430 LEWIS HENRY MORGAN, LL.D. 



prises, from which he derived a considerable property, caused him 

 gradually to withdraw from the practice of his profession, and induced 

 him to make excursions into what was then the wilderness of Northern 

 Michigan. It was during these explorations that he became interested 

 in the habits and works of the Beaver, — a study which he followed for 

 several years as opportunities offered, and the results of which he gave 

 to the world, in 1868, in an octavo volume entitled "The American 

 Beaver and his Works." This is a most thorough and interesting bio- 

 logical treatise, of which the late Dr. Jeffries Wyman remarked that 

 it came the nearest to perfection of any work of its kind he had ever 

 read. 



It is however to his labors in anthropology that Mr. Morgan owes 

 his wide-spread flime, and it is of interest to note the probable cause 

 of his turning his attention to the study of Indian life. On his return 

 from college he joined a secret society, known as the " Gordian Knot," 

 composed of the young men of the village. Chiefly by his influence, 

 this society was enlarged and reorganized, and became the " New Con- 

 federacy of the Iroquois." The society held its councils in the woods 

 at night. It was founded upon the ancient Confederacy of the Five 

 Nations ; and its symbolic council-fires were kindled upon the an- 

 cient territories of the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the 

 Caj'ugas, and the Senecas. Its objects were to gather the fragments 

 of the history, institutions, and government of the Indians and to en- 

 courage a kinder feeling towards them. A friend writes that " many 

 of its members have since become distinguished in various walks of 

 life, but upon none of them was its influence so persuasive and so 

 permanent as upon Mr. Morgan. It gave direction to his thought, 

 and stimulus to his energies. In order that it might be in conformity 

 with its model, he visited the tribes in New York and Canada, even 

 then remnants, but retaining, so far as they were able, their ancient 

 laws and customs. These he investigated, and soon became deeply 

 interested in them." 



On his removal to Rochester his studies of Jndian institutions were 

 continued, and in 1846 he attended day after day a Grand Council 

 of the Indians at the Tonawanda reservation ; and in April of the 

 same year he went to Washington to plead in behalf of the Indians 

 against tlie great injustice done them in taking away some of their 

 lands. While on this journey he attended a meeting of the New York 

 Historical Society, of which he had been elected a member, and read 

 his first public paper on the subject to which he had given so much 

 time and thought. This paper is not printed in the " Proceedings 



