26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ALBANY MEETING 



sources of supply and the disadvantage of others, without making any survey 

 at all. Aside from the scientific importance of this map, it would seem that 

 it has great business importance as well, as illustrated by the facts stated 

 above, and I trust the work of mapping other portions of the State may be 

 undertaken by your survey. 



"I wish to express my sincere thanks for the map and assure you once more 

 of the great help it will be to me." 



There has been a long debate as to the character of the Ann Arbor 

 water supply, as to which he writes, on December 12, 1902, as follows: 



"The regents are again considering water supply for the campus. This, by 

 the way, is sub rosa at present; but I have been called in as sort of general 

 suggester by the committee in charge and have been going over the possibilities 

 as to the source of such a supply. 



"Leverett, Russell, Sherzer, and I had a little love feast yesterday afternoon 

 and tried to get together on the water matter, but Sherzer stuck to his position 

 regarding possibilities of supply, and made a plausible, but not especially con- 

 vincing, case. Leverett hoped to have an agreement of views published as a 

 result of the conference, but there were so few of the disputed points which 

 could be agreed on that no truce was declared and no treaty signed." 



Expert on Peat 



The great coal strike had caused a great growth in interest in peat. 

 Michigan peat has also had a great field as fertilizer and stockyard tank- 

 age absorbent. Many companies formed ostensibly to exploit peat seemed 

 to be more to exploit the public by stock jobbing, and a State report was 

 called for, which should, on the one hand, give some account of the re- 

 sources of the State in peat and its origin and possible production, and 

 on the other a review of what had been done by machinery with peat, that 

 the same blunders might not be endlessly repeated. This assigned task 

 Davis completed so successfully that "Davis on Peat" became a classic, 

 and Davis himself the peat expert of the United States. Part of this 

 report on certain of the ecological phases formed his thesis for Ph. D., 

 which was conferred at Ann Arbor in 1905. The practical peat men rec- 

 ognized his courtesy and his fairness of mind even while he criticized, 

 and his American ability in judging machinery and making constructive 

 and helpful suggestions; but his scientific work in discovering the variety 

 of vegetable deposits that at times made peat and the varying ecology and 

 layers of different origin in different bogs did not fail of recognition by 

 such men as David White and E. C. Jeffrey. His long training and study 

 in the dissection of peat deposits led to the recognition of alga3 in the oil 

 shales and of signs of vegetal origin in Precambrian limestone, on which 

 subjects he was engaged when death cast his mantle on other shoulders. 



