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for some time completed, and all the field notes, specimens and other materials are on hand, the results of an extended and laborious a research, and forming a mass of materials, which are now in readiness to be compiled for final publication.

Materials are also on hand for the final report on the Upper Peninsula, so far as the surveys have extended, in that very complex and interesting region, and the whole is far advanced towards completion.

A large amount of engravings and lithographs for the final report are completed, and the whole, it is thought, can be finished within another year. Most of these are, in a style of art, superior to anything

of the kind ever executed in this country.

The great importance of this work, so worthy of an enterprising, enlightened and free state, is no doubt fully realized by your honorable body. That by it the varied resources of the state are better de veloped and made known, and in particular the character of its supeperior agricultural and mineral advantages, and the manner in which those advantages can be best secured, and perpetuated. While the knowledge now shut from the public eye, or confined to but few, will thus become widely disseminated among the people who are rightly interested in its possession, and additional inducements will be offered to new settlers, such a work will form a noble monument of enterprise and liberality which Michigan will be the first of the western states to achieve.

Connected with this subject are other considerations, showing the value of the materials which have been amassed, by those associated in this department, and the importance of their preservation in such form as to continue to be made available to further the interests of the state. I will only now allude to the completion of the locations of state lands, under the appropriation by Congress, a portion of which it has been proposed to locate in the mineral district, under the direction of the state geologist; the furnishing of information to the legislature relative to the lands, minerals or other resources and interests of the state, in matters of importance annually arising, (of which the information herewith presented relating to the school sections is an example,) and for which annual calls have generally been made upon the department; the completion of the series of state and county maps,

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which had been commenced under the direction of the head of this department, the drafts for many of which are now in the hands of engravers, and the materials for all of which are drawn in a good degree from the private notes and maps of those engaged in the survey, and are now in readiness for publication. Under proper direction, the department will be constantly receiving accessions of information, and of geological and other specimens, and it will be at once perceived that the suitable, systematic, preservation and arrangement of all these materials will, of itself, be of exceeding importance to the people of the state, and will demand the continued consideration of your honorable body. All of which is respectfully submitted.

S. W. HIGGINS.

Principal Assistant, and Topographer of the Geological Survey.

DETROIT, JANUARY 5th, 1846.

To S. W. HIGGINS, Principal Assistant, and

Topographer of the Ceological Survey:

SIR-By the act of March 1st, 1845, the State Geologist was authorized and directed to ascertain the quantity of land the State of Michigan is entitled to in addition to or in lieu of the sixteenth section, and to subdivide fractional sections sixteen into such lots and fractions as may be suitable and convenient for sale, and to make maps of the same.

In compliance with the instructions of the late Doct. Douglass Houghton, I took charge of the work above referred to. His melancholy decease makes it proper, that to you, his principal assistant, I should report the result. Though this, as every other work in which he was engaged, lost in Dr. Houghton its directing mind; yet I believe the results as given in the accompanying books, maps, tabular statements, &c., are correct, and embody all the information desired upon this subject.

My attention has been confined entirely to the lower peninsula, and the accompanying statements have reference to it alone. The survey of the upper peninsula, is but commenced, and although an immense amount of work was done the past season, under the direction of the late Dr. Houghton, and the energetic Surveyor General, Hon. Lucius

Lyon, yet a vast amount remains unserveyed, and it was therefore deemed advisable not to include it in these statements.

The books, maps, &c., above referred to, comprise the following, viz :

1. Two registers of all the school lands of Michigan.

2. Two volumes of maps, each containing one hundred and seventy maps of fractional sections sixteen, sub-divided,*

3. A tabular statement of all the townships of the lower peninsula, with reference to section sixteen, marked A.

4. A tabular statement of all the school lands of the lower peninsula, marked B.

5. A tabular statement of the available school lands of the lower peninsula, marked C.

6. A condensed tabular statement of the quantity of land the state is entitled to in lieu of fractional sections sixteen, and for townships deficient in section sixteen, of the lower peninsula, marked D.

7. A statement in detail of the same, marked E.

8. Letter from the Hon. Jas. Shields, Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington, relative to Indian reservations, marked F.

9. Letter and statement of "locations," in lieu of fractional sections sixteen, &c., from Hon. D. V. Bell, Commissioner of State Land Office, at Marshall, marked G.

The registers are duplicates, and are intended, one for the office of State Geologist, and the other for the State Land Office. They are calculated for all the school lands of the State, whether sections sixteen or locations made in lieu, and are divided into two parts-the first is headed "Description of section sixteen in all the townships of the State of Michigan ;" the second, "Fractional townships deficient in section sixteen, and fractional sections sixteen, in the State of Michigan." Under the first head are exhibited:

1st. Each township in the State, (completed for the lower peninsula.)

2nd. Quantity in each township-whether it is a "full" township or "three-quarters," or "half," &c.

3d. Quantity in section sixteen.

*One volume not finished, yet to be lettered and bound.

4th. Deficiency in section sixteen.

5th. Amouut to which entitled to in lien.

6th. Deficiencies, where located.

7th. Deficiencies, (locations in lieu of,) when confirmed. Under the Second Head, all the fractional townships deficient in section sixteen, and all the fractional sections sixteen, are recapitulated, with the same details of quantity, &c., as given under the first. When the deficiencies now reported are located, and the survey of the Upper Peninsula finished, and the deficiencies there ascertained, and locations made in lieu, and all entered, these registers will comprise complete catalogues of all the school lands of the State.

The two volumes of maps are also duplicates, and are designed, one to accompany each of the registers. They contain each, one hundred and seventy maps of fractional sections sixteen, exhibiting the meandered lakes and streams, and the contents of each fractional subdivision. The meanders of the lakes and rivers, and the calculations of the contents of the sub-divisions, are all based upon the original field-notes in the office of the Surveyor General, in this city.These calculations were a work of great labor and care, not only from the important interests involved in them, but also from the careless and imperfect manner in which many of the early surveys were made. In your report of 1840, you had occasion to remark that the "fairest portion of the State was sub-divided with evident want of skill, and with a carelessness in the first surveyor, (Wampler,) which has already resulted in a vast amount of trouble and absolute loss to a, portion of our citizens. This carelessness and want of skill is very evident in the meanders of the rivers and lakes; in many instances, "the variation between the actual and proposed course is so great, as "to render it nearly impossible to make the work close."*

The Tabular Statement marked A., shows the whole number of full and fractional townships of the Lower Peninsula to be twelve hundred and sixty-eight, and the statement of "all the school lands" is made up from that table according to the following provisions of the aet of Congress of May 20, 1826:

"There shall be reserved and appropriated for the use of schools"For each township or fractional township, containing a greater

Dr. Houghton's Report, 1839.

quantity of land than three quarters of an entire township-one section,

"For a fractional township, containing a greater quantity of land than one half and not more than three quarters of a township, three quarters of a section.

"For a fractional township containing a greater quantity of land than one quarter, and not more than one half of a township, one half section.

And for a fractional township containing a greater quantity of lard than one entire section, and not more than one quarter of a township, one quarter section of land."

The quanti y of land the state is entitled to in lieu of fractional sections sixteen, and for townships deficient in section sixteen, of the Lower Peninsula, is twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and twentynine acres and sixty-eight one hundred hs, as shown by statements D and E. To this amount must be added such deficiencies as may occur in twenty-eight townships not yet sub-divided, and forty-one townships of the surveys of Riley & Rosseau, which, if they were ever made, have been found so incorrect, that the Commissioner of the General Land Office has ordered them to be cancelled and the ground re-surveyed.

The statement of "Available School Lands" includes, of course, such as may have been sold and the fractional sections sixteen which have heretofore been withheld from sale as they were not sub-divided, all difficulty on that score being now removed. They amount to sıx hundred and eighty-six thousand one hundred and nine acres.

By reference to the statement (B,) it will be seen that the whole amount of school lands of the Lower Peninsula is seven hundred and fifty-nine thousand five hundred and eighteen acres and 69-100ths, and when those of the Upper Peninsula, which are estimated at fully one half as much, or about three hundred and eighty thousand, four hundred and eighty-one acres, and 31-100ths, are added, we have for the total school lands of the state, one million, one hundred and forty thousand acres, (1,140,000,) which, at the minimum price as fixed by law, of five dollars per acre, would produce the sum of five millions and seven hundred thousand dollars, and that again at the legal interest of seven per cent. would yield an annual income of three hundred

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