from Greenwich. The river runs from Lake St. Clair to a point just below the city, in a direction about 30° south of west, thence it runs nearly south to Lake Erie, a distance of fifteen miles. The original bed of the river, before it was narrowed by the docking out, was from 48 to 52 chains in width; but from the docks of the central portion of the city to the opposite docks of Windsor, in Canada, it is only about half a mile. The depth of the river varies, averaging about 32 feet. The descent from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie is about six feet, or three inches to the mile. The river rises and falls with the surfaces of the great lakes, of which it is a connecting link, the average annual variation being about three feet. The waters of the river and the lakes rise during a succession of wet seasons, and fall during a succession of dry ones. The Detroit River has a uniform current, and is little affected by floods, droughts, dams of ice, or other obstructions.

Where the principal part of the city is situated, the ground rises gradually from the river 20 or 30 feet, at the distance of 15 to 30 rods from the river bank; it then falls off a little, and again rises gradually to 40 or 50 feet above the river. The whole country, for more than 20 miles back of the river, is exceedingly level, rising gently at the rate of about five feet in the mile. The Detroit River was visited by the French as early as 1610; but the first permanent settlement on the site of the present city was made in 1701, by a party under Antoine de la Motte Cadillac. It fell into the hands of the British in 1760, and was ceded with the country to the United States, by the treaty of peace of 1783. Nearly the whole town was burned in 1805, after which its plat was changed under the act of Congress in 1806.

A portion of the city is regularly laid out, the streets running parallel with the river, and crossing each other at right angles, though there are numerous irregularities. The streets and avenues vary in width from 50 to 200 feet. The inhabitants are supplied with water taken from the river opposite the upper part of the city, and distributed from a reservoir by means of iron pipes to all parts of the city. The public buildings in the city are numerous, and are much admired for their beauty and finish, especially some of the public school-houses. Several of the churches are large and splendid; there are many spacious and beautiful stores, quite a number of large and elegant private dwellings, and several extensive hotels.

The United States Government made five great leading roads (post roads) in Michigan, while it was yet a territory, all diverging from Detroit. The Michigan Central Railroad was finished to Ypsilanti, 30 miles from Detroit, in 1837; the Ann Arbor, 38 miles, in 1839; to Kalamazoo, 145 miles, in 1845; and to Chicago, 282 miles, in 1851. The railroad from Detroit to Toledo, 60 miles, was completed in 1857, connecting at Monroe with the Michigan Southern Road. The Detroit and Milwaukee Road, from Detroit to Lake Michigan, opposite Milwaukee, was opened for travel in 1858; and a road from Detroit, to the foot of Lake Huron, opposite Port Sarina, the termination of the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada, was finished in 1859.

Detroit is the great concentrating point of the produce, commerce,

banking, and heavy business of the whole State. The retail and wholesale trade of the city are both very large. The sawing of lumber is a great branch of industry. In 1860 there were within the city limits nine large steam saw-mills, which cut from three to eight million feet each per annum, making a total of about forty million feet annually of pine lumber, the logs being floated down to the mills from Lake Huron, and the creeks and streams which fall into Lake St. Clair River. Ship and boat-building is also an important branch of business. There are extensive foundries, machine-shops, and factories of various kinds. The population of Detroit, by the census of 1860, was 45,619, and by the State census of 1864 it had increased to 53,179.

Grand Rapids, the capital of Kent County, is situated on the rapids of Grand River, 33 miles from Lake Michigan, and 60 miles northwest from Lansing. Its population in 1864 was 9,770. It is on the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, and its distance from Detroit by rail is 157 miles. Steamboats connect it with the lake, and the Rapids supply it with abundant water-power, so that it is one of the most thriving trading and manufacturing cities in the State. Salt, gypsum, limestone, and pine timber are plenty in the vicinity. The city is built on both banks of the river, which is here about 100 feet wide. Its situation is healthy and pleasant. On the west bank of the river are several Indian mounds. The city was first settled in 1833, and incorporated in 1850.

Grand Haven, the capital of Ottawa County, is situated on Lake Michigan, near the mouth of the Grand River, 32 miles north-west of Lansing, and 92 from Detroit by railroad. It is the western terminus of the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, which has here an immense depot, and a pier 3,000 feet long extending into the lake. Steamers eross every 12 hours to Milwaukee, and there are lines of steamers to Chicago, Buffalo, and Detroit. The principal articles of export are timber, staves, shingles, fish, leather, gypsum, stucco-lime, and flour. The exports in some years prior to 1860 exceeded $1,000,000 in value. Population in 1860, from 3,000 to 4,000.

TEXAS.

TEXAS, with the exception of Florida, now forms the southernmost portion of the United States. It is bounded on the north by New Mexico, the Indian Territory, and Arkansas; on the east by Arkansas and Louisiana; on the south-east by the Gulf of Mexico; and on the southwest and west by Mexico and New Mexico. The Red River separates it in part from the Indian Territory and Arkansas, the Sabine from Louisiana, and the Rio Grande from Mexico. This State lies between 25° 50′ and 36° 30′ north latitude, and between 93° 30′ and 107° weat

longitude. Its shape is very irregular, but its extreme length from south-east to north-west is more than 800 miles, and its greatest breadth from east to west about 750 miles, including an area of 237,504 square miles an amount of territory nearly six times that of the State of Pennsylvania, the greater part of which is composed of soil of great agricultural capabilities.

FACE OF THE COUNTRY.-This great State embraces every variety of surface, mountain, plain, hill, and desert within its limits. In the southeast, along the coast, is a level belt of land from 30 to 60 miles in breadth, which is succeeded by an undulating and prairie country, occupying another belt of from 150 to 200 miles in width, which is followed in the west and north-west by the mountainous region and the table-land. The extreme north is invaded by the Great American Desert, which extends perhaps about 60 miles within the boundary of Texas. According to Mr. Bartlett, the plateau of Texas, including part of New Mexico, extends from 30° to 34° north latitude, and from the Rio Grande east for 300 miles. The north portion, called Llano Estacado, or "Staked Plain," is 2,500 feet above the sea. This broad district is destitute of forest-trees and shrubbery, except along the margins of the streams, which even there never extend 100 yards from the banks. Just after rains a short, stunted grass springs up, but speedily becomes dry, affording little nourishment. In this region rise the Red, Brazos, and Colorado Rivers. About 29° 30′ north latitude, the tableland breaks off into spurs, which descend to the prairies. The rivers have generally alluvial bottoms of from 3 to 20 miles in width, which are of great fertility, and heavily timbered. The belts referred to above run across the State in a direction nearly north-east and south-west, so that almost all the north part of eastern Texas is included in the second division, or the undulating country. Little is known of the elevated lands of the west and north-west, as they are yet the home of few white men except the hunters, who pursue its buffaloes and other wild animals. It is, however, represented as being a well-watered and fertile region. A low range of mountains, called the Colorado Hills, runs in a north and south direction, east of the Colorado River; indeed, the whole section of the State in the same parallel, between the Colorado and Brazos Rivers, is broken with low mountains. Between the Colorado and the Rio Grande, and north of the sources of the Nueces and San Antonio, the country is crossed by broken ranges of mountains running in various directions, but of whose altitude and character we have little reliable information. They appear, however, to be outlying ridges of the great Rocky Mountain chain. Of these the Organ, Hueco, or Waco, and Guadalupe Mountains extend from the north-west extremity of Texas, where they terminate in a north direction into New Mexico. According to Bartlett, the first are about 3,000 feet above the Rio Grande, and the last the same altitude above the plain.

GEOLOGY.-That part of Texas which lies within about 200 miles of the coast, and perhaps further inland, appears, says Mr. Bollaert, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, to have been gradually uplifted from the bed of an ancient sea, into which the great rivers

of that period poured their waters, charged with the detritus of the secondary rocke This detritus was gradually depoisted in sedimentary beds at the bottom of the sea, and these deltas at length uniting, form the superficial accumulations of the level and undulating lands. This appears to be confirmed by the fact that the soils in the vicinity of the great rivers are distinguished by the peculiar ingredients brought down by the freshets of the present day. A vast belt of gypsum, (sometimes 100 miles in width,) extending from the Arkansas to the Rio Grande, passes across the north-west portion of the State. In the mountains and hills of the north-west, we have primitive formations of granites, porphyries, etc. Middle and southern Texas seem to be composed of rich surface soils, overlaid in the tertiary strata with its peculiar fossils; then follow the oolitic systems, sandstone, and perhaps the new red sandstone. A series of measurements give the following elevations: Galveston, 10 feet; Houston, 60 feet; San Felipe de Austin, 200 feet; Columbus, 250 feet; Gonzales, 270 feet; San Antonio de Bejar, 350 feet; head-waters of the San Antonio, 400 feet; Rio Frio, 450 to 500 feet; Cibolo River and head-waters of the Leona River, 550 feet; 1st Sabinas, 700 feet; 2d Sabinas, 800 feet; Guadalupe River, 1,000 feet; Llano Estacado, 2,450 feet; and Guadalupe Mountains, 3,000 feet.

MINERALS.-Texas abounds in minerals. Lying as she does in close proximity to the gold and silver regions of Mexico and New Mexico, it is probable that she may develop in future rich supplies of the precious metals. This, however, is not left entirely to conjecture, as silver mines are known to have been worked at San Saba, and discoveries of the same metal have been made upon the Bidais River. In the spring of 1853, the country was agitated by the report of the discovery of gold mines west of the Colorado River, between it and the San Saba Mountains, and north of the Llano River, but these reports have not been confirmed, at least as to its existence in any considerable quantities. According to Haldeman's revised edition of Taylor's work on the Coal Regions of the United States, coal exists on the Trinity River, 200 miles above Galveston; in the vicinity of Nagadoches, on the Brazos, (in abundance;) near the city of Austin, and on the Rio Grande, southwest of Bexar. It is believed that a belt, distant about 200 miles from the coast, extending south-west from Trinity River to the Rio Grande, contains this valuable mineral in various places. Iron is found in many parts of the State; there are, also, salt lakes and salt springs, copper, copperas, alum, lime, agates, chalcedony, jasper, and a white and red sandstone. A pitch lake, 20 miles from Beaumont, deposits of niter and sulphur, and fire clay, are among the minerals. "Formations of secondary limestone, with others of carboniferous sandstones, shales, argillaceous iron ore, and bituminous coal-beds, are said to occupy a large portion of the interior of Texas. Westward of these occur the inferior and silurian strata, trilobite limestone, and transition slates. Beyond all the basaltic and primary rocks of the Rocky Mountains arise; while north is the great salt lake of the Brazos, and a vast red saliferous region. An immense bed of gypsum, the largest known in North America reaching from the Arkansas to the Rio Grande River,

traverses the north-west portion of Texas. Mineral springs abound. Among the most important are the Salinilla Springs, (both white and salt sulphur,) near the Trinity River, in Walker County; a spring similar to White Sulphur in Virginia, near the Bidais River; a blue sulphur spring, also, in Walker County; a mineral spring near the Chilo, 30 miles from Bexar, formerly of great repute among the Mexicans for its medical properties; and a white sulphur spring near Carolina, in Montgomery County.

RIVERS, BAYS, ŠOUNDS.-The coast of Texas is lined with a chain of low islands, which form a series of bays, sounds, and lagoons; the most important of which are Galveston, Matagorda, Espiritu Santo, Aransas, and Corpus Christi Bays, and Laguna del Madre. Commenc ing at Galveston Bay in the north-east, they lie along the Gulf of Mex ico in the order in which they are named. Galveston Bay, the largest of these, extends about 35 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, in a direction nearly north. Matagorda Bay, 60 miles long by 6 to 10 wide, and Laguna del Madre, 90 miles long by 3 to 6 wide, are sounds rather than bays, and run nearly parallel with the shore. The inlets to these are much obstructed by bars; Galveston Inlet, the best, is said to have but 12 feet water, the entrance of Matagorda Bay 11 feet, and that of San Luis but 10 feet. Aransas Bay extends in a north-east and southwest direction about 25 miles, by about 12 miles in width; Corpus Christi Bay, 40 miles from north to south, by 20 miles from east to west; and Espiritu Santo is 20 miles long by 10 wide; Copano Bay, opening into Aransas, is 20 miles long by 3 wide. A writer in "DE Bow's Resources in the South and West," however, says: "Steamships of 1,200 to 1,500 tons, and sail vessel of 1,000 tons, can enter the port of Galveston." Texas is crossed by several long rivers, which generally rising in the table-lands of the West and North-west, and pursuing a south-east course, discharge their waters into the Gulf of Mexico. Commencing with the Rio Grande, the largest river in Texas, 1,800 miles long, and which forms its south-west boundary, and proceeding along the coast, we have the Nueces, San Antonio, Guadalupe, Colorado, Brazos, Trinity, Neches, and Sabine, whose lengths in the order named are about 300, 250, 275, 800, 500, 400, 300, and 350 miles, as estimated by measurements on the map. The Red River rises in the northwest of the State, and forms a large part of the north boundary line. The Canadian, a branch of the Arkansas, crosses the north projection of the State. All of these are navigable to a greater or less extent, (depending on the wetness or dryness of the season, and on local obstructions,) the Sabine for about 150 miles; the Trinity, to Porter's Bluffs, latitude 32° 20′; the San Jacinto, 50 miles; the Brazos, to Sullivan's Shoals, near latitude 31° north; the Nueces, 100 miles; the Rio Grande, 400 miles; and the Red River, to Preston, latitude 34° north, and longitude 96° 20′ west, (during high water.) The Colorado of Texas, one of the largest rivers which intersect the State, rises in the table-lands in the north-west part of Texas, and flows in a general south-westerly direction. After passing Austin, Bastrop, La Grange, Columbia, and other towns, it enters Matagorda Bay at the town of Matagorda. It