lions. An ingenious calculation shows that the work of the Michigan mills during that year in sawed lumber would load a train of cars 2,470 miles in length, each car carrying 10,000 feet and occupying 33 feet of track, and would build a city of handsome frame houses capable of furnishing comfortable homes for more than a million of people. The aggregate value of the forest products of this State already marketed is in excess of $1,000,000,000. These totals far outstrip those of any other timberproducing State, or of any country of like area. FACILITIES FOR TRANSPORTATION. The numerous lakes, rivers and small water-courses which form such salient features in the topography of Michigan have been and are of inestimable value to many interests, but to none more than those of the lumberman. They have borne myriads of logs from the forests along their banks to the booms of mills located at convenient shipping points, and this economical transportation has added millions to the profits of the business and greatly aided its remarkable development. Within a few years the disappearance of the valuable pine along some of the streams and the necessity of access to the remoter tracts of timber have led to the construction of small logging railroads in many portions of the lower peninsula, which possess an aggregate length of several hundred miles, although few of them are incorporated under the general railroad law. In all instances, it is believed, they have proved profitable. DIVERSITY OF LABOR EMPLOYED. A brief description of the methods of lumbering followed in Michigan will illustrate the diversity of labor employed. The felling of the trees is the work of the winter, when snow-clad ground and frozen streams facilitate the transportation of supplies into the forest and the hauling of logs. Camps are pitched at convenient points in which the axemen and teamsters live during the chopping season, the abundance of material making the construction of comfortable quarters easy and economical work. The cut timber is carried on sleds to the banks of some convenient stream or to the track of a logging railroad. In the latter case it is taken to the mill on flat cars, as needed, or transported to the shore of the great lakes and rafted, uncut, to ports hundreds of miles away. In the former instances the high water and strong currents of the spring freshets are used to carry the logs down the streams to points where it is possible to ship lumber to other markets by rail or lake, and where, as a consequence, the mills will be found. There the logs are received and secured in strong booms, controlled by local corporations, the managers of which attend to their delivery at the private booms of their owners, whose property is easily designated by their special marks. Sawing, yarding and shipping require the labors of other and distinct classes of workmen. THE GREAT CENTERS OF MANUFACTURE. The distribution of the lumber manufacture of Michigan is determined by its rivers and railroads. Below the valleys of the Saginaw and the Grand, little else than a mere local trade now exists. The Saginaw receives the waters of the Tittabawassee, the Cass, the Flint, the Shiawassee, the Bad, the Pine, the Chippewa, the Tobacco, and their numerous tributaries, draining a vast and magnificently timbered region. At its mouth are the thriving towns of Bay City and West Bay City; sixteen miles above, at the head of steam navigation, are Saginaw and East Saginaw. At these cities and in the flourishing villages between them are collected the finest lumber manufacturing establishments in the world, whose total yearly product surpasses that of any other single district. The river which brings the logs to their booms also bears large vessels to their docks, and they have under absolute control all the advantages of cheap water transportation. The Saginaw valley is also connected by several first-class lines with the railway system of the continent, and with this multiplied outlet commands access to all the markets of the world. The Lake Huron shore, including Saginaw Bay, counts its saw-mills by the hundred. The Au Sable and Thunder Bay are important logging rivers of that part of the State, and lumbering is also extensively carried on along the Rifle, the Aux Gres, the Cheboygan, the Black, and many smaller streams. Alpena, Tawas City, East Tawas, Cheboygan, Oscoda, Au Sable, Harrisville and Black River are important manufacturing or shipping points. The chief lumbering rivers emptying into Lake Michigan are the Muskegon, the Manistee, the Grand, the White, and the Pere Marquette. Many millions of feet are also cut annually along the banks of the Kalamazoo, the Paw Paw, the Grand, the two Sables, the Aux Becs Scies, the Pentwater, and other lesser streams. The Muskegon, after draining a broad valley extending far into the interior, expands into a handsome lake close upon the shore of Lake Michigan. No natural provision could be more favorable for the handling of logs and the shipment of the sawed product, and the city of Muskegon, located upon the south shore of the lake, has the distinction of annually cutting more lumber than any other single city in the world. Manistee possesses a similar eminence in the manufacture of shingles. Benton Harbor, St. Joseph, Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Saugatuck, Montague, Whitehall, Pentwater, Ludington, Frankfort, Elk Rapids, and Traverse City also contribute to swell the total of the forest products of the Lake Michigan shore. There are many inland towns, situated upon railway lines, which are important centers of this industry; among them are Flint, Lapeer, Evart, Big Rapids, Cadillac, Midland, and Farwell. Lumbering is yet in its infancy in the upper peninsula, but the value of the sawed and square timber product of that region in 1881 must be estimated at over $4,000,000. Saw-mills are scattered along the shores and the railways of Menominee, Delta, Mackinac, Marquette, Schoolcraft, Baraga, Houghton, and Ontonagon counties, but the chief centers of lumber production in that section of the State are Menominee, Escanaba, Manistique, St. Ignace, Ford River, and Munising. THE LUMBER BUSINESS OF THE FUTURE. The impression that Michigan is showing signs of exhaustion as a timber-producing State is without adequate foundation. Forestry Bulletin No. 6, issued by the United States Census Bureau on December 1, 1881, contained this estimate of the amount of merchantable timber standing in Michigan on May 31, 1880: In Menominee River Valley. In Schoolcraft, Chippewa, Mackinac, and Delta counties. 66 Lake Huron... 7,000,000,000 8,000,000,000 66 Lake Michigan, (lower peninsula) 14,000,000,000 1,600,000,000 2,400,000,000 2,000,000,000 Total.. 35,000,000,000 The pine timber was distributed over about 8,000,000 of acres, and the hard wood over about 30,000,000. This Bulletin also estimated that Michigan contained 7,000,000,000 feet of hemlock lumber with 7,000,000 cords of bark, and an aggregate of nearly 70,000,000 cords of white and yellow cedar and tamarack. These census figures are regarded as under rather than over-estimates by men who have carefully examined the subject. Some well informed lumbermen believe that ultimately the hard wood product of Michigan will approach in yearly value the generous figures that now represent the gross earnings of the pine lumber trade. Certainly the time is not far distant when hard wood saw-mills must become common, and the innumerable industries into which such timber enters must rapidly multiply. For years to come Michigan will keep its rank as the great timber-producing State, and this interest will continue to furnish profitable investments for capital, remunerative employment for the laborer, and a sure home-market for the produce of the pioneer farmers. SALT. Long prior to the settlement of Michigan by white men, the Indians supplied themselves with salt from the saline springs of the Saginaw valley, and those who conducted the early topographical and geological surveys of the State predicted that systematic exploration would reveal the existence of subterranean stores that might be developed into great commercial importance. Spasmodic attempts to manufacture salt were made even under the territorial government, but without success. DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE SALT INTEREST. Shortly after the State was organized its legislature made a series of appropriations to meet the expenses of a thorough examination of its saline resources by Dr. Douglass Houghton. His work was valuable in many respects, but did not yield conclusive results, and for five years after his death the subject received but little public attention. Private enterprise, stimulated at the outset by a small State bounty, finally added salt to the staple products of Michigan. In 1859-60, the East Saginaw Salt Manufacturing Company sank a well at that city to the depth of about 650 feet, and was the first to obtain brine in paying quantity and quality. Thenceforward the development of this industry was rapid and decisive. Greater progress was made by it in four years than was made in the Kanawha valley in fifty, and in five years its product equaled that reached by the Onondaga salt springs of New York in the forty-second year of the existence of the works near Syracuse. THE LARGEST SALT-PRODUCING STATE. Of late the Michigan product of salt has largely exceeded that of any other State, and in the inspection year ending November 30, 1881, it amounted to 2,750,299 barrels. This was manufactured by 121 salt blocks and 4,500 solar covers, having an estimated annual capacity of 3,400,000 barrels. From the comparative statement of the salt industry of the United States for the census year 1880, published by the National Census Bureau, August 8, 1881, these statistics of the principal salt-producing States are taken. It will be seen that the value of the product in this State was nearly double that of New York, while the capital employed was nearly $140,000 less. Principal Salt Products of the Census Year 1880. causes. CHEAP TRANSPORTATION AND ECONOMICAL PRODUCTION. The preeminence of Michigan as a salt-producing State is due to a combination of The abundance and superior strength of its brine do not alone explain it; neither does the fact that careful inspection by State authority through a series of years has, as a rule, kept its salt unsurpassed in chemical purity and in preserving qualities. The fortunate location of the wells upon the shores of navigable waters has given this industry the advantages of cheap transportation and easy access to markets in all the central and northwestern States. Still more important is the economy with which the salt blocks are worked. In connection with saw-mills their operation involves a large saving of expense. Power is furnished by the same engines; the evaporation of the brine is forced, during the day, by the exhausted steam from the mills, and during the night by live steam generated in the boilers by burning the refuse slabs and sawdust; and the barrels are made of staves eut from the rejected lumber and slabs. By this system a superior salt is obtained at a minimum cost of manufacture. The same advantages cannot fail to accrue to the salt trade of the State in its competition with other States hereafter. CHIEF CENTERS OF MANUFACTURE. The chief center of the salt manufacture is the Saginaw river, and the blocks on its banks produce about three-fourths of the entire yield of the State. There are also salt blocks at Caseville, Port Crescent, Port Austin, New River, Port Hope, Sand Beach, and White Rock, in Huron county; at Oscoda, East Tawas, and Tawas City, in Iosco county; at St. Louis in Gratiot county; at Midland, and at Manistee. The latter is the pioneer district of the Lake Michigan shore, and was developed in 1881. HOW IT IS MADE AND WHERE IT IS SHIPPED. No rock salt has been found in the State, and the brine is procured by boring deep wells and pumping. The salt is obtained by evaporation, and steam is mainly used for this work, although the solar process is employed by a few companies. All the product is carefully inspected and branded by officers appointed by the State, and the purity of the brine and the perfection of the methods of manufacture are such that the yield of 1881 did not contain two per cent of second quality salt. The bulk of the Michigan salt is shipped to Chicago, but it also finds distributing points at Milwaukee, Racine, Duluth, Detroit, Toledo, Sandusky, Cleveland, Dunkirk, Erie, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Hannibal, Mo. Of late it has been shipped by rail as well as by water. WHERE THE BRINE COMES FROM. The chief reservoir of Michigan brine is a series of sandstones and shales, from 1,000 to 1,200 feet in thickness, called by geologists the Waverly group. It is a sea-coast rock, in which the prints of sea-weeds and the fossil remains of enormous marine growths are found, and is saturated, sponge-like, with the brine. Presumably centuries ago the waves of a pre-Adamite ocean broke upon that shore, and impregnated it with its saline riches. In his inaugural message Gov. Jerome said: "The salt-producing territory of Michigan as now developed covers over 8,000 square miles; it is fair to presume that the supply is inexhaustible, and the increase in manufacture will continue as the demand increases with the growth of the great West." * The average depth of the Saginaw wells is about 900 feet. Productive wells elsewhere have been sunk to distances ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, and they indicate other brine-carrying basins belonging to another group which will reward deeper borings. The brine is easily pumped, and the yield of the wells varies from 12 to 20 gallons per minute. A single well has yielded 26,000 barrels of salt in a manufacturing season of eight months, and the annual product of some companies has reached 120,000 barrels. READY MARKETS AND GENERAL USE. The best qualities of Michigan salt sell promptly for dairy and family use, and are especially adapted to the wants of packers of meats and fish. The inferior grades are branded as such and sold for salting stock and hides and similar purposes, while an increasing market has opened for refuse salt as a fertilizer. Shipments in bulk and in sacks have recently begun. The bitter waters which are drained off in the processes of manufacture contain valuable ingredients; the bromine of pharmacy and the arts is now largely obtained from this source. A PERMANENT SOURCE OF WEALTH. The salt interest of Michigan can be safely pronounced a permanent source of wealth. Subterranean explorations are being made in widely scattered parts of the lower peninsula-in Berrien, Muskegon, Alpena, Cheboygan, and other counties-with promising prospects. Under a general enabling act passed by the last Legislature, an underground pipe-line nine inches in bore and twelve miles in length was laid during 1881 between the salt wells of East Tawas and the lumber mills of Oscoda, with the expectation that it would supply brine enough for the daily manufacture of 1,000 barrels of salt. The development of this great interest is yet very far from its maturity. The average net price obtained for Saginaw salt by the manufacturers during the inspection year of 1881 was 83 cents per barrel. COPPER. The early descriptions of Lake Superior likened that monarch of fresh-water seas to a bent bow, partly across which, in the similitude of a broken arrow, stretched the long and narrow Keweenaw Point. The backbone of that peninsula is a picturesque |