THE TOPOGRAPHIC SURVEY OF MICHIGAN * 



BY ISRAEL C. RUSSELL^ PRESIDENT OF THE MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE FOR 



1902-1903. 



Tlie excellence of the maps a nation or a state produces of its own 

 territory is an index of its rank in the scale of civilization. The absence 

 of such inaps in the case of nations or states not too young- to have 

 had time for extensive internal improvement, is equally symbolical of 

 lack of energy and of retarded intellectual and commercial growth. 



The more enlightened nations of Europe at the present time are in 

 advance of all other governments in the completeness and accuracy 

 with which their respective domains have been surveyed and mapped. 

 Germany. France and England, in particular, among the larger land 

 owners of the Old World, possess excellent maps of the regions within 

 their respective boundaries. The nations referred to have not only sur- 

 veyed their possessions once, but in several conspicuous instances, no 

 sooner was a map of a given degree of excellence and an advance on 

 all previous attempts in the same direction, obtained, than still more 

 accurate surveys and still larger-scale maps have been demanded for 

 military and industrial purposes, and re-surveys, and the production 

 of still more exact and more detailed maps undertaken. This earnest 

 and constantly increasing desire manifested by the nations of Europe, 

 for accurate information concerning the lands within their immediate 

 borders, has also in many instances, but most conspicuously in the 

 case of the English in India, been extended to their insular possessions. 

 While admirable maps are available of nearly all the countries of Eu- 

 rope, similar maps embracing any considerable areas in America were 

 almost unknown up to the time of the organization of the United States 

 Geological Survey in 1879. Even at the present time creditable maps 

 of* the entire area of only four individual states can be had, and in 

 Michigan less topographic work has been done than in any other state, 

 with the exception of Florida and Minnesota. There are maps and maps, 

 however, and in })lanning a survey of a state it is necessary to decide 

 as to what kinds of maps are needed and to reckon cost. 



WHAT IS A MAP? 



The maps we most usually see, in atlases, on the walls of school- 

 rooms, in works of travel and histories, etc., are representations on a 

 plane surface of political boundaries, the positions of towns, and the 

 outlines of such natural features as the shores of oceans and lakes, the 

 generalized courses of streams, eio. The positions of these objects are 

 indicated with more or less accuracy by means* of two co-ordinates, 

 namely latitude and longitude. The various methods of representing 

 portions or the whole of the curved surface of the earth on a plane, or 

 of projection, need not be considered at this time. The characteristic 

 feature of the maps referred to, is that by means of but two co-ordinates, 

 only the relative horizontal positions of objects can be represented and 



♦Revised December, 1904. 



