CHAP. HI. SYMMETRICAL BOULDERS. 43 



species which most prevail. Wandering from the Portage- 

 path while the men were resting after a long and heavy 

 ' pull,' I came upon a number of boulders symmetrically 

 arranged the work, I thought, of some of the earlier 

 missionaries, who two centuries ago travelled through 

 part of this country when Indians and game were nume- 

 rous. Some of the boulders were two feet in diameter, 

 and placed about one yard apart ; they were fifteen in 

 number, and had evidently been arranged by the hand of 

 man, as there were very few others to be found in the 

 immediate vicinity, and the symmetry of the disposition 

 was very striking. They were placed upon a bare rock, 

 seven forming an arch, and eight others lying in two 

 parallel lines below the centre stone of the arch. A 

 small spruce tree grew in a crack in the rock exactly in 

 the centre of the semicircle. The whole bore a rude re- 

 semblance to a cross, which would have been complete if 

 the two boulders on each side of the arch were taken 

 away. 



In 1660, the Jesuit missionary Menard spoke of the 

 neophytes of Seven Islands in the account which he 

 wrote of the condition of the missions in Nouvelle France. 

 He stated that they were anxious to see their pastors, that 

 they might be consoled in the midst of their afflictions, 

 for they dare not ascend to Tadoussac, near the mouth of 

 the Saugenay, on account of their enemies the Iroquois. 

 It is clear that at this early period the French Jesuits had 

 visited the Indians on the coast below Seven Islands, and 

 had baptised a considerable number. The Seigniory of 

 Mingan was granted to Sieur Francois Bissot in 1661, 

 and the group of islands lying off the shore, called the 



