339 



portance miglit demand, a satisfactory cause may be found in tlie imper- 

 fect state of the knowledge hitherto obtained, and in the pressure of the 

 more immediate wants of a new, somewhat fluctuating and unsettled 

 community. During the period mentioned, however, the population of 

 southern Michigan has advanced, from a less number, probably, than 

 60,000 to 212,000; a rate of increase unexampled even in the annals 

 of a series of settlements, to the progress of which the world affords no 

 parallel. Meanwhile, the liberal course of our State policy has been 

 steadily unfolding her resources, and, at this moment, notwithstanding 

 the burden of a heavy debt, and the accumulated pressure of more widely 

 felt financial difficulties, we are rapidly advancing in wealth, and are be- 

 coming awakened to the means of which we find ourselves possessed, for 

 successfully competing with older States, in the departments of agricul- 

 ture, commerce and manufactures. With lands among the richest in 

 the world, well watered and advantageously situated for market, with 

 water power abundant, and with an extent of coast and facilities for 

 water transportation unequalled by any other inland State, and added to 

 this, a population possessing a large share of that character for enter- 

 prise which distinguishes their countrymen, nothing will tend more to 

 give full efficacy and permanency to these advantages, than to make 

 more perfectly known the value of our mineral resources. Our State is 

 now sufficiently advanced to be able to avail herself, properly and with 

 certainty, of the advantages alluded to, and there is every reason to be- 

 lieve, that these will not longer fail to command attention, and that the 

 results will equal the most sanguine anticipations. 



BELA HUBBARD, 

 Assistant Geologist. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS FOR 1853. 



Br L. WOODRUFF, OF ANN ARBOR.. 



Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 3d, 1854. 



J. C. Holmes, Esq. — Dear Sir — la compliance with the request 



contained in your note to me, of the 25th inst., I herewith send you ft 



Meteorological Report for 1853, including tables of temperature, <fec., 



followed by a brief summary of the most important points in the 



