Report of the State Board of Geological Survey for the Year Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ...not counting that which is used in making sndn. of it, so flu-Michigan Alkali Co. at Wyandotte have taken to mixing it with the mud of Detroit river and making Portland cement of it. At Alpena Portland cement is made of limestone and shale. But, as you doubtless know, most of Ihe factories of the State are making it out of the calcareous mud at the bottom of our lakes and clay. Our limestone supplies are beginning to be appreciated, but in clays and shales as in building stones we are behind out neighbors on the south, though we have glazing clays, paving brick clays, clays suitable for Portland cement, and others which are or will be the source of livelihood to many. Most of our surface clays, however, have too much lime for many uses. -iOI.D. PEARl.S. D1AMONDS. ETC. It will be noticed that most of the things I have mentioned are what might be called common things and cheap things, and I might have gone on and discussed the adaptability of our soils for some of the crops for which Michigan is famous, such as sugar beets, peppermint, celerv aud fruit. But I have said nothing about gold, though a production of f632,444 in the last 1.4 years shows that it will become a settled industry, have barely mentioned silver, which is merely a by-product of copper, have said nothing about pearls or diamonds, though once in a while a Unio yields a pearl, and an occasional diamond found in the gravel of Michigan or Wisconsin may perhaps have been derived from some of our Upp r Peninsula serpentines. I have not even mentioned chlorastrolite. peculiar to the beaches of-Isle Royale, for I have not tried to give an illustrated catalogue of products, --time, my breath, and your patience would fail, --but rather to select for description certain raw materials whose occ