Southern Peninsula Of Michigan Research Articles

Public Administration in the Atomic Age

On September 23,19…, in Roscommon county in the Southern Peninsula of Michigan, the county clerk called the local officials together at the court house. Of the county administrators, the sheriff, treasurer, prosecuting attorney, circuit court judge, register of deeds, health and welfare administrators, and highway engineer were present. Many of the township supervisors had managed somehow to reach the court house in spite of the streams of refugees pouring northward from the destroyed industrial cities of southern Michigan. Already the county was bursting with new and unforeseen problems of public administration. The traffic jam on U. S. highway 27 from Lansing northward was something beyond the memory of the oldest living inhabitant. Near Houghton Lake, this traffic was jammed by another stream which had followed U. S. 23 northward from Saginaw and Bay City, turning inland at Standish by way of state highways 76 and 55 to connect with U.S. 27. The flight of stampeding and determined refugees was flowing like a river through the county seat of Roscommon and ever northward toward Cheboygan and Mackinaw City at the tip of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.“This meeting was called,” said the clerk, “to discuss how we can handle this emergency. One of the state police officers who has been on reconnaissance with a deputy sheriff will tell us what we are up against in this area. For 36 hours our telephone and telegraphic communications with Washington and Lansing have been out. We are on our own and must make the best of a terrible emergency.”

Public Administration in the Atomic Age

On September 23,19…, in Roscommon county in the Southern Peninsula of Michigan, the county clerk called the local officials together at the court house. Of the county administrators, the sheriff, treasurer, prosecuting attorney, circuit court judge, register of deeds, health and welfare administrators, and highway engineer were present. Many of the township supervisors had managed somehow to reach the court house in spite of the streams of refugees pouring northward from the destroyed industrial cities of southern Michigan. Already the county was bursting with new and unforeseen problems of public administration. The traffic jam on U. S. highway 27 from Lansing northward was something beyond the memory of the oldest living inhabitant. Near Houghton Lake, this traffic was jammed by another stream which had followed U. S. 23 northward from Saginaw and Bay City, turning inland at Standish by way of state highways 76 and 55 to connect with U.S. 27. The flight of stampeding and determined refugees was flowing like a river through the county seat of Roscommon and ever northward toward Cheboygan and Mackinaw City at the tip of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.“This meeting was called,” said the clerk, “to discuss how we can handle this emergency. One of the state police officers who has been on reconnaissance with a deputy sheriff will tell us what we are up against in this area. For 36 hours our telephone and telegraphic communications with Washington and Lansing have been out. We are on our own and must make the best of a terrible emergency.”

Cambrian and Ordovician Rocks in Recent Wells in Southeastern Michigan

All of the wells drilled to pre-Cambrian rocks in the Southern Peninsula of Michigan are located in five counties in the southeastern part of the state bordering the province of Ontario, Canada. The depth to pre-Cambrian in this area ranges from 3,300 feet in Lenawee County to 6,400 feet in Washtenaw County. The thickness of Middle Ordovician rocks penetrated in these wells varies from 660 feet in Lenawee County to 965 feet in St. Clair County and Upper Ordovician rocks from 585 feet in Washtenaw County to 750 feet in Lenawee County. Lower Ordovician rocks have not been found east of Livingston County. A well drilled on the Howell anticline, near the center of Livingston County, drilled 40 feet of St. Peter sandstone and was abandoned without penetrating the entire thickness of the sandstone. Small areas of commercial oil production occurring in the upper part of the dolomitized Trenton limestone of Middle Ordovician age have been found in Lenawee, Monroe, and Wayne counties, and oil is produced from Middle Orodvician rocks in Kent County, southwestern Ontario. Rocks of Upper Cambrian age underlie Middle Ordovician rocks and rest on pre-Cambrian rocks in a large part of southeastern Michigan. The thickness of Cambrian rocks varies from 1,160 feet in Washtenaw County to 140 feet in St. Clair County. This variation in thickness is due to the unconformity at the base of Middle Ordovician rocks which was brought about by uplift and erosion at the close of Lower Ordovician time. Cambrian rocks are missing in parts of Kent, Lambton, and other counties in southwestern Ontario, and in these places Middle Ordovician rocks overlie pre-Cambrian rocks. Showings of gas have been reported from the upper part of the Mount Simon sandstone, of Upper Cambrian age, in some of the wells in southeastern Michigan and showings of oil and gas have been found in Cam rian rocks in some wells in parts of southwestern Ontario where these rocks are present.

Porter Oil Field, Midland County, Michigan

The Porter oil field is in southwestern Midland County, close to the center of the Southern Peninsula of Michigan. It was discovered in November, 1931, and since that time has produced more than 39 million barrels of oil. Porter leads all other Michigan fields in total production and in recovery per acre. All of the oil produced is from Devonian formations; an insignificant percentage of the total production from the Traverse and the balance from Dundee limestone. Accumulation is in the Porter anticline, which is 9 miles long and three miles wide, with a closure of about 50 feet. The productivity of different wells on the anticline varies generally with the percentage of secondary porosity in the uppermost Dundee. This porosity developed mostly during a mid-Devonian emergence. Deeper drilling in the Porter field to test older formations now productive elsewhere in the Michigan basin is considered desirable.

POPULATIONS OF LINARIA ON THE GULF COAST

ABOUT PENSACOLA, Florida, occur all three of our native North American species of Linaria (Pennell, 1935, maps 82-84). These are: L. texana Scheele, which is widespread west of the Mississippi River but eastward is confined to the southern states; L. canadensis (L.) Dumort, common eastward, especially on the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and of scattered occurrence west of the Mississippi River; and L. floridana Chapman, of peninsular Florida and the Gulf Coast, with one record from the interior of Georgia. In April, 1941, the writer made mass collections of Linaria about Pensacola and at points inland as far as Atlanta, Georgia. The procedure consisted simply of taking mnany individuals from each patch of Linaria; a number of whole plants were taken and these were supplemented with inflorescences from many additional plants. If a patch had less than fifty individuals, each individual was ordinarily sampled; in very large colonies about fifty individuals were taken at random. It was found that any patch may consist of one species, or of two species, or of all three species intermixed. Table 1 shows the number of individuals of each species collected in each patch. The stations are arranged in order of distance from the Gulf of Mexico.2 ECOLOGY.-Soil requirements of the three species appear to be identical. About Pensacola, any patch of recently disturbed sand may have any or all species. Anderson (1933) observes that Iris versicolor and I. virginica, which appear to have entered the 1 Received for publication January 23, 1942. 2 For collections 1-6, distances are measured from the open water of the Gulf of Mexico on the south shore of Santa Rosa Island, and are computed from the chart of Pensacola Bay & Approaches, U. S. Coast & Geodetic Survey. The mileages for collections 7 and 8 are based on distances measured by automobile from Pensacola northward on U. S. Highway 29. Distances for collections 9 and 10 are measured on a Rand McNally map. southern peninsula of Michigan at different times, very rarely grow together. There is apparently no such exclusion of one species by another in the colonies of Linaria. Two species sometimes occupy the same habitat, but one is more limited than the other. Such a pair is Phyllitis Scolopendrium and Polystichum Lonchitis as they occur in Bruce Peninsula, Ontario. Where the Phyllitis is found the Polystichum is commonly found also, but the converse is not true, for the Polystichum is frequently found not accompanied by the Phyllitis. It would seem that the occurrence of the Polystichum is limited by a certain set of factors, and that of the Phyyllitis by the same set of factors plus others. The ranges of these two ferns are consistent with this hypothesis, for Polystichum Lonchitis, while somewhat local, is widespread in North America (Fernald, 1935, p. 207), but the American phase of Phyllitis Scolopendrium is known from but four small areas (Fernald, 1935, p. 200). This case is cited only to serve as a contrast with the Linaria situation. L. floridana is found, in this part of its retricted range, only along the Gulf of Mexico, and is quite absent from all collections not taken close to the coast. Yet where it does occur it outnumbers the two more widespread and presumably more aggressive species. Why does it fail to spread inland (except for the single inland collection recorded by Pennell, l.c.) ? There must be some factor, favorable to L. floridana and operative only along the coast (possibly climatic?), to which the other two species are indifferent. TAXONoMY.-These are three distinct species. All the specimens examined for table 1 had flowers or mature fruits, and most of them had both. There was no question of the specific identity of any individual. And yet L. canadensis shows many identical characters, on the one hand with L. texana, and on the Md.a 11:hPr wth r ;r'nn*in it. anVa IniTT rYrot

Recent Developments in Michigan Basin

New oil and gas fields have been discovered in the Southern Peninsula of Michigan ranging from the southwest part of the state to the Saginaw Bay area. Recent discoveries have been made in Arenac, Gladwin, Midland, and Allegan counties. The older pools lie in the intervening area of these counties and in other counties closely adjacent to them. The most prolific production thus far has been confined to the central and deeper portions of the basin, but interest in possible shallower fields has been renewed with the finding of the Salem field in Allegan County. Oil is produced from the Traverse and Dundee limestones of Upper and Middle Devonian age, the Dundee being the principal producing horizon. New tests to explore the possibilities of Silurian and Ordovician formations are receiving added impetus.

The Life Histories and Classification of Two Allocreadiid-Like Plagiorchids from Fish, Macroderoides typicus (Winfield) and Alloglossidium corti (Lamont)

In examining snails collected in the region of the University of Michigan Biological Station, located on Douglas Lake in the northern part of the Southern Peninsula of Michigan, nineteen species of Xiphidiocercariae were found. These cercariae were placed with a wide variety of organisms in order to determine their second intermediate hosts. The metacercariae which developed were then fed to 24 species of animals, representing all classes of vertebrates. Two of the species of these cercariae were in this way proved experimentally to be those of Macroderoides typicus and Alloglossidium corti. The details of the experimental work and the morphology of the stages of these two species are discussed in the present paper. The cercariae of both species were found developing in small sporocysts in Heliosoma trivolvis and H. campanulata. The incidence of infection with the cercaria of M. typicus was relatively high and infected snails were collected from several areas in Douglas Lake, Burt Lake, and Mullet Lake. The cercariae were found experimentally to penetrate into several possible intermediate hosts but tadpoles were used in the infection of the definitive host. Experimentally infected tadpoles were fed to Amia calva and large numbers of trematodes, identified as Macroderoides typicus (Winfield), were recovered from the intestine. The incidence of infection with the cercaria of A. corti was relatively high in the snails collected in Munro Lake and lower in those from several areas of Douglas Lake. It was experimentally demonstrated that this cercaria would penetrate into and encyst in dragonfly and mayfly nymphs. The metacercariae from these hosts were fed to small, trematode-free bullheads and adult flukes, identified as A. corti (Lamont), were recovered from the small intestine.

Michigan Structural Basin and Its Relationship to Surrounding Areas

The Michigan basin is a broad structural and sedimentary basin probably originating in pre-Cambrian time. It is slightly rectangular in form, trending northwest and southeast, with its deepest point near the center of the southern peninsula of Michigan. It extends approximately 450 miles east and west, and almost the same distance north and south. The rocks dip toward the center at the rate of 30-35 feet per mile. Its sedimentary and structural history is closely related to the large positive elements of the Cincinnati, Kankakee, and Wisconsin arches. These features are outlined on a structural map contoured on the Trenton limestone. Folds within the Michigan basin have a persistent northwest-southeast parallel trend and may be traced through a distance of 40-60 miles. Th ir origin is believed to be closely related to the early history of the basin itself, being controlled by trends of folding or lines of structural weakness which existed in the basement rocks.

Summary of the Archeology of Saginaw Valley, Michigan-III

Saginaw valley, including the entire area draining into Saginaw bay, occupies the east central region of the southern peninsula of Michigan. It is a well-watered, level, timber country, formerly covered by dense forests of pine, oak, elm, ash, maple, hickory, and other trees. The low-lands are occupied by swamps which in places are largely grown up with wild rice (Zizania aquatica), a staple produced by nature in such abundance that it was of great importance to the primitive people of the region when they were first met by the whites.' The streams which most concerned the prehistoric inhabitants of the valley were Saginaw river and its main tributaries including the Shiawassee, Flint, Bad, Cass, Tittabawassee, and their branches; while the Pigeon, Sebewaing, Kawkawlin, and Rifle were also important. Bordering the lower courses of the river, are numerous bayous; interspersed over the intervening country are low sand ridges. At the headwaters the streams flow more swiftly and undercut their banks because their beds have greater fall, consequently large bayous and swamps are less frequent. Rocks of the subcarboniferous series, bearing chert nodules, outcrop in a nearly circular line cut by the headwaters of the Cass, Shiawassee, and Tittabawassee, and intersecting Saginaw bay near Point Lookout and Bay Port. This chert was extensively quarried