400 GENERAL HISTORY. 



gan ; although, in many respects, and especially in soils, it is as far in advance 

 of much of New England as Illinois is in advance of it. Even along the 

 mineral ranges there is much good soil, on which agriculture is successfully 

 prosecuted. 



"The best farming lands lie south of the mineral deposits. From the base 

 of these ranges to the State line is a very large territory, now almost an un- 

 broken wilderness with a surface comparatively level, a rich, productive soil 

 and good timber, where farming on a large scale may be inaugurated with 

 success; the products finding a ready market at the mines and at the com- 

 mercial towns on the lake. 



" Though the length of the winters may militate against raising stock to 

 profit, and the shortness of the season may render the corn crop uncertain, 

 yet wheat, rye, barley, oats, hay, beans, peas and potatoes — the staples of 

 life — together with most garden luxuries, as currants, peas, radishes, cucum- 

 bers, strawberries, and the hardier fruits of the orchard, as the apple, cherry, 

 plum and pear, will be raised in abundance, and some of them in great 

 perfection. It is astonishing how rapidly, and to what size some vegetables 

 grow in this climate." 



Very much of the rapid development of this peninsula has been due to the 

 discovery and working of its immense deposits of iron ore, the original discovery 

 of which is thus chronicled by Hon. Peter White, of Marquette, in the 8th 

 volume of Pioneer Collections, at page 147: ''In the summer of 1844, the 

 late Dr. Douglass Houghton, whose memory is deeply reverenced throughout 

 the region, where were his latest labors, and where he lost his life, was engag- 

 ed in the linear survey of this portion of the upper peninsula. The late Mr. 

 Wm. A. Burt, deputy surveyor under him, was running the township lines 

 in Marquette county, and, on the 18th of September, encamped with his party 

 at the east end of Teal lake. Mr. Jacob Houghton was a member of that 

 party, and gives the following account of the first discovery of Lake Superior 

 iron ore: — 



" *0n the morning of the 19th of September, 1844, we started to run the 

 line south between ranges 26 and 27. As soon as we reached the hill to the 

 south of the lake, the compass-man began to notice the fluctuation in the vari- 

 ation of the maguetic needle. We were, of course, using the solar compass, of 

 which Mr. Burt was the inventor, and I shall never forget the excitement of 

 the old gentleman, when viewing the changes of the variation — the needle not 

 actually traversing alike in any two places. He kept changing his position to 

 take observations, all the time saying : How would they survey this country 

 without my compass? What could be done here without my compass? It 

 was the full and complete realization of what he had foreseen when struggling 

 through the first stages of his invention. At length the compass-man called 

 for us all to come and see a variation which beat them all. As we looked at the 

 instrument, to our astonishment, the north end of the needle was traversing 

 a few degrees to the south of west. Mr. Burt called out. Boys, look around 

 and see what you can find! We all left the line, some going to the east, some 

 to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore, mostly gather- 

 ed from out-crops. This was along the first mile from Teal Lake.' Tliis 

 occurred eleven years prior to the construction of the Sault Ste. Marie ship 

 canal, which was built by the State from an appropriation of 750,000 acres 

 of government lands made by Congress in August, 1852." 



The Iron Mountain railroad, the earliest enterprise of this character in 



