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degree by exposure to the air, for I dug up some hundreds of pounds of it, nor does it in the least shrink or crack by exposure to the air the sun, and without exceeding reluctance in the most intense heat, which I publish & defy contradiction, as one of the most extraordinary & [? peculiare] qualities of it. The great mistake is [?] , that your unfortunate young man had not the good fortune to reach it before I did. Too many travelers who get fagged out and sicken on the track of those who have gone before them (& beyond even the reach of their imaginations) without discovering anything anew, see everything that they do see with a jaundiced or unrelishing eye, and for want of something else to communicate, are apt to take a pleasure I holding them up to the world as liars and public deceivers. In my Book you will see an accurate delineation of the pipe stone quarry & read my description of it- which I [? mention] to say will bear The test. If your correspondent, (whom I cannot call by Name, and whose name I care not a fig for) cannot avoid so gross an absurdity as the one I have above named, don’t rely upon him for any account of Indian superstitions & traditions of which I am sure he learned far less of in Yale College than he did of minerals. The information I have gathered and embodied in my book, if half of it were lies and [?dross] would be, and I will be, of more value to this world than all the he make. I venture to say, if he is to tell me “that the Indians have no superstitions about the Red Pipe, & that they cover it with leaves & grass