484 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



CONCERNING THE METEOROLOGY OF MICHIGAN. 



There was a problem in science not many years since, that 

 was bandied hither and thither among the learned ones of our 

 State, the subject of close study, careful inyestigation, fierce 

 discussion, and, sad to relate, the cause of much bad feeling 

 and bad blood among our men of science. That question, of 

 interest and concern to every man within our borders, was this: 

 Is the geology of the State of Michigan separate and distinct 

 from the general formation of the surrounding territory ? In 

 other words, in the great volume of the history of world- 

 building, does the chapter headed " Michigan," form a story 

 of its own, without necessary dependence on, or connection 

 with, her sister characters in this geological drama? It is 

 needless to state that within our own boundaries this doctrine 

 was received with almost universal favor. It was a matter of 

 self-gratulation to us all. It patted our State pride upon the 

 back, to think that we had been made the subject of special 

 anxiety and solicitude in the world's birth. But, alas ! this 

 petted hypothesis went the way of all untruth. Our philoso- 

 phers had failed to bear in mind, that matters which they had 

 regarded as specially characteristic of our lake-locked penin- 

 sula — that lake and drift — were but matters of to-day in the 

 calendar of geological history; that in that yesterday when 

 the real work of the world's building was accomplished, Mich- 

 igan was but a speck, undistinguished by drift or lake-barrier, 

 from the great and monotonous plane of the United States ; 

 that only till the evening of that day did the great lakes hover 

 around us with their protecting wings, after there had been 

 borne down to us the fertile drift that bears our noble forests, 

 and makes meadow and cornfield blossom with their abundance- 



