From a report made, by order of Congress, by Israel D. Andrews, in 1853, in relation to the trade of the great lakes and rivers, we extract the following "Michigan is the second of the great lakes in size, being inferior only to Lake Superior, and in regard to situation and the quality of the surrounding soil and the climate is, in many respects, preferable to them all. Its southern extremity, rising south in fertile regions, nearly two degrees to the south of Albany, and the whole of its great southern peninsula being imbosomed in fresh waters, its climate is mild and equable, as its soil is rich and productive. The lake is three hundred miles long by sixty in breadth, and contains sixteen thousand nine hundred and eighty-one square miles, having a mean depth of nine hundred feet. On the western shore it has the great indentation of Green Bay; itself equal to the largest lakes in England, being one hundred miles long and thirty broad. It is well sheltered at its mouth by the Traverse Islands, and has for its affluent the outlet of Winnebago and the Fox River. "Grand Traverse Bay is a considerable inlet of Lake Michigan, which sets up into the lower peninsula, one hundred miles south from the Island of Mackinac. It is a good farming and lumbering country. There are two mission stations and six or seven steam and water mills located at this point. It is now an organized county called Grand Traverse. The county seat is at Grand Traverse City, West Bay, where they have a court-house and jail. "L'Arbre Croche Village is an old Indian town, situated about twenty-five miles southwest from Mackinaw, on the lower peninsula. It is composed mostly of Indians. It has a Catholic Church and a Home Mission Station, with a teacher and other assistants to instruct the Indians in the English language. It has extensive clearings for miles, along the banks of the lake shore, and extending from one to six miles back into the interior, indicating that once a large population must have inhabited this section of the country. "The principal tributaries of Lake Michigan are the Manistee, Great Kalamazoo, and St. Joseph's rivers, from the southern peninsula of Michigan, the Des-Plaines, the O Plaines and Chee rivers, from Indiana, Illinois, and from the northern peninsula, the Menominee, Escambia, Noquet, White Fish and Manistee rivers. The lake is bounded to the eastward by the rich and fertile land of the southern peninsula, sending out vast quantities of all the cereal grains, equal if not superior in quality to any raised in the United States. It is bounded on the south and southwest by Indiana and Illinois, which supply corn and beef of the finest quality, in superabundance, for exportation. On the west it is bounded by the productive grain and grazing lands and lumber district of Wisconsin, and on the northwest and north by the invaluable and not yet half-explored mineral district of northern Michigan.