COAL MEASURES. 1 47 



vertical and horizontal extent, in which not only every stratum can 

 be studied accurately in all its qualities and local peculiarities, but 

 can also be clearly seen the relative positions which the superim- 

 posed strata hold to each other. The strata of Michigan are doubt- 

 less similarly eroded. The power and destructive action of these 

 erosive forces are illustrated impressively by the ocean-like basins of 

 the lakes surrounding us, which are their handiwork. Yet not 

 only were all these wounds in the rocky skin of the earth healed in 

 time through being filled up with debris carried from the destruction 

 of other places, but a thick coating of the filling material was also 

 spread over the levelled surface so as to hide from view even the 

 scars. We are learning to comprehend what a great advantage this 

 healing process was for man, who subsequently took possession of 

 this portion of the globe, prepared for him and his welfare long, 

 long years before the human race existed. 



This loose, porous mass of debris, in proper comminution to 

 make a soil, and being composed of every variety of mineral sub- 

 stance necessary for the sustenance of vegetable life, formed the des- 

 tiny of this strip of land ; it makes it an agricultural country. No 

 great mineral wealth is hidden here under our feet which we could 

 have reached through the gaps, so it were better they were closed 

 and levelled, to enable us to harvest golden ears of wheat and corn 

 from their su-rface, than that we should enter shadowy subterranean 

 passages in search of gold, endangering our lives and without any 

 certainty of success in the end. Still we are not entirely deprived of 

 mineral wealth, which by many is thought an indispensable re- 

 quisite for the household of a rich State. We have our modest 

 share of coal, left as yet nearly untouched, but which, when ex- 

 humed, will be fully adequate for the supply of our demand for 

 home consumption. We have tapped stores of salt brine, reserved 

 for our benefit in the sponge-like sand-rock beneath us in inex- 

 haustible quantities, drawing enough for all domestic wants, for 

 curing thousands of barrels of delicious fish, caught in the cool, 

 crystal waters of our lakes, and sent far abroad as an article of com- 

 merce, besides an immense surplus from which to provide our 

 Western neighbors, in exchange for their coin. Then we have gyp- 

 sum of snowy whiteness, laid open on the surface in quantities to last 

 for. generations to come for all the uses to which it is devoted. We 



