﻿REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I9IO 135 



landing at the little triangle of Mt Gridley the eye will barely catch 

 except by close inspection of the chart. This little spot of rock is 

 really cut entirely away from the island proper, but a sand bar leads 

 across to Demoiselle hill and beyond this narrow neck of actual land 

 the island widens out, extending east and west for nearly ten miles 

 across, broken by demoiselle hills which have a trend parallel to the 

 northeast course of the island chain. The two great bars which run 

 north from Amherst and inclose the Basque harbor are cut across 

 by tickles or gullies too narrow to make a passage except for the 

 smallest craft at high water; but the inhabitants drive along these 

 bars from island to island fording the tickles as best they can — 

 always a perilous passage if the sea outside is heavy. Reaching 

 out with these two arms Amherst clutches Grindstone island, an 

 almost circular land mass with high shore cliffs on nearly every 

 side, and again an interior of rounded demoiselle elevations, the 

 nature of which we shall presently refer to. Then from Grind- 

 stone two arms again extend north and eastward. 



At the west is the immense bar reaching 27 miles from Hospital 

 cape to Grosse Isle inclosing midway of its course the little rock 

 fragment, Wolf island. At the east Grindstone is separated from 

 the land next north, Alright island, by the tickle which leads into 

 House harbor, the best of the land-locked roadsteads of the island, 

 and ferriage is necessary to reach the south end of the crescent- 

 shaped film of land which makes Alright. This island is little else 

 than a row of beautifully rounded demoiselle hills whose grassy 

 green summits and gray sides form a brilliant contrast with the low- 

 lying platform of red rocks at the water's edge. Perhaps two-thirds 

 of the area represented on the map as constituting Alright island is 

 rock land; the rest is sand and the great eastern bar here runs its 

 course, passing the little rock called Shag island, on to the northeast 

 until it is broken across by the Grand Entry, the broad tickle leading 

 into the northern expansion of the Great Lagoon. This, too, is good 

 harborage but the vessels in heavy sea or low tide rarely take the 

 risk of running it. I have waited eight hours on the sands of Grand 

 Entry for the coast steamer standing in the offing with an east wind 

 and a falling tide, to muster courage to run the passage. From 

 Grand Entry to Old Harry point is another sickle-shaped bit of 

 land, cut into and perhaps in two or three by sand-covered passages. 

 This is Coffin island, and on the sea front from here around to East 

 point, the farthest tip of the islands, and back again to Grosse Isle, 

 there is no rock land — all is a vast stretch of high duned sands. 

 Behind these sands and facing the lagoon is the bit of land called 



