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LAWRENCE, ANTICOSTI. '"?*!.? •'W '<1 [Taken from the Journal of the Board of Arts and Manufactures for Vjrper Ca7tada.'\ The steps which are now being taken towards the construction of an Intercolonial Railroad in British America, give unusual value to any information respecting the little-known tract of country- through which the contemplated road will pass, as well as to the great Gulf of St. Lawrence, along or near which this intercolonial trunk-line will have its course. The following article refers principally to a little-known but most valuable Island in the Gulf, which may one day become the seat of a numerous maritime population, whose industry will have a great influence upon the future prosperity of Canada and the other British North American Provinces. Anticosti was first discovered by Cartier, in 1534, and called by him in his second voyage " Assomption ; " by the pilot, Jean Alphonse, in 1542, " Ascension Isle ; " and by the Indians, " Natiscotec," which the French transformed into " Anticosti."* This fine Island is 122 miles long, 30 broad, and 270 miles in circumference, and contains nearly 2,000,000 acres of land. Its nearest point is about 450 miles below Quebec. The limestone rocks on the coast arc covered with a thick and often impenetrable forest of dwarf spruce, with gnarled branches, so twisted and matted together that a man may walk for a considerable distance on their summits, f In the interior some fine timber exists, con- sisting of birch, a little pine and spruce. J The streams which descend to the coast abound with trout and salmon in the summer season. Seals frequent the flat limestone rocks in vast numbersr. Mackerel in immense shoals congregate around all parts of the * Tbe Natiscotec River empties into the Gulf on the north side ot the Island. + Bayfield. J On the authority of Pursh, the pond pine (jpinus serotina) is found at Anticosti. This botanist visited the island in 1817. As this pine is a southern species, it having estabiisned itself on that northern island is a singular circumstance. On the same occasion Pursh brought back, in the shape of dried specimens as well as in the living state, many plants which seem peculiar to the island.— /fort. W, Sheppard, on the Dis- tn'button of the Cojiifera i?i Canada. coast. Bears are very numerous, foxes and martins abundant ; otters and a few mice complete the known list of quadrupeds. Neither snakes, toads nor frogs are known to exist on this desolate Isle. Unfortunately, there are no good natural harbours on Anticosti ; and in consequence of very extensive reefs of flat limestone rock, extending some distance from the shore, the want of anchorage, and frequency of fogs, the Island is considered dangerous by mariners ; but " not in so great a degree as to render reasonable the dread with which it seems to have been occasionally regarded, and which can only have arisen from the natural tendency to magnify dangers of which we have no precise knowledge." • Provision posts have been established by the Canadian Govern- ment, for the relief of crews wrecked on the Island, f and three * Bayfield. t To those who have drawn conclusions unfavorable to the island, from the number of wrecks which have been reported to have taken place upon it, it is necessary to point out that the wrecks, which in returns appear so formidable in the aggregate, under the head ol " Anticosti," have not occurred at one spot, but at manv spots widely separated, extendmg over a distance of 320 miles, that lieing the circumference of the'island, and consequentlytheextent of coast front, not taking into account the indentations caused by bays, creeks, &c. Take the same length of coast upon any part of the main shores o/ tne river or gulf, and it will be found, upon proper inquiry, that six times as many wrecks have occurred within it each year, as have for the same period taken place upon Anticosti. Instead of the Avrecks upon the latter havingbeeu compared with the number of wrecks spread over the same extent of coast on the former, they have been generally ''^P'^u '*^,*'«^'"S^ occurred at one spot, and have been compared with those only which have happened at some one place on the main shore of the river or gulf, of a few miles, or of less than a mile in extent, lying in the course of fewer vessels, yet wrecking annually nearly as many. From an estimate, madeby the writer of this communication, of disasters m the River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, during the ten years ending No- vember, 1849, It appears that half as many wrecks occurred upon the Mnnicouagan shoals, as took place upon the ishnd in that period, and that Cape Rosier, Matane and Cxreeti Island each wrecked upwards of a third of the number of vessels which were stranded during th« same period upon the whole of the 320 miles of the much libelled coasta of Anticosti. The Manicouagan shoals, Cape Rosier, Cape Chat, and other spots upon the mam shores of the river and gulf; are places not only much more to be dreaded by the manner than Anticosti, on account of the number of wrecks which occur upon them, but m consequence of the great loss of life which sometimes accompanies those wrecks, while, from the shelving nature of the l)each at Anticosti, there are few instances recorded of wrecks upon the latter having been attended with loss of life. While the circumstantially related and carefully preserved account of the fate of the crew of the Gramcus, wrecked in 1828, near Fox Bay (who, in the course of a long winter, died irom famine), has created in the minds of many, who adopt without reflection any popular fallacy placed before them, a belief that every poverty of soil, every drawback of climate, and every danger of coast must belong to Anticosti, those greater dangers and those more numerous disasters upon the main shores of the St. Lawrence, attended wit.i greater loss of life, have been almost entirely lost sight of, or if thought of in connection with the former, have been set down as unimportant, when compared with tne unfairiy estimated disasters and the imaginary dangers of Anticosti. The evil repufation wlich still hangs over the island, became attached to it many years ago, before its coasts were thoroughly surveyed, when it was laid down in the chart as being many miles shorter than it actually is, in consequence of which many vessels ran upon it m niaces where deep water was supposed to exist, and before light- T light-houses arc now maintained at the west, east and south-west points. Along the lowlands of the south coast, a continuous peat plain extends for upwards of eighty miles, with an average breadth of two miles, giving a superficies of 160 miles, with a thickness of peat, as observed on the coast of from three to ten feet. This extensive peat plain— probably the largest in Canada— is about iilleen feet above the ocean.' An immense quantity of square timber and logs ready cut for the saw mill, are scattered over the south coast, having drifted down the rivers of the main land, and particularly the St. Lawrence. Some of the squared timber may have been derived from wrecks. Mr. Richardson, of the Geological Survey of Canada, who explored Anticosti in 1856, calculated that if the whole of the logs scattered along the south shore of the Island were placed end to end, they would reach one hundred and forty miles, and give about one million cubic feet of timber. Mr. Richardson concludes his report on this Island with the following paragraphs : " The strata of Anticosti being nearly horizontal, cannot fail to give to the surface of the country a shape in some degree conform- ing to them. The surface will be nearly a level plain, with only such modifications as are derived from the deeper wearing in a longitudinal direction of some of the softer beds, producing escarp- ments of no great elevation, with gentle slopes from their summits m a direction facing the sun, that will scarcely be perceptible to houses were placed there, since the erection of which, and the late 8ur\'ey of its coasts wrecks upon the island have become less, frequent. Most of those which now occur there are caused by the neglect of using the lead in foggy weather, many of them throughthe incapaciiy or drunkenness of masters, who genera!ly are shamefully under- paid, and some of (hem through design, for the purpose of cheating the underwriters Ul these latter cases the insurance oliices are perleclly aware ; but, instead of endea- voring to meet them by preventive measures, they increase the rates of insurance so as to cover 'luch losses, by estimating lor them in a certain proportion to the whole • thus making the entire trade pay Ibr the di.shonest acts of the rogue. This havin^' the effect to increase the price of Ireight, by which the public are the sufferers, in having to nay a proportionabiy increased price for all articles imported, the Government should in luture institute a strict inquiry into the loss ot every ship in the river or gull, by means of a naval police, and ha empowered to iii/lict punishment where criminal design or even gross carelessness or drunkenness may be proved to hiwe attended such loss Tho-e masters who desire to lose their ships, generally select Anticosti for the purpose, iKJcause they can always manage to run them ashore there without any danger to life and without much risk ot the circumstances attending the act being witnessed or understood by persons on shore ; and the provision posts being now well supplied, there is no danger, as there was lorinerly, of their suflering from the want of food. Thus many of the wrecks which take place there are produced in consequence of the ease with which a ves-el may be beached, with safety to life, on many parts of the island, and not through Its dangers of oast. In regard to the latter, those masters who know the coasts of the island well, generally make tree with them (unless there happen to be a fo