History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests / compiled from the official records of the county, the newspapers and data of personal interviews, under the editorial supervision of Thaddeus D. Seeley.

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

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ern portion the snowfall is less and is apt to be melted by warm or rainy
weather, so that during most years the ground is bare during part of the
winter season
The southern tier of townships is mostly a plain, without even ridges,
and has only one of the four hundred and fifty lakes of the county within its borders. In several localities are found extensive tracts of level
land, such as those around Orion and Oxford villages, the Sash-a-baw
plain in Independence, the Drayton plains in Waterford, and the White
Lake plains lying in the townships of Springfield, White Lake, Highland
and Rose.
The general surface of Oakland county is elevated from three to four
hundred feet above the water-level of the great lakes.
The climate is substantially that which prevails over southern Michigan-a climate whose temperature is lowered by the pronounced elevation of its surface, as well as by its proximity to the deep, cool waters of
Lake Huron; but it is neither as warm in summer nor as cold in winter
as in regions adjacent to Lake Michigan. The average summer temperature for Pontiac is seventy-two degrees, and is nearly the same as that
of southern Ohio, the districts around the lower end of Lake Michigan
and at Ottawa (Illinois), one hundred and fifty miles south of Saginaw.
The winter temperature of Pontiac is about twenty degrees, which
is somewhat colder than other places in the same latitude in Michigan,
being the same as Mackinaw in the extreme north of the lower peninsula.
All the climatic conditions, like those of elevation and drainage, are firm
guarantees of health and physical vigor, and form another practical reason why Oakland county is so admirably adapted to the founding of
homes and the prolonged life and happiness of the individual.
As to vegetation, owing to the comparatively cool temperature it is
somewhat backward, but as the soil of the county is generally of a sandy
loam, the heat of the summer months is rapidly absorbed and the advance
is rapid. The autumn is usually agreeable and frosts are uncommon before October. Both the climate and the soil of the county are particularly
favorable for the growth of wheat, and for all small grains; it goes without saying that most of the fruits are readily raised. But the agricultural
interests have been mostly crowded out by the developments which have
brought the county into the front rank of Michigan's residential districts.
One exception must be made to this statement. Her dairy interests are
still large and growing, particularly in the southern plain districts, with
Farmington as their center.
THE SURFACE GEOLOGY OF OAKLAND COUNTY
By Aaron Perry.
The most interesting as well as the most obvious feature of the surface geology of Oakland county is the great body of glacial drift overlying the bed rock of the whole county. This drift is mostly unstratified,
or only locally and discordantly stratified. It is from one hundred to
five hundred feet or more deep, depending on the locality. It consists
of clay, sand and gravel, mixed with rounded and water-worn pebbles,
and boulders of all sizes, from sand grains to six feet or more in diameter.