SOURCE OP ST. Peter's river. 117 



sugar." In this short reply of the Kickapoo, we have a 

 brief sketch of the rude process practised by the Indians 

 in the preparation of the maple sugar. Previously to this 

 they had learned the art of making and using pottery, but 

 had abandoned it for the purpose, as Metea told us, of using 

 wooden troughs, and hot stones, perhaps because their pot- 

 tery did not stand fire well. The evaporation resulting 

 from the action of the hot stones, produced a crystallization 

 of sugar in the trough. Their process was a tedious and 

 imperfect one, which probably required much time before 

 it could be improved ; to use the language of Nacoma, 

 a Delaware, " Brother, there is a great difference between 

 the white man and the Indian ; we believe that we are 

 not endowed with the same natural advantages which you 

 possess, since we discover those things alone which nature 

 places before us ; we derive advantage of such tools and 

 implements as she has provided for us, only so far as 

 they appear to us useful, but without any attempt to in- 

 quire into their nature ; you, on the contrary, have re- 

 ceived from the Master of Life, the disposition to erect to 

 yourselves a system of education that enables you to trea- 

 sure up the knowledge which you may have acquired, to 

 endeavour to prosecute your discoveries, to make new 

 applications of them, and to dive into those things with 

 which you are unacquainted." We shall have an opportu- 

 nity of comparing these ideas of the Delaware chief with the 

 reflexions made by a Sauk Indian, who attended the expe- 

 dition as a guide, and we shall be confirmed in the belief 

 that, with all their apparent contempt for the whites, the In- 

 dians are frequently obliged to acknowledge the superiority 

 of the civilized man, which however they improperly con- 

 sider as the cause, and not as the effect of civilization. 

 The use of salt previously to the arrival of Europeans is 



