308 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



completed by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake in 

 1832. The whole of Mr. Schoolcraft's earlier life and work 

 up to this time is recorded, mostly from day to day, in his 

 Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the 

 Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, etc., 1812 to 1842, a 

 book having " the flavour of the time, with its motley incident 

 on the frontier, with Indian chiefs, trappers, government 

 employees, chance travelers, rising legislators, farmers, min- 

 isters of the gospel, all standing out with more or less of indi- 

 viduality in the formative period of the country." This book 

 abounds with evidence of Mr. Schoolcraft's scientific and liter- 

 ary activity, as well as of his efficiency in work in whatever 

 field. As early as 1820 we find a letter from Amos Eaton, 

 asking him for information for the second edition of his In- 

 dex to Geology, respecting the secondary and alluvial forma- 

 I tions and the strata of the Rocky Mountains. Dr. Samuel 

 Mitchell writes him, in 1821, about the shells and other speci- 

 mens he has sent, including a " sandy fungus," and inviting 

 specimens for the cabinet of the Emperor of Austria. Profs. 

 Silliman and Hall acknowledge the value of his examination 

 of the mining regions of Missouri ; Prof. Silliman asks for 

 articles for his journal ; and Sir Humphry Davy thinks his 

 book would sell well in England. Prof. Cleaveland writes 

 him, in 1827, that he is about preparing a new edition of 

 his work on mineralogy, and solicits the communication of 

 new localities. In the same year Mr. Schoolcraft himself 

 writes that the collection he made in Missouri, etc., in 1819, 

 appears to have had an effect on the prevalent taste for 

 those subjects, " and at least it has fixed the eyes of natural- 

 ists on my position on the frontiers." Mr. Peter S. Dupon- 

 ceau addresses him, in 1834, on the structure of the Indian 

 languages, " in terms which are very complimentary, coming, 

 as they do, as a voluntary tribute from a person whom I never 

 saw, and who has taken the lead in investigations on this ab- 

 struse topic in America." He pronounces Mr. Schoolcraft's 

 book on the Chippewa languages one of the most philosoph- 

 ical works on the Indian languages which he has ever read. 

 In another letter Mr. Duponceau acknowledges having used 

 Mr. Schoolcraft's grammar, giving due credit, in preparing a 

 prize essay for the Institute of France, on the grammatical 

 structure of Indian languages. Dr. Thomas H. Webb, of 



