ence such specimens as can be procured will
almost necessarily prove interesting."

"The Lyceum is about to publish its proceedings. The members are
increasing in numbers and activity. It has been recently agreed that
there shall be at least one paper read at every meeting; this will
ensure attention, and much increase the interest of the meetings. I hope
you may, before long, be able to add your personal attendance."

"I feel it my duty to inform you that the minerals intrusted to my care
are situated in every respect as when left by you; they are, of course,
entirely dependent upon any order you may give concerning them. I do not
think it necessary that you should make any _immediate_ provision for
them, or that there is any cause for uneasiness on their account." [38]

[Footnote 38: Notwithstanding, the collection of specimens referred to
was afterwards most sadly dealt with, and pillaged of its choicest
specimens.]

_19th_. The troops began to set up the pickets of a stockade or fort, to
which the name of "Brady" is given, in allusion to Col. Hugh Brady,
U.S.A. The first canoe crossed the river to-day, although the ice still
lines each shore of the river for several hundred yards in width.

_20th. S_. My sister Maria writes to me: "I fancy, by the description
you have given of your residence and society at the Sault, that you have
enjoyed yourself, and seen as much of the refinements of civilized life
as you would have done in many places less remote. Who have you at the
Sault that writes such pretty poetry? The piece I refer to is signed
Alexina,[39] and is a death-song of an Indian woman at the grave of her
murdered husband."

[Footnote 39: Mrs. Thompson.]

_22d_. One of the principal objections to be urged against the Indian
languages, considered as media of communication, is their cumbrousness.
There is certainly a great deal of verbiage and tautology about them.
The paucity of terms leads not only to the use of figures and metaphors,
but is the cause of circumlocution. This day we had a snow storm.

The Chippewa is, in its structure, what is denominated by Mr. Du Ponceau
"polysynthetic." It seems the farthest removed possible from the
monosyllabic class of languages. I have thought that, if some of its
grammatical principles could be applied to monosyllables, a new language
of great brevity, terseness, regularity, and poetic expressiveness,
might be formed. It would be necessary to restore to its alphab