306 Notice of the Peninsula of Michigan. 
rigines to facilitate the pursuit of game, and promote the 
growth of grass—where burnings have been prohibited by 
settlers, forests containing a diversity of trees are rising. 
Yellow and bur oak, as it is called, and hickory are less af- 
fected by fires than most timber trees. 
Mr. Risden, a very intelligent and respectable surveyor in 
the service of government, to whom I am indebted for many 
facts relative to the interior, in surveying a road from Detroit 
to Chicago, near the head of lake Michigan, passed over thir- 
ty miles of heavily timbered land, fifty of light oak openings, 
105 of hickory and bur oak openings, of very good soil, and 
30 of prairie. Except in the eastern section, wet timbered 
and swampy land rarely occurred, not exceeding five miles 
in the whole distance. 
The face of the country in the western part of Ohio and 
northern part of Indiana, much resembles the south of Michi- 
gan in presenting good openings on rolling ground and prai- 
yes interspersed with swamps and thickets. The plains, prai- 
ries, and swamps, are however more extensive in Indiana ; 
they are interspersed with ponds. Between Chicago and 
the head waters of the Illinois, is a low,jwet, grassy plain, 
without timber, except on the banks of rivers. °° 
The Chicago, a short, deep, sluggish stream, that dis- 
charges into lake Michigan, and the Plaines, a considerable 
branch of the Illinois, emanate from a swamp, ten miles from 
lake Michigan, and scarcely eight feet above its level. In the 
rainy season a lake is formed in thisswamp connecting those 
rivers. Boats can then pass from Michigan to the Mississippi. 
A road has been recently laid out from Detroit to the river 
Saganaw. In this direction, the oak openings terminate fifty 
miles from Detroit—thence for fifty miles the country is most- 
ly well timbered, and rich plainsare interspersed with broken 
ground, White oak, hickory, black walnut, butternut, bass, 
and white pine, occur in the forest. Dark coloured sand is 
often blended in the soil of this region, with a rich vegetable 
mould—settlements extend in the directionof this road be- 
tween forty and fifty miles. Good roads are easily made, and 
kept in repair in the gravelly openings. 
The soil of Michigan, as far as the country has been ex- 
plored, is generally a sandy and gravelly loam. In the oak 
openings it is often compact, and hard to break with a plough 
—the surface strata rest usually on hard-pan or clay, as 1s 
exhibited in sinking wells, and in the many natural and artifi- 
cial excavations [ examined, and confirmed by the ob- 
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