things--"Plant a tree, write a book, build a
house, and get a child." Watts has a deeper tone of morality when
he says--

"We should leave our _names_, our heirs.
Old time and waning moons sweep all the rest away."

_12th_. When last at Washington, Dr. Thornton, of the Patent Office,
detained me some time talking of the powers of the letters of the
English alphabet. He drew a strong line of distinction between the
_names_ and the _sounds_ of the consonants. _L_, for instance, called
_el_, was sounded _le_, &c.

Philology is one of the keys of knowledge which, I think, admits of its
being said that, although it is rather rusty, the rust is, however, a
proof of its antiquity. I am inclined to think that more true light is
destined to be thrown on the history of the Indians by a study of their
languages than of their traditions, or any other feature.

The tendency of modern inquiries into languages seems rather to have
been to multiply than to simplify. I do not believe we have more than
three mother stocks of languages in all the United States east of the
Mississippi, embracing also large portions of territory west of it,
namely, the Algonquin, Iroquois, and what may be called Apallachian.
Perhaps a little Dakota.

_15th_. Our first vessel for the season arrived this day. If by a
patient series of inquiries, during the winter, we had calculated the
appearance of a comet, and found our data verified by its actual
appearance, it could not be a subject of deeper interest than the
bringing ashore of the ship's mail. Had we not gone to so remote a
position, we could not possibly ever have become aware how deeply we are
indebted to the genius and discoveries of Cadmus and Faust, whose true
worshippers are the corps editorial. Now for a carnival of letters.

Reading, reading, reading, "Big and small, scraps and all."

If editors of newspapers knew the avidity with which their articles are
read by persons isolated as we are, I have the charity to believe they
would devote a little more time, and exert a little more candor, in
penning them. For, after all, how large a portion of all that a
newspaper contains is, at least to remote readers, "flat, stale, and
unprofitable." The mind soon reacts, and asks if this be valuable news.

I observed the _Erythronium dens canis_, and _Panax trifolium_ appeared
in flower on the 25th.

_28th_. The schooner "Recovery" arrived from Fort William on the north
shore of Lake S