essential to their true
understanding and development. A word may be said respecting the manner
of the record which is thus exhibited:--

The time is fixed by quoting exactly the dates, and the names of persons
are invariably given wherever they could, with propriety, be employed;
often, indeed, in connection with what may be deemed trivial
occurrences; but these were thought essential to the proper relief and
understanding of more important matters. Indeed, a large part of the
journal consists of extracts from the letters of the individuals
referred to; and in this way it is conceived that a good deal of the
necessarily offensive character of the egotism of journalism is got rid
of. No one will object to see his name in print while it is used to
express a kind, just, or noble sentiment, or to advance the cause of
truth; and, if private names are ever employed for a contrary purpose, I
have failed in a designed cautiousness in this particular. Much that
required disapprobation has been omitted, which a ripening judgment and
more enlarged Christian and philosophic view has passed over; and much
more that invited condemnation was never committed to paper. Should
circumstances favor it, the passages which are omitted, but approved, to
keep the work in a compact shape, will be hereafter added, with some
pictorial illustrations of the scenery.

The period referred to, is one of considerable interest. It is the
thirty years that succeeded the declaration of war by the United
States, in 1812, against Great Britain, and embraces a large and
important part of the time of the settlement of the Mississippi Valley,
and the great lake basins. During this period ten States have been added
to the Union. Many actors who now slumber in their graves are called up
to bear witness. Some of the number were distinguished men; others the
reverse. Red and white men alike express their opinions. Anecdotes and
incidents succeed each other without any attempt at method. The story
these incidentally tell, is the story of a people's settling the
wilderness. It is the Anglo-Saxon race occupying the sites of the Indian
wigwams. It is a field in which plumed sachems, farmers, legislators,
statesmen, speculators, professional and scientific men, and
missionaries of the gospel, figure in their respective capacities.
Nobody seems to have set down to compose an elaborate letter, and yet
the result of the whole, viewed by the philosophic eye, is a broad