GIRIi — ON CANADIAN CAVEENS. 
163 
almost noi'tli and south, I am disposed to consider its northern aspect 
as the oklest, the two arched openings at that side forming what 
were once the entrance to deep caverns running into the rock 
southwards, which in the course probably of ages has been washed 
away by aqueous denudation. This view is strengthened by an ex- 
amination of the intervening shores as they exist at present, which 
are portrayed in the diagram (plate vi.). It will be perceived that the 
coast line of lie Perce runs along to Bonaventure Island, with an 
imaginary position of the land at one time between the south-west 
part of the latter island and the shore at the Bay of Perce, at the 
point where the cliff's commence at its southern third. This gives 
the southern coast a semicircular course, with a low shelving beach 
corresponding to that which now exists at Perce Bay on the one side, 
and the western coast of Bonaventure on the other; whilst the 
northern coast is rocky and pi'ecipitous, probably pierced with many 
caverns, and gradually diminishing in height to the southward. 
3. — Gothic Arched Recesses at Gaspe Bay. 
The south-western shore of Gaspe Bay — from Point Peter to 
Douglass Town, a distance of twelve miles — consists of a succession 
of precipitous headlands, which in some places are two hundred feet 
above the sea. Going southward from Seal Cove, a part of the chffs 
is composed of greenish-grey or drab-coloured pebbly sandstone, with 
many beds of conglomerate. In these beds dai'k red shale-balls 
exist, which yield to the weather and the beating of the sea, and 
leave large holes in the cHfi's. The conglomerate beds, which belong 
to the Portage and Chemung groups of the Devonian or old red 
sandstone formation, are described as harder and more resistant to 
these influences and the irregularity in the wear of the rock, of which 
the dip is at an angle of sixty degTees, produces recesses and ai'ches, 
giviug the precipice the appearance of a piece of Gothic architecture.* 
From Point Peter the land rises in undulations to the chain of moun- 
tains, which lie about five miles in land. They attain to an elevation 
of fifteen hundred feet, and sweeping round Mai Bay, terminate with 
the Perce mountains, previously mentioned. 
4. — The "Old "Woman," at Cape Gaspe. 
If a line is drawn in a north-north-east direction across Gaspe 
Bay from Seal Cove, it will touch a remai'kable headland, or finger- 
shaped promontory of Gaspe limestone, called Cape Gaspe, which is 
the termination of a magnificent range of cliffs, six hundred and 
ninety-two feet above the sea. Close to the south-east extremity of 
the Cape was the " Old Woman," or Flower Pot Rock, sometimes 
called " Ship's Head" by the fishermen, and formed in a similar 
manner to the Flower Pot Rocks of the Mingan Islands. It was a 
* Geo!. Surve\' of Canada. Eeport of Progress for 1841, 
