In the last mentioned year he published two volumes of Algic Researches, comprising Indian Tales and Legends, and soon after, having passed more than twenty years as a traveller or resident on the frontiers, he removed to the city of New-York, intending to prepare for the press the great mass of his original papers which he had accumulated in this long period. In 1841 he issued proposals for an Indian Cyclopedia, geographical, historical, philological, etc., of which only one number was printed, no publisher appearing willing to undertake so costly and extensive a work of such a description. In 1842 he visited England, France, Germany, Prussia, and Holland. During his absence his wife died, at Dundee, in Canada West, where she was visiting her sister. Soon after his return he made another journey to the west, to examine some of the great mounds, respecting which he has since communicated a paper to the Royal Geographical Society of Denmark, of which he was many years ago elected an honorary member, and soon after published a collection of his poetical writings, under the title of Alhalla, or the Lord of Talladega, a Tale of the Creek War, with some miscellanies, chiefly of early date. In 1844 he commenced in numbers the publication of Oneota, or the Red Race in America, their History, Traditions, Customs, Poetry, Picture Writing, etc., in extracts from Notes, Journals, and other unpublished writings, of which one octavo volume has been completed. In 1845 he delivered an address before a society known as the "Was-ah Ho-de-no-sonne, or New Confederacy of the Iroquois," and published Observations on the Grave Creek Mound in Western Virginia, in the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society; and early in the following year presented in the form of a Report to the legislature of his native state, his Notes on the Iroquois, or Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, and General Ethnology of Western New-York.
The last and most important of Mr. Schoolcraft's works, the crowning labor of his life, for the composition of which all his previous efforts were but notes of preparation, is the Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States: Collected and prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, per act of March 3, 1847. The initial volume of this important national publication, profusely illustrated with engravings from drawings by Captain Eastman, of the Army, has lately been issued in a very large and splendid quarto, by Lippincott. Grambo & Co., of Philadelphia, under authority of Congress. It embraces the general, national, and tribal history of the Indian race, with their traditions, manners, customs, languages, mythology, &c., and when completed will probably extend to six or seven volumes. Until more of it is published, it will not be possible to form any exact judgment of it, except such as is warranted by a knowledge of the author's previous works: but such a judgment must be in the highest degree favorable.