APPENDIX B. 



SALT IN MICHIGAN.— HISTORICAL, 



It was known from the earliest settlement of the country, that 

 the Indians formerly supplied themselves with salt from springs 

 existing in the peninsula, and numerous reservations of land sup- 

 posed to contain the springs were made by the general government, 

 and it is a matter of record that many years before Michigan was 

 organized into a State government, attempts were made to manufac- 

 ture the article. 



By the act of admission of this State into the Union, in 1837, 

 it will be recollected, the State authorities were permitted to select 

 seventy-two sections of salt-spring lands. 



A State geologist — the lamented Dr. Douglas Houghton — was 

 appointed at the first meeting of the Legislature thereafter, who, in 

 his report to the Legislature in January, 1838, says he regarded it 

 important that the spring lands be selected for State purposes, at as 

 early a day as possible, and most of his examinations the season 

 previous were devoted to that end. Dr. Houghton's explorations 

 resulted in finding many indications of saline springs, particularly 

 on the Grand and Tittibawassee rivers, in Kent and Saginaw 

 Counties, and also in St. Clair, Macomb, Wayne, and Jackson 

 Counties. The Legislature passed an act for the improvement of 

 the State springs in 1838, and by virtue of his appointment, Dr. 

 Houghton was authorized to make examinations and to institute 

 experiments, which he did on the Grand and Tittibawassee rivers 

 with partial success. 



Although public attention was at that time directed to our salt 

 springs, and practical investigations relating to their development 

 were for a time vigorously prosecuted, these experiments failed of 

 complete success, and the subsequent death of Dr. Houghton, by 

 depriving the State of one on whom it had relied to give intelligent 

 direction to these enterprises, discouraged in a measure their further 

 prosecution. 



Guided, however, by the information thus furnished, other inves- 

 tigators took up the matter, and on a thorough examination of the 



