he post of topographer, by no means underrated
the subject, but deferred it, and, by accepting the Professorship of
Mathematics at West Point, assumed a duty which made it literally
impossible, though he did not see it immediately, that he should do
justice to his own notes. I simply went forward because no one of the
members of the expedition offered to. I had kept a journal from the
first to the last day, which I believe no one else had. I had been
diligent in the morning and evening in observing every line of coast and
river. I never allowed the sun to catch me asleep in my canoe or boat. I
had kept the domestic, as well as the more grave and important events. I
was importuned to give them to the public. I had written to Douglass
about it, but he was dilatory in answering me, and when at last he did,
and approved my suggestion for a joint work in which our observations
should be digested, it was too late, so far as my narrative went, to
withdraw it from my publishers. But I pledged to him at once my
geological and mineralogical reports, and I promptly sent him my
portfolio of sketches to embellish his map. This is simply the history
of the publication of my narrative journal.

My position was, at this time, personally agreeable. My room was daily
visited by literary and scientific men. I was invited to the mansions of
distinguished men, who spoke of my recent journey as one implying
enterprise. Nothing, surely, when I threw myself into the current of
western emigration, in 1817, was farther from my thoughts than my being
an instrumental cause, to much extent, in stirring up and awakening a
zeal for scientific explorations and researches. The diurnal press,
however, gave this tone to the thing. The following is an extract:--[10]

[Footnote 10: A New York Statesman, Jan. 1821.]

"During the last year, an expedition was authorized by the National
Government, which left Detroit some time in the month of May, under the
personal orders of Governor Cass, of the Michigan Territory, provided
with the necessary means of making observations upon the topography,
natural history, and aborigines of the country. We have had an
opportunity of conversing with one of the gentlemen who accompanied
Governor Cass in the expedition, Mr. H.R. Schoolcraft, who has recently
returned to this city, bringing a large collection of mineral and other
substances, calculated to illustrate the natural history of the regions
visited. We learn that t