Scientific.
AM I A SCOT, OR AM I NOT?
If I should bring a wagon o'er
From Scotland to Columbia's shore,
And by successive wear and tear
The wagon soon should need repair:
Thus, when the tires are worn through,
Columbia's iron doth renew;
Likewise the fellies, hubs, and spokes
Should be replaced by Western oaks;
In course of time down goes the bed,
But here's one like it in its stead.
So bit by bit, in seven years,
All things are changed in bed and gears,
And still it seems as though it ought
To be the one from Scotland brought;
But when I think the matter o'er,
It ne'er was on a foreign shore,
And all that came across the sea
Is only its identity.
I came, a Scotchman, understand,
By choice, to live in this free land,
Wherein I've dwelt, from day to day,
'Till sixteen years have passed away.
If physiology be true,
My body has been changing too;
And though at first it did seem strange,
Yet science doth confirm the change;
And since I have the truth been taught,
I wonder If I'm now a Scot?
Since all that came across the sea
Is only my identity.
—Wm. Taylor, in Scientific American.
Primitive Northwest.
Mr. C.W. Butterfield contributes an article on the Primitive Northwest, to last number of the American Antiquarian. He says that early in the seventeenth century French settlements, few in number, were scattered along the wooded shores of the river St. Lawrence in Canada. To the westward, upon the Ottowa river, and the Georgian bay, were the homes of Indian nations with whom these settlers had commercial relations, and among some of whom were located Jesuit missionaries. In the year 1615, Lake Huron was discovered. To it was given the name of the Fresh Sea (Mer Douce). But, as yet, no white man had set foot upon any portion of what now constitutes the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Eastern Minnesota. And thereafter, for nearly a score of years this whole region remained, so far as the visitation of white men was concerned, an undiscovered country; and such it continued down to the year 1684. However, previous to this date, something had been learned by the French settlers upon the St. Lawrence, of this (to them) far off land; but the information has been obtained wholly from the Indians. This knowledge was of necessity crude and, to a considerable extent, uncertain. Such of it as has been preserved is properly treated of under the following heads: First, as to what had been gleaned concerning the physical aspects of the country; second, as to what had been brought to light relative to the various tribes inhabiting this region.
Previous to 1634, nothing had been learned of Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair, or Lake Michigan although it was understood there was some kind of a water-way connecting the Fresh Sea (Lake Huron) with Ontario. A little knowledge had been gained of a great body of fresh water lying beyond the "Mer Douce," "a grand lac," so called by the French—now known as Lake Superior. The length of this superior lake with that of the Fresh Sea (Lake Huron), the Indians declared was a journey of full thirty days in canoes. At the outlet of the great lake was what was described by the savages, as a considerable rapid, to which the French gave the name of "Sault de Gaston," the present Sault St. Marie, in the St. Mary's river, the stream, which, it is well known, flows from Lake Superior into Lake Huron.