GEOLOGIC.'VL AND KTATUKAL. HISTORY SURVEYS. 201 



The committee dose by earnestly recommending the continuance 

 of the present orga'nization of the survey, and the appropriation of 

 $1,000 for the saLary of the State geologist, $800 for the State topog- 

 rapher, and $500 for the completion of the engravings for the final 

 report and incidental expenses. The report is signed by J. N. 

 Chiinnan, chairman senate committee, and G. W. Peck, chairman 

 house committee. 



A general impression had begun to prevail that the Northern Pen- 

 insula of Michigan was the repository of vahiable amounts of copper 

 and iron. Adventurers and capitalists were turning their attention 

 to the region and some leases ]iad been made under authority of the 

 United States. Accordingly, on the 25th of April, 1840, a resolution 

 passed by the legislature of JSIichigan was approved declaring that the 

 title to all mines of gold, silver, and other metals is vested in tlie State 

 except on lands owned by individuals and such lands as the General 

 Government had reserved from sale; and providing also for the taxa- 

 tion of ores. 



On the 15th of May, 1846, the legislature adopted a joint resolution 

 authorizing the governor to "appoint some competent and suitable 

 person to collect, collate, and arrange all the geological notes, memo- 

 randa, specimens, maps, topographical delineations, engravings, 

 barometrical and other observations, including geological surveys, 

 kept, taken, made, collected, and preserved for and in behalf of the 

 State of Michigan by the late Dr. Douglass Houghton, State ge- 

 ologist, and designed and intended by him to be used in making a final 

 geological report for the benefit of the people of said State: and from 

 the material thus collected and to be collected, and the requisite addi- 

 tional information derived from other sources, the person thus to be 

 appointed maj^ be required by the governor to prepare a final report 

 upon the geology of Michigan," ' 



I have not learned that any action was ever taken under this law. 

 One can not help feeling that the government of Michigan committed 

 a crime against the people and against posterity, to allow the vast 

 store of records, results, traditions, and personal recollections then 

 extant, to lie unappreciated and pass to decay and oblivion. Bela 

 Hubbard was entirely competent to do justice to the demand, and 

 Mr. Higgins was master of the topographical problems. Mr. C. C. 

 Douglass was even now at work as a mining expert in the Upper 

 Peninsula, and many others were in possession of personal knowl- 

 edge which might have been made available. It must have been a 

 painful experience of those geologists to see the products of years 

 of toil and aspiration perishing before their eyes, Avhile they sent up 



' T^ws of Michigan. 1846, p. ."14. 



