Eighteen hundred and forty-six saw also in book form Cooper's "Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers," which had already appeared in Graham's Magazine. Many of these eminent men had been the author's friends and messmates in early life. In 1847 "The Crater, or Vulcan's Peak—A Tale of the Pacific," came from Cooper's pen. The Introduction states that
the book was written from the journal of a distinguished member of the Woolston family of Pennsylvania, who "struggled hard to live more in favor with God than in favor with man," and quotes that warning text of Scripture: "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall!" and adds, "we have endeavored to imitate the simplicity of Captain Woolston in writing this book." The story of "a ship-wrecked mariner, cast away on a reef not laid down on any chart." This barren spot the castaway makes to bloom as a rose, then brings immigrants to his Pacific Eden, which finally vanishes like a dream. The work is said to be an excellent study of the author's own character.
Full of spirit and vigor at fifty-eight, Mr. Cooper in June, 1847, made a pleasant few weeks' visit to the middle west, going as far as Detroit. The country beyond Seneca Lake—the prairies and fine open groves of Michigan—was new to him. Affluent towns with well-tilled lands between, full of mid-summer promise, where forty years before he had crossed a wilderness, gave added interest to the entire way. He was far more deeply impressed with sublime Niagara than in his earlier years and before he had seen
all the falls of Europe. The idea of weaving its majesty into an Indian story came to him, but, alas! was never written.
He was pleased with the growth and promise of Buffalo and Detroit, was charmed with "the beautiful flowery prairies and natural groves of Michigan," and wrote of them: "To get an idea of Prairie Round,—imagine an oval plain of some thirty-thousand acres, of surprising fertility, without an eminence; a few small cavities, however, are springs of water the cattle will drink." In the prairie's center was a forest island of some six hundred acres "of the noblest native trees," and in the heart of this
wood was a small round lake a quarter of a mile across. Into this scene Cooper called some creatures of his fancy; among them a bee-hunter, suggested by the following incident.
