50 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The Isle is a great rock which may be 50 to 60 fathoms in sheer 

 hight straight up from the foot of the two sides and has a width ol 

 3 or 4 fathoms ; at low water one can go from the mainland by foot all 

 round it; it may have a length of 350 or 400 fathoms; it has been much 

 longer, reaching even to the Island of Bonneaventure but the sea has 

 devoured it at the foot so that it has fallen and I have seen it when it had 

 only one passage in the form of an arcade, through which a barge can pass 

 at full sail. It is this which has given it the name of the Isle Percee. 

 There have two others formed since, which are not so large but are growing 

 all the time. It appears that these passages weaken its foundation and will 

 be the cause of its eventual destruction after which the sailors will no longer 

 be able to work here. All of them that come here to fish cast anchor on 

 the lee of this island, at a length of two cables off ; one has here 3 or 4 

 fathoms of water, further off is a constantly increasing depth. 



Pere Sixte La Tac, who had visited the coast probably on his way to 

 and from his mission in Newfoundland in 1689, spoke of the rock as having 

 but a single arch, 



Faucher St Maurice, in his charming and cleverly padded sketches 

 of a short trip along this coast (1877) records having seen in the pos- 

 session of Admiral Inglefield on board H. M. S. Bellerophon a copy of 

 an engraving made in 1760 which represented the rock with three arches 

 through it. It has been my good fortune to obtain a copy of this old 

 copper plate, which is reproduced here in reduced scale. Its date was the 

 year after the fall of Quebec and curiosity was doubtless keen enough in 

 England over so remarkable a feature of her new conquest to justify the 

 execution of this expensive plate. It was drawn by Captain Henry Smith 

 on the SPOT and the same pride that led the skippers of the 1700's 

 to have their ships painted on Sunderland and Liverpool jugs, led him 

 to put his frigate in the foreground of the picture. The rock is here 

 viewed from the north with Mt Joli at the right and Bonaventure island at 

 the left. Its arches are two in number, not three ; and though the 

 rear arch has now fallen it is noteworthy that the chief projections on 

 the side of the rock are essentially the same today as they were 145 

 years ago. The distant view beyond the rock shows the busy fishing fleet 

 off the lower beach. 



