him. From 1828 to 1832, he was an efficient member of the Territorial
Legislature, where he introduced a system of township and county names,
formed on the basis of the aboriginal vocabulary, and also procured the
incorporation of a historical society, and, besides managing the
finances, as chairman of an appropriate committee, he introduced and
secured the passage of several laws respecting the treatment of the
native tribes.

In 1828, the Navy Department offered him a prominent situation in the
scientific corps of the United States Exploring Expedition to the South
Seas. This was urged in several letters written to him at St. Mary's, by
Mr. Reynolds, with the approbation of Mr. Southard, then Secretary of
the Navy. However flattering such an offer was to his ambition, his
domestic relations did not permit his acceptance of the place. He
appeared to occupy his advanced position on the frontier solely to
further the interests of natural history, American geography, and
growing questions of philosophic moment.

These particulars will enable the reader to appreciate the advantages
with which he commenced and pursued the study of the Indian languages,
and American ethnology. He made a complete lexicon of the Algonquin
language, and reduced its grammar to a philosophical system. "It is
really surprising," says Gen. Cass, in a letter, in 1824, in view of
these researches, "that so little valuable information has been given to
the world on these subjects."

Mr. Duponceau, President of the American Philosophical Society,
translated two of Mr. Schoolcraft's lectures before the Algic Society,
on the grammatical structure of the Indian language, into French, for
the National Institute of France, where the prize for the best essay on