OF THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY. 893 



. . . At a little distance below the Palls stands a small island of 

 about an acre and a half, on which grow a great number of oak 

 trees, every branch of which, able to support the weight, was full of 

 eagles' nests." The engraving accompanying this description is that 

 seen in ' Winterbottom's America,' and is reproduced in ' Harper's 

 New Monthly Magazine ' for October 1875, and wrongly attributed 

 to Father Hennepin. Carver's original engraving shows an island 

 above the Falls, which is omitted in the copy in the Magazine. 

 Carver states on the engraving that the breadth of the Falls was 

 about 600 feet. This engraving also shows an insignificant island 

 just in the brink of the Falls, extending neither above nor below the 

 Falls, and an apparently detached block of limestone lodged on the 

 brink between it and the eastern (or northern) shore. In the stream 

 below the Falls is represented a larger low island, not rocky, but 

 alluvial, nearly circular, and covered with timber. 



Lieut. Pike visited the Falls, in the service of the United States 

 Government, in September 1805. His Journal, published in London 

 in 1811, is entitled ' Exploratory Travels through the Western Ter- 

 ritories of North America in 1805-6-7.' He says of the Falls : — 

 " The Falls of St. Anthony did not strike me with that majestic 

 appearance which I had been taught to expect from the descriptions 

 of other travellers. On an actual survey, I find the portage to be 

 260 poles ; but when the river is not very low, boats ascending may 

 put in 31 poles below, at a large cedar tree, which would reduce it 

 to 229 poles. The hill on which the portage is made is 69 feet 

 ascent, with an elevation at the point of debarkation of 45°. The 

 fall of the water between the points of debarkation and of re-landing 

 is 58 feet ; the perpendicular fall of the chute is 16| feet : the width 

 of the river above the chute is 627 yards, below 209. In high 

 water the appearance is much more sublime, as the great quantity 

 of water then forms a spray which in clear weather reflects from 

 some positions the colours of the rainbow, and when the sky is over- 

 cast covers the Falls in gloom and chaotic majesty." 



Major Stephen H. Long visited the Falls of St. Anthony in a six- 

 oared boat in 1817. The following is his account of the Falls : — 

 " The perpendicular face of the water at the cataract, as stated by 

 Pike in his Journal, is sixteen and a half feet, which I found to be 

 true by actual measurement. To this height, however, four or five 

 feet may be added for the rapid descent which immediately suc- 

 ceeds the perpendicular fall within a few yards below. Immedi- 

 ately at the cataract the river is divided into two parts by an island, 

 which extends considerably above and below the cataract, and is 

 about 500 yards long. The channel on the right side of the island 

 is about three times the width of that on the left. The quantity 

 of water passing through them is not, however, in the same propor- 

 tion, as about one third part of the whole passes through the left 

 channel. In the broadest channel, just below the cataract, is a small 

 island also, about fifty yards in length and thirty in breadth ; both 

 of these islands contain the same kind of rocky foimation as the 

 banks of the river, and are nearly as high. Besides these there are 



