500 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



That Oartier's description of the islands does not quite accord with 

 their present appearance is not to be wondered at. 



The material of which they are composed is a soft, decomposing red 

 sandstone that succumbs so easily to the incessant attacks of the sea 

 that Dr. Bryant's description of them in 1860 does not hold good today. 

 If, then, the Bird Kocks have undergone visible changes in twenty-five 

 years, it is easy to imagine how great are the alterations they may have 

 undergone during three and a half centuries. 



Dr. Bryant, in 1861, wrote as follows:* 



These (the Bird Rocks) are two in miiuber, called the Great Bird or Ganuet Rock, 

 aud the Little or North Bird; they are abonfc three-quarters of a mile apart, the 

 water between them very shoal, showing that, at no very distant epoch, they formed 

 a single island. * * * The North Bird is much the smallest and though the base 

 is more accessible, the summit can not, I believe, be reached; at least I was unable to 

 do so; it is the most irregular in its outline, presenting many enormous, detached 

 fragments, and is divided in one place into two separate islands at high water, the 

 northerly one several times higher than broad, so as to present the appearance of a 

 huge rocky pilliir. 



Gaunet Rock is a quarter of a mile in its longest diameter from SW. to NE. The 

 highest point of the rock is at the northerly end, where, according to the chart, it is 

 140 feet high, aud from which it gradually slopes to the southerly end, where it is 

 from 80 to 100. 



The sides are nearly vertical, the summit in many places overhanging. There are 

 two beaches at its base on the southerly and westerly sides, the most westerly one 

 comparatively smooth and composed of rounded stones. 



The easterly one, on the contrary, is very rough and covered by irregular blocks, 

 many of large size and still angular,. showing that they have but recently fallen from 

 the cliffs above. 



This beach is very difficult to land on, but the other presents no great difficulty in 

 ordinary weather ; the top of the rock can not, however, be reached from either of 

 them. The only spot from which at present the ascent can be made is the rocky 

 point between the two beaches. 



It was on this point, by the way, that Audubon's son lauded June 

 14, 1833. 



The Great Rock has apparently altered but little during the past 

 twenty-five years, but such changes as have taken place have tended 

 to improve the character of the southerly beach, which has been selected 

 by the keeper of the light-house for the customary landing place. 

 Two long ladders, bolted to the rock and leading to the summit have 

 been erected. 



The westerly beach is, however, the most accessible, and it is here 

 that the heavy light-house supplies are landed, a large hoisting appa- 

 ratus having been placed at the top of the overhanging cliff. 



If the Great Rock is but little changed, its lesser relative has suffered 

 greatly, sea and frost, rain and ice having wrought sad havoc with it, 

 splitting great fragments from the sides so that a landing once effected 

 it is now an easy matter to reach the top. 



* Remarks ou some birds that breed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, by Henry Bryant 

 M. p. Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. VIII, 18Gl-'6^, pp. 65-75. 



