at them. Our scientific names convey a very partial information, they suggest certain thoughts only. It does not occur to me that there are other names for most of these objects given by a people who stood between me and them, who had better senses than our race. How little I know of that arbor vitæ when I have heard only what science can tell me. It is but a word, it is not a tree of life. But there are twenty words for the tree and its different parts which the Indian gave, which are not in our botanies, which imply a more practical and vital science. He used it every day. He was well acquainted with its wood, its bark, and its leaves. No science does more than arrange what knowledge we have of any class of objects. But generally speaking how much more conversant was the Indian with any wild animal or plant than we, and in his language is implied all that intimacy, as much as ours is expressed in our language, How many words in his language about a moose, or birch bark, and the like. The Indian stood nearer to wild nature than we. The wildest and noblest quadrupeds, even the largest fresh water fish, some of the wildest and noblest birds, and the fairest flowers have actually receded as we advanced, and we have but the most distant knowledge of them. A rumor has come down to us that the skin of a lion was seen and his
