MICHELET 



MICHIGAN 



177 



and Leclerc, he became at twenty-three a professor 

 of History in the College llolliti. Later lie lectured 

 at the College Sainte-Barbe and the Ecole Normale, 

 and after the revolution of 1830 was given an im- 

 portant post at the Archives, became assistant to 

 Gnizot at the Sorbonne, and tutor to the Prince.-* 

 Clementine. In 1838 he was elected to the 

 Academy, and at the same time became professor 

 of History at the College de France. Already he 

 had made his name known by admirable hand- 

 books on French and on modern history, and com- 

 menced the monumental work which was to give 

 him an illustrious place among great historians, 

 his HtKtoire tie France (18 vols. 183:1-67; new ed. 

 19 vols. 1879), the labour of about forty years. 

 Other works were Origines rlu Droit Francois 

 cherchtes dans Its Symboles et Formula du Droit 

 Universel (1837), Memoires lie Luther (1845), and 

 Procit de Templiers ( 1841-51 ). Miclielet had a 

 great dislike for priests, but especially for the 

 Jesuits, and he now plunged into controversy with 

 all the impetuosity of his nature and eloquence, 

 bringing to bear upon the enemy at once all his 

 powers of sarcasm and all his unrivalled knowledge 

 of history. Three liooks were the fruits of his 

 polemic : Dei Jttuits, written in conjunction with 

 Edgar Quinet (1843); Le 1'retre, la Femme, 

 et ta Famille (1845); and Le Penple (1846). 

 Next followed his famous Histoire de la Kerolu- 

 tion (7 vols. 1847-53; centenary ed. 5 vols. 

 1889), which is not a good history with all its 

 eloquence and enthusiasm. Before its conclusion 

 Mlchelet had lost his office by refusing to take the 

 oath of allegiance to Louis Napoleon. Henceforth 

 he lived mostly in Brittany and in the Kiviera, 

 buried in his gigantic literary labours. A series of 

 books of a novel kind, full of rhapsodic eloquence 

 and more valuable as literature than as science, 

 were L'Oiteaa (185), L'lnsecte (1857), La Mer 

 ( 1861 ), and La Montame (1868). Other books of 

 unusual interest were L' Amour ( 1858), La Femme 

 (1860), La Sorciere (1862), and La Bible de 

 I llnmanM (1864). The little liook, Not Fils 

 (1869), was a plea for compulsory education. 

 Mic.helet's great liistory brings down the story of 

 France to the outbreak of the great Revolution. 

 The second instalment continues it to the close of 

 the Revolution. In the last years of his life he 

 set himself to complete his task, and thus beqOMth 

 a great continuous history to France, but he did 

 not live to carry it In-vond Waterloo ( 3 vols. 1872- 

 75). He died at Hyeres, 9th February 1874. 



Miclielet ever treats history from a personal point 

 of view, and his imagination is prone to bring into 

 undue relief striking tigures ami dramatic scenes 

 and incidents. Thus his work is a series of tab- 

 leaux, as these were visible to the eyes of a man 

 of genius, full of prejudices for and* against his 

 puppet*, and destitute of the sense for historical 

 penqiective. Yet the whole stands out a master- 

 piei-i; of genius, instinct with life, and the wide 

 range of historical literature must be ransacked for 

 episodes surpassing his treatment of Joan of Arc or 

 the Templars, or the luminous geographical survey 

 of France with which the work opens. See the 

 Im.ks by U. Monod (1875), Noel ( 1878), Correard 

 ), and Jules Simon (1889). 



Michigan (Chippewa-Indian Mitchi 



Sni, ' (Ireat Lake,' originally applied to both Lakes 

 uron ami Michigan), the third in size of the five 

 great fresh-water Takes of North America, and the 

 only one lying wholly in the United States, having 

 Michigan on the N. and E., and Wisconsin on the 

 W. It U about 335 miles long, and from 50 to 88 

 broad ; the mean depth is :!_'."> feet, the maximum 

 870. It has the same elevation as Lake Huron 

 (with which it is connected by the Strait of 

 Mackinaw) 581V, feet above the sea-level; this 

 324 



is 20J feet lower than Lake Superior, and 8 ,V feet 

 above Lake Erie. Its surface area is 22,450 sq. m., 

 or 1350 less than that of Lake Huron ; but its 

 drainage area 37,700 sq. m. is 6000 sq. in. greater 

 than its neighbour's. There is a neap-tide of 1J 

 inch, and a spring-tide of about 3 inches. The 

 shores of Lake Michigan, which are guarded by a 

 number of lighthouses, are for the most part low ; 

 the annual erosion amounts to about 5 feet. 

 Its principal harbours are those of Chicago, 

 Milwaukee, and Racine. See Crosman's Chart of 

 the Great Lakes (Milwaukee, 1888). 



Michigan, a state of the American Union, the 

 seventeenth in area and ninth in population, and 

 having a pop. of 36 per sq. m., is r , OI>jright issi, 1997, .d 

 in 41 42' to 48 20 7 N. lat., and iwo in the u.s. i>j i. B. 

 82' 25' to 90 32' W. long. It has L 't""~" <**>?">; 

 an area of 58,915 sq. m. , or more than that of England 

 and Wales; 1114 sq. m. are occupied by 5173 small 

 lakes, while the surface of 179 islands and islets, 

 from one acre upwards, measures about 633. The 

 coast-line in navigable lake waters is 1624 miles. 

 The state is bounded on the S. by Indiana and 

 Ohio; on the E. by Lake Erie, Detroit River 

 (properly Strait), La'ke St Clair, St Clair River, 

 Lake Huron, and St Mary's River, beyond all 

 which lies the province of Ontario, Canada ; on the 

 N. bv Lake Superior, on the SW. (upper peninsula) 

 by Wisconsin, and on the W. by Lake Michigan. 

 From its north-western point at the mouth of Mon- 

 treal River to the extreme south-east on Maumee 

 Bay is about 500 miles. It is sometimes called the 

 Peninsular State, from its formation in two great 

 peninsulas, the upper and lower, or northern and 

 southern. The upper has an extreme length of 

 318 and width of 164 miles, the lower of 277 and 

 197 miles ; the latter includes the Huron Peninsula, 

 or the 'thumb' of the 'mitten,' in eastern Michi- 

 gan, and the small Leelanaw Peninsula in the 

 north-west. The eastern part of the other, looking 

 toward St Mary's River, is sometimes called St 

 Mary's Peninsula. Keweenaw Peninsula, bearing 

 the great copper-mines, stretches far north into 

 the waters of Lake Superior ; and on the south, 

 near Mackinac Island, is the little but picturesque 

 St Ignace Peninsula. The upper region is mostly 

 rugged, broken, rocky, and comparatively barren, 

 though teeming with mineral wealth ; but hopeful 

 beginnings of agriculture have been made in the 

 eastern half of it. In the north-west, near Lake 

 Superior, is the highest land in the state, among 

 the hills known as the Porcupine Mountains (1830 

 feet above the sea). The famous Mineral range 

 passes scuth of this, from Keweenaw Point south- 

 westward into Wisconsin ; but it is merely a gentle 

 swell from both sides, nowhere really mountainous. 

 No part of the lower peninsula is more than 1780 

 feet above sea-level ; and the mean height is only 

 160 feet above the environing waters of the lakes. 

 The highest part of Detroit is but 73 feet above the 

 river at this point, and the uplift of a few feet in 

 the adjacent river and lake beds would flood a 

 thousand square miles of Michigan soil. This soil 

 is mainly formed by the glacial drift, in alternated 

 clay, sand, and gravel beds, supplying all the 

 chemical constituents of a good soil, ami enabling 

 the growth of all crops adapted to this climate. 

 The mean annual temperature of the state is 46'1 

 F. (summer, 68'5 ; winter, 23'8) ; the annual rain- 

 fall is 35-8 inches. Both peninsulas, with occa- 

 sional exceptions of swamps or small prairies, were 

 originally covered with dense forests, the products 

 of which have proved exceedingly valuable. The 

 geology of the state is highly interesting ; it repre- 

 sents every rock series known, from the oldest 

 strata to the top of the Carboniferous. In the 

 west of the upper peninsula, on the Wisconsin 

 border, are the Laurentian, and on either side and 



