The historical geography of Detroit

Preface

/^N July 24, 1701, a fleet of some two dozen canoes ^-^ carrying Frenchmen and Indians, entered the Detroit River on a mission that was to introduce civiHzation into the Great Lakes region nearly one htmdred years in advance of British-American progress from the Atlantic seaboard. One hundred persons — fifty miifomaed soldiers, some twenty farmers, artisans, and traders, the remainder a few women and children^ — had come to plant an outpost of French power and influence in the wilderness about the Great Lakes.

Forty-nine days before, they had left the head of the LaChine Rapids near IMcntreal. Fearing to give umbrage to the ever watchful Iroquois about the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, they had chosen the "Northern Route." Up the Ottawa they toiled, against the swift currents, around the many rapids, and thence by lakes, and rivers, with many portages, they reached Georgian Bay and later Lake Huron. After a voyage of over seven hundred miles they entered the "Strait," — "Detroit," in the language of the French. Down this they swept, passing many islands, and on across Lake St. Clair to the upper coirrse of the Detroit River.

They selected a commanding site for their fort on the right bank of the river, for this post was to control the traffic of the Upper Lakes. Grain and seed

1. Magazine of Western History, II, 55 (GrifiEin).

Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center iv PREFACE

and tools were brought, for these settlers were to found a colony which should be a permanent nucleus of French power and influence in the Lakes region. The colony thus established was the beginning of the present Detroit.

There are few other cities in America that have taken so long and so prominent a part in the history and development of the sections in which they are situated. Detroit was fifty-three years old when the British began their fort at Pittsburg, hundreds of miles in advance of civilization. It was ninety-five years old when Moses Cleveland laid out the city that bears his name on Lake Erie. Detroit celebrated its centenary in the year that the Holland Land Company plotted the city of Buffalo at the mouth of Buffalo Creek. The first log cabin in Indianapolis was not erected until 118 years after the French began the city on the "Straits." And Detroit had been making history 129 years when the Illinois Board of Land Commissioners surveyed the site of Chicago, the great metropolis of the interior.^

Detroit was founded as an outpost of French power, and a center for French commerce in the Great Lakes region. Its position near the crossing of the French and British lines of advance into the interior gave it a prominent place in the long struggle between these two nations for supremacy in America. Victories at Duquesne and Quebec made the British supreme, and Detroit came under their control. In the Indian revolt of 1763, against the assiunption of the control of the Great Lakes by the British, Detroit was considered

2. Magazine of Western History, II, 571 {Gvif^n).

PREFACE V

the seat of British power and was called upon to withstand the attacks of the major part of the Indian forces. During the Revolutionary War, it was an outfitting point from which British and Indian expeditions were dispatched to harass the American settlers in the Ohio Valley. Several attempts were made by the Americans to organize expeditions against Detroit. Its isolation was a chief factor in preventing any definite action. According to the terms of the Treaty of Peace of 1783, Detroit, with the other trading posts of the Lakes, was ceded to the United States, but the importance of these posts to the furmerchants of Montreal was midoubtedly the reason for their retention by the British for thirteen years. Their final delivery to the United States in 1796 came only after a second treaty had been made and Wayne's victory seemed to have stripped the British of their Indian allies. The general policy, however, which actuated the retention of the posts was not abandoned by the British until after the War of 1812.

In the War of 1812, Detroit was the chief center of the control of the Indians and of the fur trade of the Upper Lakes. It was, therefore, the center of the struggle between American and British forces. Surrendered to the British in 1813, it was reoccupied by the troops of the United States the following year.

Under both French and British influence Detroit was merely a military- and trading post. For one hundred years its gro\\i:h was retarded. The real development did not begin until the early part of the nineteenth century when the American frontier began to envelop it, and it became an integral part of the vi PREFACE

United States. Since then few cities have enjoyed so rapid a growth. In 1830 Detroit was the fifty-third city in size in the United States. In 1910 it stood ninth.

Within the last decade or two, the rapid growth in population, manufactures, building construction, comnaerce, and other items that indicate a healthy grow1;h, show that it has not yet reached its final rank among the cities of America.

Such in brief is the story of the founding of Detroit and a sketch of the more important events in its subsequent history. This brief sketch and the more detailed discussion which follows indicate the dominance of Detroit in the historic events of the Lakes region for so many decades. "Egypt is the Nile, and the Nile is Egypt," is a saying among the Egyptians, indicating the great importance of the Nile in the life of that cradle of civilization. With a similar thought in mind one might say, considering the early history, "The Lakes region was Detroit, and Detroit was the Lakes region." For more than a centtury Detroit was almost the only civilized spot in the vast area about the Great Lakes. The reader should keep this in mind, if, in the reading of the following pages, he is tempted to consider, at first thought, some of the historic and geographic material to be extraneous to the discussion of Detroit.

Historical Geography, as the term has come to be understood by American geographers, is a study of the history of a region as affected by the geographic

PREFACE vu

environment. Geography is concerned with the influences of physical environment on life, — plant, animal, and human. Historical Geography is concerned with the study of the influence of environment on man, mainly in the past.

In this thesis, The Historical Geography of Detroit, the chief endeavor will be to indicate the influence of the topography, the waterways, the soil, the cHmate, mineral resources, plant life, aniinal life, and aboriginal human life upon the activities of the Europeans and their descendants who came to. occupy the Great Lakes region, and m.ore especially the region about Detroit. The point of view is economic, for in the economic development of a region the influence of environment is most evident. In the economic development of Detroit two environments must be recognized: a forest environment, the sole work of Nature, and an agricultural, commercial and industrial environment, in which civilized man has put to his own use the natural resources and forces. The former was characterized by extensive forests, abimdant game, furnishing furs and food, and fish in plenty, all frunishing man with shelter, food, and clothing at close hand with a minimum of labor. Such an environment tended to prolong the savage stage of culture; and so strong was its influence that civilized man, when he marched into the wilderness and severed the lines of frequent commtmication with the more civilized seaboard settlements, found himself overwhelmed with its influence and living the life of a savage. The second environment is one of progress. It is the result of a transplanted civilization in contact with j.:i

J Hi viii , PREFACE

rich natural resources. Civilized man makes far different demands upon the resources of his environment than- did the Indian. Moreover, in the economic development of the region, as man passed through the various stages of lumbering, agriculture, commerce and manufacturing, he made different demands at different times. The greater density of population and higher standards of living demanded a more complete use of nature's resources. In civilized economy man removed the forests and came to utilize the sustaining power of the land to a fuller extent than did the Indian. He unearthed the treasures of the mines, increased the value of his products by adding skill in their production, lengthened and deepened the waterways and with steel and steam shortened time-distances on land, thereby greatly extending his sustaining area, and widened his markets. The Great Lakes environment dming the Indian, French, and English regime was far different from that under the Americans.

The plan of presentation of the material in the thesis follows that of the historian, and not that of the geographer. . This seemed to the writer the only feasible arrangement. In writing the historical geography of a large area with diverse topography, climate, soil, and other resources, and of an area whose main lines of historic development, are well known, the weaving of the material about the geographic elements of the environment would be feasible. But in tracing the influence of geography on the economic development and growth of an urban group, whose history is little known, the necessity for continuity

PREFACE ix

of thought and richness and fullness of treatment seemed to the writer to demand a chronological arrangement of material.

The writer's interest in the subject grew out of the patriotic feeling he naturally bore to his native State and its metropolis, and especially out of a desire to ascertain, if possible, the factors, geographic or nongeographic, immediate or distant, in the recent phenominal rise of Detroit as a manufacturing center. This led him into the romance of the cit^^'s history,. of the part taken in its growth and economic development by the Indian, the Catholic missionary, the early French officials, the coiireur de hois, and the pioneer farmers, sailors, railroad builders, and business men. To all these factors in the long development and slow grow1;h, his studies in the field of modem geography have given an interest and meaning not experienced by a collector and recorder of mere facts.

Most of the historic material has been secured from original documents, manuscripts, papers, journals and reports, a complete list of which is found in the bibliography appended. The libraries of the University of Chicago, the John Crerar and Newberry libraries of Chicago, the Chicago Public Library and that of the Chicago Historical Society, the Detroit Pubhc Library and a few private collections have all been carefully searched.

Special acknowledgments are due Prof. H. H. Barrows of the Department of Geography of the University of Chicago for his interest, his painstaking reading, and helpful suggestions in the preparation of

X PREFACE

the manuscript. The writer wishes also to thank Professors Sahsbur}% Goode, and Tower, and his fellow students in the Geographic Seminar of 1913 and 1914, at the University of Chicago, before whom a few of the chapters were read, for their interest and criticism.

CHAPTER I • The Geographic Setting of Detroit 1 The Great Central Plain of North America

Extent /

Resources

Contact with ocean The Great Lakes region

Position

Resources

Transportation facilities The bed rock of the Great Lakes region and its influences on

geography and history Glaciation in the Great Lakes region and its influence The waterways and their importance Forests and furs of the Great Lakes region The Indians of the Great Lakes region The Indians at Detroit

Introduction

The search for the passage to the Western Sea

The French in the lower St. Lawrence

The Dutch up the Hudson River

The British in Hudson Bay and Hudson River

The Founding of Quebec, 1608

The Foimding of Fort Orange (Albany) and New Netherlands

(New York), 1623 The British displace the Dutch along the Hudson Exploration of the interior The fur-trade and exploration Influence of the cheap goods of the Enghsh i:j :v /

■J. I >r

I r: " f

1*3 /;>^ xii CONTENTS

The commercial positions of Montreal and Albany compared

The founding of Fort Frontenac, 1672

English expedition to Upper Lakes, 1685

Fort St. Joseph built •

Need of an English post at Niagara

The French build a post at Niagara, July, 1687 •

Post at Niagara abandoned. 1688

The founding of Detroit, 1701

CHAPTER III Detroit Under Cadill.\c 46

Description of the Detroit region

Cadillac conceived a post at Detroit

Opposition to founding of Detroit

Cadillac authorized to build a post

The arrival of Cadillac's party, July 24, 1701

The construction of buildings and attempts at agriculture

Emigration to Detroit, 1706.

Factors opposing growth

The post investigated

The post approved

Detroit in 1710

CHAPTER IV The Detroit SettlemExNT After Cadillac 64

The attack of the Fox Indians, 1712

Effects of the smallness of the garrison

Reasons for the small garrison

The importance of Detroit to the French

A proposal to prohibit settlers coming to the post, 1714

The settlers deprived of right to trade, 1717

Beginning of an era of prosperity, 1728

An emigration policy adopted, 1734

The need of a large garrison

The trade and agriculture at Detroit about 1740

The Huron Mission and its business transactions

Indians threaten Detroit, 1744-45 i-d

MT

CONTENTS

Government aid to settlers, 1748 Rapid growth of Detroit settlement, 1749-55 The English take possession, 1760 Detroit in 1760

Population

Isolation of Detroit

The Fort

Means of communication

The homes

Character of the French

CHAPTER V The arrival of Rogers

Indians oppose British

Reasons for opposition

The coming of British traders

Character of British traders

Pontiac's conspiracy

Water communication saves Detroit

Settlers prohibited from purchasing land

Effects of this prohibition

British realize the importance of Detroit

Many French leave Detroit

Detroit a part of Quebec

Ignorance of needs of Detroit

Need of more settlers at Detroit

English Government considers sending settlers

Detroit during the Revolutionary War

Expeditions sent to harass American frontier

Isolation of Detroit prevented attack by Americans Detroit in 1778

Census reports of Detroit in 1779, 1780, and 1782 More settlers for Detroit requested Retention of the Lake ports

British merchants oppose treaty

Reasons given for retention

Real reason comniercial

Testimony of Robertson

Opinion of Long American side of Lakes has better harbors n~l xiv CONTENTS

Indian depredations on frontier Royalists encouraged to migrate to Detroit Montreal merchants extend trading territory Fur-trade of Lakes region during British control

Northwest Company

The Hudson Bay Company changes methods

Political power of Northwest Company Memorial of i\Iontreal merchants Boundary proposals of fur merchants The Lakes region a great expense to British

A final attempt to retain control of trade in American territory The encroachment of American settlers in Lakes region Detroit in 1788 Methods of agriculture Composition of population Reasons for slow growth Detroit in 1797

CHAPTER VI Many British leave Detroit

Canadian Government offers inducements

Complications in land titles

Land question settled

Begimiing of emigration of Americans to Detroit

Distribution of Population in Michigan, 1810

Detroit depends on Ohio for food

The isolation of Detroit and consequences

Isolation of Fort Maiden

Victory of Perry gave Americans control of Lake Erie

Northwest Company asks favors

British delay suiTender of posts

The American Fur Company

Reasons for slow growth of Detroit

Detroit in 1818

Interior of Michigan explored

Government proposed the removal of fort at Detroit

Reasons for retention

CONTENTS XV

CHAPTER VII Local Geography of Detroit Region 151 Introduction

Detroit located on a till plain

The topography of Southern Michigan

Topographic features result of glaciation

Character of till

The beach ridges

The Detroit moraine

Boulder belts

Drainage of plain

Water power in Detroit region

The lower coui'ses of rivers drowTied

Soils of the Detroit region

Mineral resources

Clay

Limestone

Salt

CHAPTER VIII A Century of Growth at Detroit 170 Population statistics for one hundred years

Deterrent factors in growl-h in early decades of nineteenth century

Factors in westward movement of population

IMichigan lands made known in East

Indian titles extinguished

Change in land laws, 1820

States to south "filling" .

Improvements in transportation

Economic changes in New England

Wandering habits of pioneers

Emigration to Detroit and Michigan, 1820-30 Detroit in 1827 Detroit in 1837 The boom period, 1837-39 Effect on growth of Detroit and Michigan Nativity of people at Detroit, 1850 Rivals of Detroit — ^^lonroe and Toledo

V'l xvi CONTENTS

Growth of Detroit since 1850

Comparisons of nativity of population, 1850, 1880, 1910

Detroit in 1910

Size

Shape, geographic factors influencing

Plan of city

Structiu"e of city, factors affecting

A city of home o\\mers

Location of factories

Transportation facilities

Water supply

Recreation

CHAPTER IX Detroit and the Development of Navigation

I. The Development of the Carrying Agent and Facilities for

Transportation 203

Introduction The canoe era

The birch bark canoe

The pirogue

The batteau • •

The Dm-ham boat The French voyageurs The sailboat era

The Griffin

The Cadillac sloop

French vessels on Lake Erie and Upper Lakes, 1726

British vessels after 1763

British government monopoly of lake traffic

Inadequacy of facilities causes distress at Detroit

American-built vessels after 1796

The decline of the sailing vessel The steamboat era

The Walk-in-the- Water

Detroit, the western terminus of steamer lines

The growth of steam shipping on the Lakes

Types of vessels developed

The "bulk-cargo" carriers

Growi;h of Detroit shipping

Rank of Detroit among the lake ports

CONTENTS xvii

CHAPTER X Detroit and Development of Water Transportation

II. Waterways and Water Routes 231

Barriers to navigation in St. La\\Tence system Government aid to navigation Detroit and the St. Lawrence Route

Dangers and difficulties to na\-igation in the lower St. Lawrence

Improvements in the St. Lawrence

The Niagara Falls a great barrier ' ■ The building of the Wclland Canal

Specifications of St. Lawrence canals

Importance of the St. Lawrence Route to Detroit

The decline of the St. LawTence as a traffic route for Detroit Detroit and the IVIohawk Route

Land routes across New York

The Eric Canal

Business transactions \\'ith East before the railroads Detroit and improvement of navigation on Lake Erie and the Upper Lakes

The need of improvements

The twent3'-foot channel plan

Improvements at Sault Ste. Marie

Spread of population in Lakes region

Improvements in navigation bring about a new routing of traffic

Need of a deep-water route to the ocean

CHAPTER XI Development of Land Transportation 253

Few roads in early period The road to the Ohio frontier Roads to interior of State

Chicago Road

Saginaw Road

Grand River Road i?.yiA-.

xviii CONTENTS

Gratiot Road Character of early roads Stage lines in 1830, 1835, 1837 Value of these roads Railroads

Internal improvement projects of 1837

The Central Railroad

The Great Western Railroad

The Detroit and Pontiac Railroad extended

Railroads from Detroit in 1857, 1885, 1910

Benefits of railroads to Detroit

Overcoming the break in railroad transportation at the

Detroit River Interurban lines centering at Detroit

CHAPTER XII The Development of Manufactures at Detroit.. 279

Introduction

Shipbuilding at Detroit imder British regime

Manufactiu^es at Detroit, 1810

Alanufactures of Wayne Coimty, 1820

Reasons for retarded development before 1820

Changes that favored development after 1820

]\Ianufactiu-es of Wayne County, 1840

Manufactures of Wa\me County, 1860

Manufactures of Wa>Tie County, 1880

Manufactures of Detroit, 1880; comparison with those of Wayne

Coimty Maniifacturers of Detroit, 1909 Growth of one hundred years in inanufactures

Chapter XIII

Factors in the Growth of Population and Development of Manufactures — A Review 312

Position of Detroit

Reasons for location of Detroit by the French

The strategic position of Detroit

CONTENTS

Fort <,'ave protection to settlers

A center of roads and railroads

A terminus of vessel lines on Lake Erie

Became a ^^•ay-port

Early manufactures at Detroit

Factors in development of manufactures

Local raw products

Power

Skilled labor

Capital and enterprise

THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF DETROIT

CHAPTER I The Geographic Setting of Detroit

"PjETROIT is situated in the heart of the Great Lakes region, near the eastern edge of the Great Central Plain of North America. Its development, therefore, is associated closely with the geographic conditions and development of the Great Central Plain and more especially with the imm.ediate portions of that plain about the Great Lakes.

The plains of the world always have been important in the economy of nations. In the early periods, the river plains of the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Ganges supported the developing civilizations. In the modem period the humid temperate plains have come to be recognized as the great producing areas for the world's population. The geographic conditions of these plains favor the developm.ent of a high stage of civilization; and where social, religious, or political factors do not control, such plains are the homes of the most progressive and the most influential of the

... .1 nations. Among the many geographic factors that seem to make these plains the most suitable for the homes of men, the more important are —

(1) Abundance of well -watered fertile land, and a stimulating climate,

(2) Rich deposits of useful minerals,-

(3) Low relief, enstuing easy communication between all parts,

(4) Accessibility to the ocean.

All these requirements are met in a large degree in the Great Central Plain of North America.

The Great Central Plain extends 2500 miles northward from the Gulf of Mexico, and 1,500 miles eastward from the Rocky Mountains to the highlands of New York. A large portion of the northern third of this great area is covered by snow and ice many months in the year and a broad strip along the western border is too dry for diversified cultivation, yet there remain fully 1,250,000 square miles of land capable of the highest agricultural development. Man in North America is only in the early stages of his adjustment to the soil. For many decades certain sections of the Central Plain have contributed largely to the world's cereal crop; the ultimate agricultural possibilities of the region, however, are far from being attained.

The resources of the Central Plain lie not alone in its agricultural possibilities, for there are rich deposits of iron, salt, coal, copper, gypsum, and various sorts of building materials. The great stretches of valuable forests which once covered much of the region have played an important part in the development of the

'J.J region about the Great Lakes; and furs, the pioneer product of the forests for which the eastern section of the Central Plain was coveted by both the French and the British, have long since been depleted.

The Central Plain is in general of low relief. Minor elevations here and there break its monotony, but these offer little obstruction to intercourse between the various parts. Although the Great Central Plain does not border an ocean, its low relief, its many navigable rivers, bays, and gulfs, and the low passes through the highlands to the east, all permit freedom of intercourse with the Atlantic, the most important ocean in world commerce. To the north there is easy access to Hudson Bay. Though ice-bound for seven or eight months each year, this exit to the Atlantic was an important one for the fur trade of the regions to the north and northwest of the Great Lakes for over two hundred years, and in the future it may prove of great value to the developing regions in the northern part of the arable portions of the interior plain. On the south for 1500 miles the Great Central Plain borders the Gulf of Mexico. Along this coast there are ports with easy communication to the interior that may serve as logical doorways to the trade of Central and South America. Along the eastern border are the highlands of Canada and the Appalachian Mountains. These are the only barriers between the plain and the Atlantic. Around the northern end of the Appalachian ridges, along the southern border of the "old land of Canada, - extends the St. Lawrence Valley, the lowlands of which, as far west as the escarpment at Niagara, are less than five hundred feet above tide. To the south of this great valley, across the State of New York from the plains about Lake Ontario to the Hudson River, is the Oneida- Mohawk depression, also with low altitudes. These two valleys constitute the notches in the barrier to the east. These have ever been among the chief, if not the chief, lines of communication and traffic, the "gateways" between the Great Central Plain and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Great Lakes region includes that irregular and som.ewhat indefinite area, on the eastern side of the Great Central Plain, that borders and includes the five Great Lakes of North Am.erica. It is not separated from the other parts of the Great Central Plain by any marked topographic feature. It is not in any way an isolated geographic unit; yet it is a unit. Its abundant resources m.ake it one of the most im.- portant areas of the interior plain. Its chief importance perhaps lies in its position at the west entrances of the "gateways" to the Atlantic. Since the great markets for agricultural products are in eastern United States and Europe, this position makes a large part of the Great Central Plain naturally tributary to the Lakes region^ During the long period that the merchants of Montreal and Quebec controlled the economic activities of the great interior of North America, the area tributary to the Great Lakes included most of the territory to the north of the Ohio and the Missouri rivers, and west to the Rocky Mountains. Today the Great Lakes region has for its sphere of commercial influence more than two-thirds of the Great Central Plain.

1. Ilunrs Merchants' Mag., LVIII, 109.

GEOGRArHIC SETTING 5

Great as are the resources of the mines, the forests, and the fields, the Great Lakes region owes much of its importance to the Great Lakes themselves. There are few other regions of like area that can furnish such opportunities for inland transportation. From the lower end of Lake Michigan to the eastern terminus of Lake Erie there are nearly a thousand miles of unobstructed deep waterways. With the oyercoming of the barrier at the rapids of the St. Mary's River and the falls at Niagara, six hundred miles more have been added. But transportation advantages on lakes are not to be reckoned by the lengths of the lakes. Inniunerable cross routes multiply the above mileage many times. Besides the many hundred miles of deep waterway, there are many minor waterways suitable for smaller craft. These minor water courses w^ere very important in the days when canoes were the chief carrying agent.

In the northeastern part of North America, there is a great area of cr>^stalline rocks, granites, gneisses, and schists. This is the so-called North American "shield," the "old land" of Canada. The southern portion of this area is called the Laurentian Highlands. Lake Superior lies partly within and partly on the border of the Highlands. The southern border of the "old land" skirts the northern shores of Lake Hruon and Georgian Bay. From the southern part of Georgian Bay eastward the southern limit extends in an irregular line near the cities of Kingston, Ottawa, and Quebec; from Quebec eastward it makes the northern bluffs along the St. Lawrence River.

To the south of this crystalline area, poor in agriculr/.y:A tural possibilities because of its long winters and thin soils but rich in mineral deposits and waterpower, are younger sedimentary rocks. The younger rocks are chiefly sandstones, limestones, and shales. These sedimentary rocks in general are eroded much more easily than the crystallines, so that the region in which these formations dominate is nearly everywhere marked either by lake basins or lowlands. For example, a portion of the estuary of the St. Lawrence, the lower St. Lawrence Valley, the Mohawk depression, Lake Ontario, the Ontario lowlands, Georgian Bay, North Channel, and Green Bay (as w^ell as Lake Winnipeg) have all been carved in Ordovician limestones and shales. Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan ow^e their shape, position, and connections in large extent to the erosian of Silurian and Devonian limestones, shales, and dolomite.

Many other topographic and geographic features about the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence seem to be related closely to the resistance some of the strata offer to erosion. The many islands in the lakes and rivers of the St. Lawrence system as well as the numerous falls and rapids are largely due to the more resistant formations. The Ottawa River with its numerous rapids and falls that made the canoe voyages along its course so tedious, difficult, and costly, runs for the larger part of its course over crv^stalline rocks. The waters at most of the rapids of the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario to Montreal flow over gneisses and schists and Cambrian sandstones. The La Chine, just above Montreal, the rapids that barred (before the building of canals) any further passage of ocean vessels to the interior, are in Cambrian sandstones; so, too, are the rapids of St. Mary's River. The falls at Niagara, which so effectively separate Lake Ontario from the other Great Lakes, and the Niagara Escarpment, over which most of the traffic of the Upper Lakes had to pass until the middle of the nineteenth centmy, are due to a thick layer of limestone (Niagara) overlying softer shales. The same Niagara limestone encircles the north shore of lakes Huron and Michigan. It forms the backbone of the Saugeen (or Bruce) Peninsula, that separates Lake Huron from Georgian Bay. It no doubt is largely responsible for the line of islands along the north shore of Lake Huron, and to the west it forms the enclosing arms of Green Bay.^ These topographic and geographic features have had their historic consequences. The Saugeen Peninsula lengthened the canoe voyage from the mouth of the French River to Detroit by nearly one hundred miles. The nimierous islands in northern Lake Huron made canoe voyages fairly safe across the deep waters of Lake Hiu"on between the French River and the mouth of St. Mary's River. The many islands in the western part of Lake Erie are composed almost entirely of Niagara limestone. These islands made possible a trans-lake canoe route and shortened the distance for canoe voyages between the mouth of the Detroit River and Sandusky Bay. This trans-lake route was much used by the British and Indians in their raids against the whites on the Ohio. Some of these islands

2. Guide Book No. 5; Can. Geol. Sur\'ey, 1913, 75; Atlas, Vol II, Wis. Geol. Sun^ey, 1877, Plate IV; Prof. Pope, 71, U. S. Geol. Survey, Plate I.