Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

power. For that purpose, after commencing with the Detroit land office, I proceeded to Flint; from thence to Ionia and Kalamazoo, and lastly to Monroe, where this part of my labours terminated, having obtained copies of 763 townships. These I set about compiling immediately into counties, connecting the sectional lines and streams. Copies of the counties, on a lineal scale of two miles to the inch, as well as separate townships on an enlarged scale, have been used by the geological corps successfully in their explorations, for the purpose, not only of noting the geology in detail, but of delineating the true course of the smaller streams, the extent of swamps and marshes, public roads and improvements. Incorrectness will not be owing to the want of labor or attention bestowed, and from the materials in progress of collection, a certainty arises of a more correct execution of the maps to be made hereafter, than of any heretofore constructed. **It is to be regretted that there are so few statistics of the lakes. Many of the particulars which I have inserted appear indefinite for the want of more certain data; particularly their depth. In general, too much is left to conjecture, and until the necessity is urged upon the general government for a thorough hydrographical survey, and an accurate description of every part of them, losses and disappointment will check the ardour of enterprize. Much of the destruction of property may be charged to the want of charts, and the losses of a single year will amount to far more than the cost of an entire survey. A commencement of such a survey was made when Gov. Cass occupied the war department, but ceased at the end of two years, having extended from the foot of Lake Huron to Middle Island.*

For a description of our topographical location, data were readily obtained from the records of the public works in the adjoining states. Their various public improvements have led to the exploration of every point of importance, and from a comparison of these points, with the records of our own public works, the true position of every required place on the southern portion of the peninsula may be relatively known.

Topographical location of Michigan.

The topography of the state of Michigan, when viewed in relation to its exterior position, being separated by a natural boundary of rivers and lakes on the east and north-east from Upper Canada, from Illinois and Wisconsin on the west and south-west, and from Ohio and Indiana on the south, or only in reference to the space included within its own political and isolated boundaries, presents many peculiar features.

Lake Michigan on the west and north-west, Lake Huron, the river and Lake St Clair, the straits of Detroit, with the west end

*This survey simply included meanderings.

of Lake Erie on the east and north-east, enclose a peninsula forming a cone, of which the straits of Mackinaw is the apex, the south line or base being one hundred and seventy four miles cast and west, and the length north and south three hundred miles. With this extent of coast, the number of large rivers and the infinity of small interior lakes, give the utmost facilities to internal navigation; add to this the superior quality of the soil, its easy tillage, the heavy and abundant crops, and perhaps the whole is not surpassed by any section of equal extent, on the surface of the globe.

The northern or upper peninsula belongs to a higher level. Beginning at the eastern end of Lake Superior, and running southerly along the Sault de Ste. Marie's river, it lies nearly at right angles with the southern or peninsula proper, and separated from it by a part of Lake Michigan and Green Bay, as far as Menomone river. It thence takes a north-west course to Montreal river, from the mouth of which it follows the southern shore of Lake Superior to the place of beginning; presenting an irregular and nearly isolated form, varying from twenty to one hundred and twenty-five miles in width.

Michigan, with the states west and south-west, are designated by geographers, as lying west of the great dividing ridge which determines the course of the rivers falling into the Atlantic on one side, and the Mississippi on the other. This Appalachian ridge, rising in Alabama, runs north-east, varying in altitude, to the gulf of the St. Lawrence, in many places spreading out into broad mountainous districts of thousands of square miles in extent. These districts being occupied by subordinate ridges, are often cut through by rivers, causing depressions, or vallies of corresponding depth. If, however, in tracing the continuation of the great ridge across the St. Lawrence to Labrador, it should be found that the same system continued, then the important fact would be elicited, that it had been cut through by that river, the only occurrence of the kind, from its source in the south, to its termination in the north. The Potomac, the Susquehanna and the Mohawk rivers have their sources on its castern declivity. The lowest pass across the state of New York on the line of the Erie canal, is 565 feet above tide water; the "medium height, however, a few miles south, commencing at Catskill, on the Hudson, and terminating at Portland Harbor on Lake Erie, is thirteen hundred feet, presenting no height less than nine hundred and eighty-five feet, and the greatest twenty-one hundred and fortyfour feet. With these and other surveys, it has been ascertained, that a water communication could not be made across the country south of the state of New York."

Further south the elevation is no where less than twenty-four hundred and seventy-eight feet above the ocean. The Round

[ocr errors]

Top at Catskill mountains, is thirty-eight hundred and four feet, and the high Peak, thirty-seven hundred and eighteen feet above tide water. The western part of the state bordering on Lake Erie, embracing Chautauque and Cattaraugus counties, Warren and McKeen counties of Pennsylvania, and the country southward, are occupied by a mountainous ridge: "Chautauque lake, the largest sheet of water on this table, is twelve hundred and ninetyone feet above the level of the ocean, and seven hundred and twenty-three feet above Lake Erie, though only nine miles distant; its discharged waters descend to the ocean, along the western declivity of the Appalachian range, through the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The lowest pass to the east over a swell of land near Cassadaga outlet, in Chautauque county, is seventeen hundred and twenty feet high, and another pass on the same swell nineteen hundred and seventy-two feet. The lowest niche in the height of land, between Elm and Little Valley creeks, in Cattaraugus County, is seventeen hundred and twenty-five feet, and between Little Valley and Big Valley, the lowest pass is twenty-one hundred and eighty feet above the level of the ocean. Franklinville has an elevation of fifteen hundred and eighty feet, and Angelica fourteen hundred and twenty-eight feet, although both are situated in valleys. This height of land extends close to the shores of Lake Erie, as it may be seen that the Allegany, a tributary to the Ohio, rises within four or five miles of the lake."

To the north this ridge gradually declines, until near the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Seven miles north of the cataract of the Niagara, it takes its last step to the margin of the lake. The ridge of rocks which forms this step continues eastward, and passes round the border of the lake, being of a uniform elevation of three hundred and nineteen feet; causing not only the cataract of Niagara, but also those of Genesee, Oswego, and the Black rivers. It thence unites with the more elevated spurs of Chateaugay south of Montreal, forming the eastern boundary of the great hasins of Lake Erie and Ontario, and giving the direction to the course of the St. Lawrence river through its whole length.

From the foregoing remarks, it is observable that the great basins or depressions of these lakes, are the abrupt terminations of the mountain range, and that we fall immediately into an extensive district, different in its topographical features, the peculiarities of which belong only to the region of the great lakes which bound the principal part of the northern frontier of the Union.

Leaving Chautauque county and passing around the south shore of Lake Erie, this ridge falls off to the south-west, curving towards Iroquois county, in Illinois. It gives rise to the Muskingum, Sciota, and Miami rivers, in Ohio, and to the Wabash, in Indiana, on its southern declivity, and to Maumee, emptying into Lake Erie, on its northern declivity, while a small swell

approaches the south bend of Lake Michigan, giving rise to the Illinois and its tributaries. The height of this ridge at the Portage summit, in Akron, thirty-eight miles south of Cleveland, on the line of the Ohio canal, is three hundred and ninety-five feet above Lake Erie, and nine hundred and sixty-three above tide water, and the deep cut twenty-eight miles east of Columbus is but seventy-two feet less; at Portsmouth, on the Ohio river, where the canal terminates, the elevation is four hundred and seventy-four feet above tide water, and ninety-four feet below Lake Erie. At the summit of the Maumee canal, at Fort Defiance, it is ninety eight feet above the lake. It then falls to seventeen feet west of Chicago, on the line of the ship canal, thence it pursues an uninterrupted course northward to the Portage at Fort Winnebago, between the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, an elevation of one hundred and twenty-one feet above Green Bay, and one hundred and thirty-four above Lake Erie.

At this point the Wisconsin river, after flowing one hundred and seventy miles from its source in the north, suddenly turns to the west, and falls into the Mississippi near Prairie Du Chien, one hundred and sixty miles; the Fox river, rising to the east, runs westwardly, approaching it within eighty-two hundred feet, and turning, takes its course again eastwardly, and falls into Green bay. The surface of the water in the Fox is usually three feet lower than that in the Wisconsin, but in time of floods, passages are made from one to the other in boats. The following table will show the elevation of this summit above Lake Michigan and Green bay, the distance by the military road being one hundred and twenty-four miles.

[blocks in formation]

The same swell continues to rise with about the same uniform degree of elevation, approaching the northern peninsula of Michigan, until it can be seen from Lake Superior, bounding the southern horizon. It divides the waters that run north into that lake,

*Ascertained by instrumental survey,

and those of the south into the Mississippi, Green bay and Lake Michigan, one of the most elevated ridges receiving the appellation of Porcupine hills. Swells branching off to the eastward and having their bases washed by the waters of the lake, present mural precipices, and assume different names. Those of the Pictured rocks are said to be the most imposing. Some of these cliffs are three and four hundred feet high. From the Porcupine hills, the country slopes eastward to the Sault de Ste. Marie, the outlet of lake Superior; this river is obstructed by a rapid 4,500 feet long, with a descent of eighteen feet.

Table of the height of Lake Superior, with the intermediate lakes above, and their distances from tide water.

[blocks in formation]

:

From the above data we infer the following curious fact that if a barrier eighteen feet high, existed across the foot of Lake Huron, near Fort Gratiot, lakes Huron and Michigan would rise to a level with lake Superior; or if a similar barrier was placed of thirty-one feet, across the foot of lake Erie, at Buffalo, the singular result would follow that four of the great lakes would become one uniform level and merged in one immense inland

sea.

By an examination of the foregoing table, we see a striking peculiarity of this region of "broad rivers and streams," its vast extent, commencing at the gulf of St. Lawrence and extending in a south-west direction up that river; thence into the basin of Lake Ontario, at an elevation of 232 feet above the ocean; thence again rising by the Niagara river and cataract, 333 feet to the level of Lake Erie; (the first in the central subdivision, including lakes Huron and Michigan, of the great basin,) forming an angle at the western end of that lake in the estuary at the mouth of the Maumee river, it thence runs nearly north through the straits of Detroit, the lake and river St. Clair, into Lake Huron, rising thirteen feet; thence by a north westerly course, through the straits of the Sault de Ste. Marie, rising eighteen feet, to the west end of Lake Superior, a distance of 1,895 miles. The whole depression contains an area of 400,000 square miles, 94,000 of which is occupied by water, still leaving an extent sufficient to sustain a population of more than seventy millions of inhabitants.

« AnteriorContinuar »