurried on by stage and canal,
and reached Oneida Creek Depot on the 21st at 4 o'clock in the morning,
stopped for breakfast there, and then proceeded on foot, through the
forest, by a very muddy path, to Oneida Castle, a distance of three
miles--my trunk being carried by a man on horseback. Thence I took a
conveyance for Mr. W.H. Shearman's, at Vernon, where I arrived at ten
o'clock A.M.

Capt. Douglass, who had preceded me, wrote from West Point Military
Academy, on the 27th, that in the sudden change of habits he had been
affected with a dreadful influenza. My own health continued to be
unimpaired, and my spirits were buoyant. After a few days' rest, I wrote
a report (Nov. 6th) to the Secretary of War on the metalliferous
character of the Lake Superior country, particularly in relation to its
reported wealth in copper. I proceeded to Albany on the 7th of December,
and arrived the day following, and was cordially greeted by all my
friends and acquaintances. It was my intention to have gone immediately
to New York, but the urgent entreaties of Mr. Carter and others induced
me to defer it. Very little had been said by the members of the party
about a publication. We looked to Capt. Douglass, who was the
topographer and a professor at West Point, to take the lead in the
matter. The death of Mr. Ellicott, Professor of Mathematics at that
institution, who was his father-in-law, and his appointment to the
vacant chair, from that of engineering, placed him in a very delicate
and arduous situation. He has never received credit for the noble manner
in which he met this crisis. He was not only almost immediately required
to teach his class the differential calculus, but the French copy--a
language with which he was not familiar--was the only one employed. He
was therefore not only obliged to s