USA > Michigan > A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I > Part 4
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INDEX
Woodruff, Henry H., 1154. Woodworth, W. F., 124, 133. Wright, Alfred, 524.
Wright, Charles R., 309.
Wright (D.) & Company, 524.
Wrisley, Charles I., 1044. Wuggazer, John M., 705.
Wyandots (see Hurons). Wyandotte (Wyandot) county, 95. Wyman, William A., 801. :
Yeo, William G., 1319. Yerkes, Louis N., 927. Yockey, Henry, 803. Young, A. S., 1245.
Yuma, 423.
Zoon, Fred B., 329. Zuck, John Q., 815.
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History of Northern Michigan
CHAPTER I
GEOLOGY, SOIL, PRODUCTS
THE GREAT LAKES AS GLACIAL POOLS-SURFACE GEOLOGY OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN-PRE-GLACIAL HISTORY-ADVANCE AND CAUSE OF THE ICE AGE-EFFECTS OF THE ICE ADVANCE-WALLED LAKES-GLACIAL BOULDERS-LAKE DEPOSITS-ROAD GRAVELS-BOG LIME-PEAT- RIVER SILTS-CONNECTION OF SURFACE DEPOSITS AND SOILS-TYPES OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN SOILS-CENTRAL PLATEAU OF NORTHERN MICH- IGAN-AREA OF SOIL INVESTIGATION-TOPOGRAPHY-NATURE OF SOILS -UPLAND AND LOWLAND TYPES OF VEGETATION-THEIR DISTRIBUTION -FUTURE OF THE REGION-PRODUCTIONS OF THE SOIL.
To the scientific scholar and investigator the study of interior geology is of profound interest-a study by which the mind's eye penetrates to the very foundation of the earth-but to the student and writer of human history it is sufficient to examine into the surface geology 'of the earth, by which is determined its great ridges, and its valleys and de- pressions formed by interior convulsions and by the vast glaciers and bodies of water which operated in prehistoric times.
With a vivid imagination and a logical mind one may form quite a distinct picture of any section of the earth's surface under consid- eration.
THE GREAT LAKES AS GLACIAL POOLS
The lakes now washing the shores of Northern Michigan-Huron and Michigan-may be considered but the scanty remains of far vaster bodies of water; but the meltings of huge glaciers which came down from the north, covered all of the northern section of what is now the United States and, with the changes of climate, dissolved into what
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may be considered in comparison with the original masses of ice and water as but small pools which settled in the deeper depressions of the earth's surface.
It is immaterial to speculate as to the probable duration of the glacial period, but is sufficient to know from numerous physical evi- dences that vast fields of ice and snow covered the entire country north of the Ohio and Missouri rivers and from the Atlantic ocean to the Rocky mountains. What is now northern Michigan was in the south- ern rim of this glacial region.
The departure of these great glaciers undoubtedly worked great changes of the earth in this vicinity. When the ice had so far receded
A STRETCH OF HURON'S SHORE
as to have its southern boundary about midway in the present state of Michigan, great lakes were formed which, although covering far greater areas then those which are now known, were the parents of the present system. Their present outlet through the St. Lawrence river then con- tinued to be a solid mass of ice, affording no outlet whatever. The lower portion of the present Lake Michigan had its outlet through the state of Illinois, along about the course of the present drainage channel into the Mississippi river. Lake Iroquois existed as an immense body of water, covering the area now embraced by both Lake Erie and Ontario, and much other surrounding territory, and that, too, found its outlet to the south, and its water flowed with the then natural drainage of the country to the southward into the Gulf of Mexico. With the passing of time, the surface of the northern country gradually lowered. and the
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icefield continued to recede until the natural drainage of this lake region changed its course, and the waters of our lakes found their way out through the St. Lawrence. Lake Iroquois was drained off until her surface had fallen many hundred feet from its highest altitude, and the waters were divided into the two present lakes, Erie and Ontario. It was at this period that the waters of the Niagara river, flowing from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, began to cut the mighty gorge which now furnishes such a Mecca for tourists, and at the same time is the most authentic evidence of the period of time that has existed since the departure of the glacial era. It is generally conceded, from computa- tions as to the amount of cutting accomplished, that this has taken ten thousand years; and corroborative evidence as to the extent of this period since the ice age is found in the wearing of some of the rocks along the shores of Lake Michigan. We may therefore safely conclude that man existed in the territory now known as Northern Michigan more than ten thousand years ago.
SURFACE GEOLOGY OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN
But the significance of surface geology, as especially related to the section of Michigan covered by this work, has been so thoroughly in- vestigated and reported by the State Geological Survey that we con- dense the following from the publication of 1907, prepared by Profes- sor Alfred C. Lane.
While the deeper geology of Michigan implying, as it does, a study of salt, coal, oil, gypsum, copper and iron, is of great importance- the importance of the knowledge of surface geology may be estimated when we consider its relation to agriculture, to the clay industries, to the development of peat and cement factories. All these depend largely for their material upon surface deposits. Road materials are also largely surface deposits. And the study of such deposits, their origin, extent, and the way they occur, is the field of surface geology. But besides this, questions of water supply, the kind of material to be met in rail- road cuts, canals, tunnels and foundations for dams, and other engineer- ing works, all depend for their satisfactory solution upon knowledge of the surface geology.
PRE-GLACIAL HISTORY
The deposits of Michigan are separated into two classes by a very sharp line, which corresponds to a very long interval of time during which the state was eroded. Geological history has been divided into four great divisions, the Archeozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. During the first two of these periods the harder rocks, including those which contain copper, iron and coal were laid down. They are the bony frame work, so to speak, of the two hand-like peninsulas of which Michigan is composed. The oldest of these rocks are found somewhere northwest of Marquette. This may be called the negative pole of the state, from which the hard rocks dip. The positive pole would then be the Saginaw valley, towards which the rocks dip in every direction,
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under which the beds lie like a pile of saucers decreasing in size to the middle. This might be considered the hollow of the palm of the Lower Peninsula. But after these rocks were formed the state appears to have been above sea level, and the rocks cut and worn into hills and valleys by streams, the general aspect of the country being perhaps much as Arkansas or Tennessee at the present date. The elevation which carried the state above water seems to have carried it to a higher eleva- tion than at present, for we find caves, river valleys and channels in the ancient rock surface which go quite below sea level. The most im- portant of these valleys in the rock surface seems to have passed west from Saginaw, past Alma, and then turned somewhat northward and to have passed beyond our tracing beneath Lake Michigan somewhere between Manistee and Ludington, where the bed rock surface is be- neath sea level.
ADVANCE AND CAUSE OF THE ICE AGE
As long as elevation continued erosion naturally also would con- tinue. But at the close of the Tertiary a great ice sheet overspread Michigan coming from centers lying at first northward from the west of Hudson's bay and then from east of Hudson's bay. This sheet of ice was what is known as a continental glacier, such as now buries Green- land. Other glaciers are found in Alaska, the Rocky mountains, es- pecially the Canadian Rockies and in Switzerland. As to the fact of this great ice sheet overspreading a good part of North America geolo- gists are now entirely agreed. There is no such agreement as to the cause. A number of causes may have helped to produce the ice sheet, and once started there are a number of causes which would tend to make it grow. In the first place a greater height of land would pro- mote precipitation as snow rather than rain, and the minute the snow fall, which even now often lingers in the Huron mountains until the first of June, lingered so as to accumulate from year to year we have conditions for steady growth of the ice sheet. After once the surface of the country is covered by white snow throughout the year there will be so much more heat reflected that the mean annual temperature will be much lower. At the time of the ice age in Michigan there seem to have been large lakes out west, and anything which would tend to increase the amount of snow fall in the winter would tend to promote the ice age. As the ice age seems to have extended widely over the world, and there were great ice sheets in Europe at about the same time as America, it is almost certain, however, that no mere local con- ditions contributed to bring about the ice age. One may imagine that the sun gave out less heat.
Changes in the relation of the earth's orbit to the sun have also been appealed to. Sometimes the earth's orbit is more nearly circular than at others. At present the northern hemisphere has its winter when its pole is turned away from the sun at the time the earth is near- est the sun. In some 10,000 years or so the earth will be nearest the sun in the summer of the northern hemisphere, and an attempt has been made to connect the ice ages with these astronomical changes.
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EFFECTS OF THE ICE ADVANCE
As the ice advanced it swept over the surface removing more or less of, and mixing up the previously existing soils, tearing off or plucking the sharp and loose ledges and reducing the form of the bed rock surface to one of smooth round outlines and curves of least resistance. Outcrops of rocks which had thus been smoothed by the ice have been likened to sheeps' backs, and to the curves of a canoe turned bottom side upwards. Besides this the ice did considerable cutting in the hard rock. Just how much is a serious question. Where the lime- stone, or sandstone or other hard cap was left as a table land on top of a hill of soft shale the ice seems to have in many cases pushed it clear off. These have been scratched on the rock by the ice passing over it, or more properly perhaps by the sand and stones held in the ice. Now every such scratch means the removal of a little rock flour, and the results of this removal we have in the clays laid down under the ice or in pools in front of it-our glacial clays. It is said that sixty per cent of the mixed material thus found comes from within a few miles. The average thickness of the glacial material scattered over Michigan has been computed as about three hundred feet. If this be so then perhaps an average of something like one hundred and eighty feet may have been removed by glacial erosion. A good part of the balance certainly has come from across the lake in Canada, where there is very much less drift and the rocks are nearly bare, while on the other hand we find numerous varieties of Canadian rocks in this state. On the other hand something should be added for Michigan material carried farther south, but it must not be forgotten that this thickness represents not merely the matter removed from fresh rock, but also all soil and decayed rock which may have been there before. Still the limestone flour which makes up twenty-five per cent of our clays is not soil or decayed rock, but the direct effect of glacial erosion.
WALLED LAKES
So far as we at present know the salt ocean never reached the region of Michigan, and that class of deposit need not be considered. But not only were there, unquestionably, ice bergs in these old lakes, from the ice front, but the lakes were frozen themselves in the winter, and so in the midst of lake clays we are liable to have occasional stones, though their general bedded character is quite different from that of the boulder clay. Moreover, around the edges of the lakes ridges are pushed up and boulders worked to the shore, as they are at the present day, form- ing the so-called walled lakes. The interesting stone wall in Sanilac county is a relic of such a former walled lake, and in many places a fairly continuous line of boulders marks the former shore line.
GLACIAL BOULDERS
A word may well be given to the boulders themselves. These are popularly known as hard heads, field stone, and the like. They have
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some value themselves, and it is worth something to get rid of them from the farm. They are used very commonly for underpinning, but rarely for stone walls such as are so characteristic of New England. They often command a price of something like four dollars per cord. Many very handsome buildings have been constructed from them. The lower story of the new medical building at Ann Arbor and the Baptist church in Lansing are good illustrations of buildings made from these boulders. Their origin has often excited local interest. In many cases their peculiar character is such that we can almost beyond question tell from what region they came. For instance, there is a peculiar con- glomerate of white sand with bright bits of red jasper which strikes the eye almost at once and is widely scattered throughout the drift of Michigan, especially that ice which came through or across Saginaw valley. A rock precisely like this is found in what is known as the original Huronian area which lies near Thessalon, east of the "Soo" and north of Georgian bay, and there can be but little doubt that these pebbles were largely derived from that region. There was a singular rock with eye-shaped or orbicular balls in it discovered by H. P. Parmelee of Charlevoix and figured by J. F. Kemp, whose orig- inal resting place, however, we do not know. This is not surprising since among all these hard heads of boulders there is a very great variety. Prof. Alexander Winchell collected at Ann Arbor specimens of over one hundred distinct varieties of rock. In fact probably samples of every rock to be found in Canada between Lake Huron and Labrador could be found among these boulders. This would indicate of course the Nipissing mining district, and samples of considerable value in themselves, of lead, iron, gold, and other ores, and mica and other valu- able substances have been sent into this office for determination. Such samples are, however, of no more worth than the sample itself. They are no sign of paying accumulations in the same region of anything similar.
Very frequently these boulders have very queer shapes and as such have attracted the admiration of residents and are set up around houses. It is easy to see that no ordinary process of rolling or battering could ever get the rocks into such shapes and a little careful study will show that the projecting ridges which tie together these grotesque shapes are veins of quartz or some other material chemically more resistant than the rock as a whole, and that the shape of the boulders is due to chemical corrosion. Anyone who will study parts of the northern coun- try which are so lightly glaciated that the original weathered surface still remains-this is true of a part of Mt. Homer in the Huron Moun- tains-will readily recognize the origin of these pebbles. The same grotesque, deeply pitted surface bound together by harder projecting lines, like the veins of one's hands, is characteristic of many of the weathered non-glaciated outcrops north. These freak boulders rep- resent the remnants of the old, chemically-corroded surface of the rocks which have been plucked and torn away by the ice, but not shaped by it.
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LAKE DEPOSITS
The east side of the Lower Peninsula up to an elevation of two hundred feet and more above the lake has been washed by the glacial lakes, while on the west side the same belt is much narrower, being only from one hundred feet above the lake, down. It is worth while to consider the characteristics of these soils.
These glacial lakes were muddy with a very slowly settling rock flour, which would be called clay in fineness and plasticity, but is not at all kaolin. In fact, it corresponds more to the dictionary (not the factory) definition of marl. Usually about a quarter is dissolved by acids and may be classed as a limestone or dolomite flour. There is also a large amount of finely divided quartz and feldspar and other minerals. Every once in a while in these glacial clays a big stone or pebble may be dumped from the melting of an ice cake. But very often they are quite free from any coarse grit, and very well bedded in thin layers.
Even when free from coarse grit these glacial clays always contain, however, a large proportion of sharp fine particles, so that they may be used for brass polishing. As the water level dropped it was in shallow water for a longer or shorter time, and then coarser, sandier deposits accumulated. These are sometimes quite thick, but in general it is characteristic of the old lake bottoms that they have stiff clays over- lain by more sandy clays, and sands which may very often be shallow. Throughout the whole lake bottom region the sands will rarely be so deep that trees or alfalfa can not get near enough to the bottom to get water, and very many excellent orchard sites are found on the old sand ridges.
These lake clays are often brick clays. But owing to the amount of lime they will not generally burn hard or very red. They are white to light orange or buff.
The lime has, however, often been leached out of the upper few feet, which then makes a redder brick.
While they may be of value for pottery, brick and tiles, experience so far goes to show that they are not fit for making Portland cement. For this purpose there must be a uniformity in composition with low magnesia, which they do not possess. Nor will they generally make face, front, or paving brick.
ROAD GRAVELS
The road gravels are the old beach lines, especially the very highest lake borders, where they cut and concentrate the gravel from stony till, and the overwash gravels, kames, eskers and valley trains con- nected with the ice front. These gravels deposited in powerful swift flowing streams in or from the ice are on the whole the best, and are deposited in almost all parts of the state. In all our gravels there is enough binder.
The great channel that comes down by Mecosta, that around Grand Rapids, the upper valley of the Cass, the esker that runs from Mt.
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Hope cemetery, Lansing, south, are but conspicuous examples. The Tecumseh gravel is shipped clear to central Ohio. The Miami gravel is the prevailing formation.
BOG LIME
With all the lime in the clays that we have mentioned it is no won- der that the waters of Lower Michigan, especially the spring waters, are hard. In fact it may almost be said that they are normally satu- rated with bicarbonate of lime or its equivalent. Where this water is exposed to air and sunshine whether in lakes or standpipes it is rapidly decomposed and the carbonate of lime thrown out. Shell producing animals do a small part of the work, but by far the greatest part of the work is done by lowly lake weeds, especially vine-like forms of the Chara family. Others like Schizothrix take part. But this latter makes more or less firm coatings with a fibrous cross fracture over bits of stick and dead shell, and makes the pebble-like bodies known as marl biscuit. The soft white or blue slime which fills some of our lakes to a depth of very many feet is the Chara-lime. Probably one-third of the five thousand or more lakes of Michigan have more or less bog lime, and there are very many bogs which were once lakes that have been filled with it. It is often covered over with peat. It is most fre- quent in the upper chains of lakes in spring-fed lakes with cold water; in lakes of the higher parts of the state in the morainal regions.
PEAT
This deposit in the broadest sense includes all accumulations of nearly pure vegetable matter. Muck is not so pure. Davis distinguishes a number of classes according to their origin. But, since the higher and southern parts of the state have been longest exposed, there has been the greatest length of time for the accumulation and decomposition of peat deposits there. Moreover there are the divides where the drain- age is most uncertain. There too are the old glacial dumping grounds and the abandoned channels of the waters draining them.
This then is the region of our greater deposits of peat. Some peat is also found back of the old beach ridges especially the very highest ones, and those of Algonquin and Nipissing time. It very commonly fills up small lakes and may build out over deposits of Chara bog lime. The oldest, blackest, and most decomposed is in the south part of the state along the old glacial drainage channel system from Niles north- east toward the Thumb.
RIVER SILTS
Most Michigan rivers overflow their banks-of late years more than ever. In certain cases, miles and miles of country are naturally thus covered.
When the muddy waters of the swollen streams thus spread over their flood plains a deposit of mud takes place which is heaviest and
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coarsest near the main channel, finer and lighter at the margin. Thus the flood plains are built up and are normally somewhat higher next the stream. Along the margins of the flood plains next the bluffs is likely to be a swampy belt.
These flood plains are well stratified, but in irregular layers. We do not find the enormously thick beds without apparent break which are so characteristic of the glacial clays. They are generally very fer- tile, and their fertility is ever renewed.
CONNECTION OF SURFACE DEPOSITS AND SOILS
It is obvious that there is a close connection between the various kinds of surface deposits and soils. Dune sand is a kind of soil, and at the same time a particular kind of deposit. The fact is a classifica- tion of arile and surface deposits deal with the same material but from a different point of view. The surface geologist is studying them in the first place to see how they came to be, the soil expert to see what they are good for agriculturally. But if there is any difference in two soils there must have been some difference in their origin and hence the surface geologist, if he has an economic factor in view, can always make some distinction between soils which would be separated by a student of soils simply from the view of the department of agricul- ture. The geologist has also other uses in view. On the other hand some knowledge of how the soils were formed would be of the very greatest assistance in mapping different kinds and helping one to look out for important factors. Two soils of equal fineness may both pass for clay, but if one were a very fine rock flour with a great variety in chemical composition, while the other was almost entirely hydro- silicate of alumina, the agricultural value of the same, I think, would be very different. While all of the factors could be found out by sufficient detailed chemical and physical investigations, yet one can not analyze every foot, and there is often great need in soil mapping of knowing the geologic history.
TYPES OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN SOILS
The United States Department of Agriculture have so far mapped the following soil areas, which are sufficient to give us a fair idea of the types of the soils in the Lower Peninsula, though an area in the Grand Traverse region is urgently needed, and one to give us some clue to the soils of the western part of the Upper Peninsula, and thus there are still important types of soils which they have not touched. The following descriptions of their soils are taken from the United States soil survey field book. It will be noticed that the most important factor in their classification is the relative proportion of grains of dif- ferent fineness in the soil and subsoil. There are a few types to which no locality name is given. These are as follows :
"Dune sand-The dune sand consists of loose, incoherent sand form- ing hillocks, rounded hills, or ridges of various heights. The dunes are found along the shores of lakes, rivers or oceans and in desert areas.
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They are usually of no agricultural value on account of their irregular surface, the loose, open nature of the material, and its consequent low water-holding capacity. The dunes are frequently unstable and drift from place to place. The control of these sands by wind-breaks and binding grasses is frequently necessary for the protection of adjoining agricultural lands. In certain regions, where levelled and placed un- der irrigation, the dune sand is adapted to the production of truck crops and small fruits."
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