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Jan. 29th. Mr. McNabb says: "I have just received a
specimen of excellent pit-coal from Tioga county, Pennsylvania, near
the head of the south branch of the Tioga River, and about twenty
miles south from Painted Post, in Steuben County. The quantity is
said to be inexhaustible, and what renders it of still greater
importance is, that arks and rafts descend from within four or five
miles of the mines."
New Gazetteer of New York.--Mr. Carter writes (Feb. 5th)
inauspiciously of the course of affairs at Washington, as not
favoring the spirit of exploration. He proposes, in the event of my
not receiving the contemplated appointment, the plan of a Gazetteer
of New York, on an enlarged and scientific basis. "I have often
expressed to you my opinion of the Spafford Gazetteer of this State.
It is wholly unworthy of public patronage, and would not stand in
the way of a good work of the kind; and such a one, I have the
vanity to believe, our joint efforts could produce. It would be a
permanent work, with slight alterations, as the State might undergo
changes. My plan would be for you to travel over the State, and make
a complete mineralogical, and geological, and statistical survey of
it, which would probably take you a year or more. In the mean time,
I would devote all my leisure to the collection and arrangement of
such other materials as we should need in the compilation of the
work."
Feb. 18th. Professor Dewy writes, vindicating my views of the
Huttonian doctrines, respecting the formation of secondary rocks,
which he had doubted, on the first perusal of my memoir of the
fossil tree of Illinois.
Feb. 20th. Caleb Atwater, Esq., of Circleville, Ohio, the
author of the antiquarian papers in the first volume of
Archaeologiae Americana, writes on the occasion of my geological
memoir. He completely confounds the infiltrated specimen of an
entire tree, in the external strata, and of a recent age, which is
prominently described in my paper, with ordinary casts and
impressions of organic remains in the elder secondary rock column.
Feb. 24th. Mr. McNabb communicates further facts and
discoveries of the mineral wealth, resources, and prospects of
Western New York and Pennsylvania.
* * * * *
Narrative Journal.--Professor Silliman (March 5th)
communicates an extract of a letter to him from Daniel Wadsworth,
Esq., of Hartford, to whom he had loaned my Narrative.
"I have been very much entertained with the tour to the western
lakes. I think Mr. Schoolcraft writes in a most agreeable manner;
there is such an entire absence of affectation in all he says, as
well as his manner of saying it, that no one can help being
exceedingly pleased, even if the book had not in any other respect a
great deal of merit. The whole seems such real and such absolute
matter of fact, that I feel as if I had performed the journey with
the traveller.
"All I regret about it is that it was not consistent with his plans
to tell us more of what might be considered the domestic part
of the expedition, the character and conduct of those who were of
the party, their health, difficulties, opinions, and treatment of
each other, &c. &c. As his book was a sort of official work, I
suppose he thought this would not do, and I wish he now would give
his friends (and let us be amongst them) a manuscript of the
particulars that are not for the public. Mrs. W. has also been as
much pleased as myself."
Under the date of March 22d, Sir Humphrey Davy, in a private letter
to Dr. Hosack, says:--
"Mr. Schoolcraft's narrative is admirable, both for the facts it
develops and for the simplicity and clearness of the details; he has
accomplished great things by such means, and offers a good model for
a traveler in a new country. I lent his book to our veteran
philosophical geographer, Major Rennel, who was highly pleased with
it; copies of it would sell well in England."
Dr. Silliman apprises me that Professor Douglass expects my
geological report as part of his work.
Having now finished my geological report, I determined to take it to
Washington. On reaching New York, I took lodgings at the Franklin
House, then a private boarding-house, where my friends, Mr. Carter
and Colonel Haines, had rooms. While here, I was introduced one day
to a man who subsequently attracted a good deal of notice as a
literary impostor. This was a person named Hunter. He said that he
derived this name from his origin in the Indian country. He had a
soft, compliant, half quizzical look, and appeared to know nothing
precisely, but dealt in vague accounts and innuendoes. Having gone
to London, the booksellers thought him, it appears, a good subject
for a book, and some hack was employed to prepare it. It had a very
slender basis in any observations which this man was capable of
furnishing; but abounded in misstatements and vituperation of the
policy of this government respecting the Indians. This fellow is
handled in the Oct. No. of the North American Review, for
1825, in a manner which gives very little encouragement to literary
adventurers and cheats. The very man, John Dunn, of Missouri, after
whom he affected to have been named, denies that he ever heard of
him.
I had, thus far, seen but little of the Atlantic, except what could
be observed in a trip from New Orleans to New York, and knew very
little of its coasts by personal examination. I had never seen more
of the Chesapeake than could be shown from the head of that noble
bay, and wished to explore the Valley of the Potomac. For this
purpose, I took passage in a coasting vessel at New York, and had a
voyage of a novel and agreeable kind, which supplied me with the
desired information. At Old Point Comfort, I remained at the hotel
while the vessel tarried. In ascending the Potomac one night, while
anchored, a negro song was wafted in the stillness of the
atmosphere. I could distinctly hear the following words:--
Gentlemen, he come from de Maryland shore,
See how massa gray mare
go.
Go, gray, go,
Go, gray, go;
See how massa gray mare go.
I reached Washington late in March, and sent in my geological report
on the 2d of April. Mr. Calhoun, who acknowledged it on the 6th,
referred it to the Topographical Bureau. Some question, connected
with the establishment of an agency in Florida, complicated my
matter. Otherwise it appeared to be a mere question of time. The
Secretary of War left me no room to doubt that his feelings were
altogether friendly. Mr. Monroe was also friendly.
Additional Judicial District in Michigan.--J.D. Doty, Esq.,
wrote to me (April 8th) on this subject. So far as my judgment and
observation went, they were favorable to this project. Besides, if I
was to become an inhabitant of the district, as things now boded, it
would be desirable to me to dwell in a country where the laws, in
their higher aspects, were periodically administered. I had,
therefore, every reason to favor it.
Skeptical Views of the Mosaical Chronology.--Baptiste Irvine,
Esq., in referring to some criticism of his in relation to the
discovery of fossils by a distinguished individual, brings this
subject forward in a letter of April 19th. This individual had
written to him, impugning his criticisms.
"I regret," he observes, "the cause, and shall endeavor to give
publicity to his (my friend's) observations; though hardly necessary
to him, they may yet awaken some ideas in the minds of the people on
the wonders of physics I had almost said the slow miracles of
creation. For if ever there was a time when matter existed not,
it is pretty evident that millions of years were necessary to
establish order on chaos, instead of six days. Let Cuvier, &c.,
temporize as they may. However, it is the humble allotment of the
herd to believe or stare; it is the glory of intelligent men to
acquire and admire." "For the memoir I am very thankful, and I
perceive it alters the case."
April 22d. Mount Vernon.--In a pilgrimage to this spot, if
political veneration may assume that name, I was accompanied by
Honorable Albert H. Tracy, Mr. Ruggles, and Mr. Alfred Conkling of
the House of Representatives, all of New York. We took a carriage,
and reached the hallowed place in good season, and were politely
admitted to all the apartments and grounds, which give interest to
every tread. I brought some pebbles of common quartz and bits of
brown oxide of iron, from the top of the rude tomb, and we all broke
branches of the cedars growing there. We gazed into the tomb,
through an aperture over the door, where bricks had been removed,
and thought, at last, that we could distinguish the coffin.
Human Feet figured on Rock at St. Louis.--The Honorable
Thomas H. Benton, in a letter of 29th April, expresses the opinion
that these are antiquities, and not "prints," and that they are of
the age of the mounds on the American bottom.
Mineralogy.--J.D. Doty, Esq., transmits (May 6th) from the
vicinity of Martinsburg, New York, specimens of the geological
structure of that neighborhood.
Austin's Colony.--"What you have said to me heretofore,
concerning Mr. Austin's settlement in Texas, has rather turned my
attention in that direction. Have you any means of communicating
with your friend? What are your views of that country?"
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Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the
Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, 1851
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Years with the Indians
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