“I am now writing these poor lines under a regular storm of smoke-clouds, and chewing tobacco expectorations.  I never experienced so much the benefit of being brought up as a warlike soldier, to stand all that.  However, my courage is sinking down, and, therefore, I shoot ahead to-morrow at day-break, as fast as possible, either by water or by land.  The coaches here are rather comfortable, but extremely slow.

“As I intend to make but a very short stay in St. Louis and Ohio, I’ll not be able to have the pleasure of writing to you again before reaching New York or Havana; but, if you continue always to be, for me, as kind as formerly, I hope you’ll grant me the particular favor of writing to me once in a while.  This will be an impudent theft, on my part, of time so usefully consecrated to scientific pursuits.  Still I flatter myself you’ll pardon it, consequently founded on that (perhaps gratuitous) supposition.  I’ll ask you to direct your letter to Charleston, South Carolina (until called for), towards the middle of the next month, and, if possible, answer me on the following queries:  1.  What are the inducements to imagine that any volcanic action exists in the Porcupine Mountains, and mentioning, approximately, their distance from the Ontonagon River; and their probable influence on the diffusion of the copper ores and copper boulders on its shores? 2.  What are the most accurate or probable limits (by degrees) of the primitive region of North America; and whether it forms any chain, or has any probable communication with all its different branches, or the main ridges of the Cordilleras or Andes? 3.  Is there any remarkable evaporation, or any other hygrometric phenomenon, or influence of currents that sustains the level of Lakes Superior and Michigan, so diametrically opposite in their geographical situation? 4.  What constitutes, mainly, the predominating geognostic features of Lake Superior, the Upper Mississippi, and the Missouri?  I shall be extremely happy to see these problems solved.”

17th.  This day terminated, at St. Mary’s, the melancholy fate of poor Leslie Duncan.  Insanity is dreadful in all its phases.  This man wrote to me early in the spring for some favor, which I granted.  He was a dealer in merchandise, in a small way, at St. Mary’s, where he was known as a reputable, modest, and temperate man, who had been honorably discharged, with some small means, from the army.  He visited Detroit in May to renew his stock.  Symptoms of aberration there showed themselves, which became very decided after his return.  Utter madness supervened.  It was necessary to confine him in a separate building, and to chain him to a post, where he passed five months as an appalling spectacle of a human being, without memory, affection, or judgment, and perpetually goaded by the most raving passion.  It appeared that the piles—­a disease under which he had suffered for many years—­had been cured by exsection or scarifying, which healed the issue, but threw the blood upon his brain.