EARLY DEVONIC HISTORY OF NEW YORK AND EASTERN NORTH AMERICA 5 I 



Father Chrestien LeClercq, who Avas stationed at Perce for 12 )-cars 



from 1675 and again for a number of years after, interrupting liis mission 



by a voyage to France, gave this description of the rock, upon tlie accurac)- 



of which we may rel)', for it had been for all this time the most conspicuous 



object within his vision: "It," he says, referring to Gaspe bay, "is only 

 Seven Leagues from the Isle Percee which is not, as some imagine, an 

 island capable of lodging inhabitants ; because it is only a rough Rock steep 

 on all sides, of an extraordinary hight and a surprising abruptness. It is so 

 pierced by three or four distinct passageways that the barges pass full 

 manned and at full sail through the largest of these openings. It is from 

 this fact that it derives the name of I'lsle Percee, although it is really only 

 a peninsula or a Presqu 'isle, of which one can easily make the circuit afoot 

 when the sea is low; and resembles an island only at high water. It is 

 separated from terra firma by only two or three acres \arpent = 180 feet] of 

 ground. It would seem as if it had formerly been joined thereto and that 

 it had been cut off by the storms and tempests of the ocean,"' 



The discrepancy in these accounts may arise from some disagreement 

 between the dates of observation and of publication, but the)' can be recon- 

 ciled to this conclusion that the arches had during the period of Denys's 

 observation grown from one to three or four and probably one of these had 

 soon thereafter fallen in, 



I find no other descriptive account of the rock throughout the whole 

 of the 1 8th century and up to the time when the Abbe Ferland wrote of 

 his missionary visitation along this coast in 1836. Ferland's stay at Perce 

 was brief, not of more than two or three days duration, and much of the 

 material of his entertaining narrative was derived from other than original 

 sources. Of the rock he says : ^ 



The Isle Percee appears to have been formerly joined to Mt Joli ; it 

 is separated therefrom only by a straight channel which is dry at low water. 

 The length of the plateau is about eight acres and its width is reckoned at 

 only from 60 to 80 feet. In its entire extent the rock is only a continuous 

 cliff, the average hight of which is 290 feet. The waves have already cut out 

 two arches remarkable for their regularity. The open passages in the rock 

 are about 25 feet wide, 20 feet in hight and 30 in length. Through the 



'Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspesie. 1691. p. 4, 5. 

 ^LaGaspesie. 



