The growth of the decade succeeding 1810 was trifling. In 1820 the census showed but 9,048 souls in Michigan Territory, which included the present State and the region beyond the lakes north of Illinois. The war was over. Indian depredations had ceased and the Indian titles had been quieted. The perils of settlement were removed. The seeming obstacles of the toil and privations of frontier existence were mere cobwebs in the way of the hardy and adventurous. But there yet remained serious impediments to Michigan's growth. Distance was one, for the State was still difficult of access, and canals and railroads were yet in the future. A more serious impediment was a blunder. On May 6, 1812, Congress passed an act requiring that 2,000,000 acres of land should be surveyed in Michigan Territory. The surveyors went into the forest with their chains and poles, and the result was a report to Congress which may be thus summarized: "Many lakes of great extent; marshes on their margins; marshes between; other places covered with coarse high grass; this grass covered with water from six inches to three feet; lakes and swamps over half the country; the intermediate space poor, barren and sandy; the dry land composed of sand-hills, with deep basins between and more water; the margins of many of the streams and lakes literally afloat, or thinly covered with a sward of grass with water and mud underneath; the country altogether so bad that there would not be more than one acre out of a hundred, if there would be one out of a thousand, that would in any case admit of cultivation." Official stupidity had its effect on Congress, and in 1816 (April 29) that body cancelled the survey order, and abandoned Michigan to the hunters and trappers and their game. For two years this continued; but the adventurous would plunge into the wilderness and would come back and talk of beautiful valleys, broad prairies and fertile soils. Explorations widened and a multitude of witnesses came with their facts to prove that the curtain of forest concealed something more inviting than marsh and barren and sand-hill. Then the government (1818) ordered a new survey and out of all this came part of the truth, namely: There was in this wilderness an immense variety of forest trees--oak, maple, ash, elm, sycamore, locust, butternut, walnut, poplar, whitewood, beech, hemlock, spruce, tamarack, chestnut, white, yellow, and Norway pine. There were plains and natural parks; there were level prairies and hills rising with gradual swell away to the center of the State. Of soils there were deep sandy loams mixed with limestone pebbles, deep vegetable moulds mingled with clay producing dense and luxuriant vegetation, brown loams mingled with clay, deep vegetable moulds with a surface covering of black sands. There was water in abundance, rivers and streams and creeks and beautiful lakes. All these reports and more, confirmed and re-confirmed by pioneers and surveyors, came back from