amount may seem, it is certain, that the domestic commerce is greatly on the increase. The exports of Sandusky, in 1850, amounted to three million one hundred thousand dollars; but in 1852 they had increased to upwards of twenty million dollars. The growth of the imports, at Sandusky, during those two years, was from seven million dollars to forty-five millions.

The capital of Ohio is very largely invested in internal improvements. One of the largest canals in America connects Lake Erie, at Cleveland, with the Ohio River, at Portsmouth; another from Cincinnati stretches across to Toledo; -affording the productions of the interior a convenient outlet to the north and the south. The railroads cross each other in all directions throughout the state. They center, chiefly, at Cleveland and Sandusky, on the lake coast; at Mansfield, Newark, Zanesville, Columbus, Xenia, Bellefontaine, Springfield, and Dayton, in the interior; and at Cincinnati, on the river. Among these roads, the most important are, the Bellefontaine and Indiana, one hundred and eighteen miles in length; the Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus, one hundred and thirty-five miles; the Cleveland and Pittsburg, one hundred miles; the Mad River and Lake Erie, one hundred and thirty-four miles; the Ohio and Pennsylvania, one hundred and eighty-seven miles; all of which are completed, and have several daily trains running on them. These roads, with their numerous branches, stretch far out into the adjoining states, and connect with other lines from Boston, in Massachusetts, to St. Louis, in Missouri, and bind the lakes in iron bands with the Atlantic coast and with the Mississippi River.

In Ohio, great attention has been paid to the establishment of institutions of learning. There are about twelve thousand common schools in the state, and the average

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daily attendance of scholars is four hundred thousand. There are twelve universities and colleges, and four medical schools. The number of libraries is forty-eight, with nearly two hundred thousand volumes. The number of churches is about four thousand, accommodating near one and a half millions of persons, and owning property to the value of six million dollars. Ohio has twenty-one representatives in the Congress of the United States. And the total value of the taxable property of the state is about four hundred and fifty million dollars. It seems almost incredible that so much wealth should have been created, on a tract of land two hundred miles long and one hundred and forty broad, in sixty years. With all this increase, Ohio, in fact, has but just begun the development of its resources. The present prosperous condition of that state may be regarded merely as an indication of its future greatness.

CHAPTER XI.

MICHIGAN.

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French agriculture - Population-Geography — Geology — The lower peninsula - White-oak openings - Burr-oak openings - "Catholes" - Pine woods of the north- -Windfalls-Soil and fruits of the lower peninsula — Pasturage — Settlements of Michigan — Commercial advantages- Detroit and other ports-Site for a great central city - The rivers - The lakes around Michigan - Improved lands - Annual products - Schools, churches, and other institutions Attractions to the settler-Exemption laws.

MICHIGAN, on the first day of July, 1805, entered upon the first grade of territorial government, under the provisions of the ordinance of 1787. General William Hull was appointed governor; and Detroit was the seat of government. The southern boundary of Michigan Territory, according to the act of Congress, was to be a line running due east from the most southern part of Lake Michigan to Maumee Bay. At the time of its organization, the population of the territory, exclusive of the troops of the western army, did not exceed three thousand; for the early emigration to the West, at the beginning of this century, before the era of steam navigation on the lakes, had taken a more southern route, and had flowed into the country bordering upon the Ohio River. Michigan was then very difficult of access. The territory was little known, and but few persons attempted to reach its borders. The increase in the number of the inhabitants went on so slowly that, in 1810, it contained only eight thousand four hundred souls.

In 1796, when Michigan, for the first time, had come

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into the hands of the Americans, the population, on both sides of the strait, from Lake St. Clair to the River Raisin, was almost exclusively Canadian French. They were an extremely ignorant people, and made most miserable cultivators of the soil. Their farms were only a few rods in width upon the river, and ran back nearly two miles, for quantity. The Canadian French seem to have had no idea of any improvement in agriculture having been made by any body, since Noah had planted his vineyard at the foot of Mount Ararat. They continued to plow, and sow, and reap, just as their fathers had done time out of mind. Whenever a field had become exhausted, it was abandoned. Instead of striving to enrich their lands, the people trusted to the efficacy of prayers, and threw the manure into the river. Under such treatment, the soil, of necessity, had become reduced, yielding light crops, and provisions were extravagantly high.

About the year 1830, the tide of emigration began to set toward that territory. The population had then become increased to twenty-eight thousand. Steamboat navigation had been opening a new commerce upon the lakes, encircling all the lower peninsula of Michigan. A fleet of an hundred sail, sloops and schooners, was engaged in traversing every part of these inland waters. On the fifteenth day of June, 1836, a state constitution had been adopted, and Michigan was admitted into the Union in the January following, with a population of nearly an hundred thousand. Emigrants began to flock in rapidly from the middle states, and from New England. The number of inhabitants, at the present time, is about three hundred and ninety-eight thousand; of which Connecticut has furnished seven thousand; Massachusetts, eight thousand; Vermont, twelve thousand; and New York, one hundred and thirty-four thousand.

The lower peninsula of Michigan is nearly three hundred miles in length, from north to south, and one hundred and twenty miles in width, having an area of about forty thousand square miles. It is skirted by a belt of heavily-timbered land, about twenty-five miles deep, surrounding the entire lake coast, and lying several feet below the level of the adjoining openings. The tract of timbered land, along the eastern side of the peninsula, is generally a dead level. The whole interior, however, is gently rolling, and, in some parts, hilly, though but slightly so, just sufficient for wholesome running water. The dividing ridge which gives rise to the river system of Michigan, is considerably east of a line drawn from Michilimackinac through the center of the state to the boundary of Ohio; and the whole western slope descends gradually from that ridge, with an even, unbroken surface, to Lake Michigan. The coast, however, is everywhere high above the level of the lakes; and along lakes Huron and Michigan the banks are steep, and varying from one hundred to three hundred feet in hight.

The lower peninsula is of the same geological formation as western New York. Its rocks consist of horizontal strata of limestones, sandstones, and slates; the limestones being found along the rivers near the lakes, and the sandstones in the interior. The soil is either alluvial or diluvial, and has a depth varying from one foot to one hundred and fifty feet. Quarries of sandstone have been opened at several places on the Grand River. It admits of being easily quarried, furnishing a good building material, and is frequently used for grindstones. The limestone of Michigan is, for the most part, quite compact, and well adapted to agricultural purposes, generally producing a valuable lime upon burning, though sometimes too silicious to be of the best quality.