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THOMPSON'S COAST PILOT. 149 traveling, and the unsettled pion of the State is being rapidly opened up. | , No other State can boast of such immense forests of such perfect timber, and already they are a source of great and increasing wealth, In prosperous times the annual product of our pineries is nearly $10,000,000. The pine timber of Michigan is generally interspersed with other varieties of timber, such as beech, maple, white ash, oak, cherry, etc., and in most cases the soil is suited to agricultural pur- poses. 'The whole State has been explored, and a large proportion of the pine and some farming lands have been taken up by the Canal Company and ipidividuals, who offer them for sale. These lands are not held at exorbitant prices, but are sold upon fair and reasonable terms. There is also a large amount of fair to excellent government lands for sale, at ten shillings per acre. Under the Graduation Act, (so called,) passed by Congress in 1854, all government lands which have been in market ten years are for sale at one dollar per acre; fifteen years, seventy-five cents per acre ; twenty years, fifty cents per acre; twenty-five years, twenty-five cents per acre; thirty or more years, one shilling per acre. A large amount of lands owned by the State, embracing some of the best pine and yottom lands, are also for sale, at ten shillings per acre, three- fourths on time to settlers. The shipping facilities afforded by the noble inland seas that clasp our shores, are a sign and promise of the commercial great- ness that awaits us in the future. For several years a number of vessels have yearly cleared for European ports, direct from Detroit. Direct trade has thus been opened with the ports of London, Liver- pool, Glasgow, Cork and Hamburg. Nearly one-sixth of the entire tonnage of the lakes is owned in Detroit, and there is owned in De- troit District, 110 steamers and propellers, 6 barques, 10 brigs, 128 schooners, 4 sloops, 47 scow schooners, and 21 scows, being a total of 826, with an aggregate tonnage of nearly 60,000, and worth nearly $1,914,000. Between three and four thousand vessels arrive and clear from the port of Detroit every year. Our fisheries are altogether unrivaled. It is estimated by men of intelligence, that the value of our yearly catch of fish is greater than that of all taken in fresh waters in the thirty-three remaining States of the Union. The varieties found in greatest abundance are