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and find good holding. The little old-fashioned French town nestles around it in a very primitive style. The fort frowns above it, like another Alhambra, its white walls gleaming in the sun. The whole area of the island is one labyrinth of curious little glens and valleys. Old green fields appear, in some spots, which have been formerly cultivated by the Indians. In some of these are circles of gathered-up stones, as if the Druids themselves had dwelt here. The soil, though rough, is fertile, being the comminuted materials of broken-down limestones. The island was formerly covered with a dense growth of rock-maples, oaks, iron-wood, and other hard-wood species; and there are still parts of this ancient forest left, but all the southern limits of it exhibit young growth. There are walks and winding paths among its little hills, and precipices of the most romantic character. And whenever the visitor gets on eminences overlooking the lake, he is transported with sublime views of a most ilimitable and magnificent water-prospect. If the poetic muses are ever to have a new Parnassus in America they should inevitably fix on Michilimackinac. Hygeia, too, should place her temple here; for it has one of the purest, driest, clearest, and most healthful atmospheres."

Geologically speaking, too, the island is interesting and instructive. It appears to be a confused mass of corniferous limestone, 250 or more feet in thickness, in places the strata, well defined but broken, and tilted at various angles, and at its base are the rocks of the Onondaga salt group. Prof. Winchell writes:

"The well-characterized limestones of the Upper Helderberg group, to the thickness of two hundred and fifty feet, exist in a confusedly brecciated condition. The individual fragments of the mass are angular, and seem to have been but little moved from their original places. It appears as if

the whole formation had been shattered by sudden vibrations and unequal uplifts, and afterward a thin calcareous mud poured over the broken mass, percolating through all the interstices, and re-cementing the fragments.

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"This is the general physical character of the mass; but in many places the original lines of stratification can be traced, and individual layers of the formation can be seen dipping at various angles and in all directions, sometimes exhibiting abrupt flexures, and not infrequently a complete downthrow of fifteen or twenty feet. These phenomena were particularly noticed at the cliff known as 'Robertson's Folly.'

"In the highest part of the island, back of Old Fort Holmes, the formation is much less brecciated, and exhibits an oolitic character, as first observed in the township of Bedford, in Monroe county......

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"The island of Mackinac shows the most indubitable evidence of the former prevalence of the water to the height of two hundred and fifty feet above the present level of the lake; and there has been an unbroken continuance of the same kind of aqueous action from that time during the gradual subsidence of the waters to their present condition. No break can be detected in the evidences of this action from the present water-line upward for thirty, fifty, or one hundred feet, and even up to the level of the grottoes excavated in the brecciated materials of 'Sugar-loaf,' the level of 'Skull Cave,' and the 'Devil's Kitchen.'

"While we state the fact, however, of the continuity of the action during all this period, it is not intended to allege that the water of the lakes, as such, has ever stood at the level of the summit of Sugar-loaf. upon the question whether these changes have been caused by the subsidence of the lakes, or the uplift of the island and adjacent promontories. It is true that the facts presented

Nor do we speak

bear upon these and other interesting questions; but we must forego any discussion of them."

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Professor Winchell believed there had been some elevation of the island and surrounding land, but more subsidence of the waters: much of which was probably effected during the prevalence of the continental glacial, and much during the time of floods following, and the action of the sea while the region was submerged."

The grand feature of the island formation is the "Arch Rock," in the bluff, on the eastern face.

The following parody on a popular song was found, in 1865, written on a stone, placed on a water-worn shelf near the base of the arch. It was published in Van Fleet's "Old and New Mackinac" (out of print) in "1870":

"Beauteous Isle! I sing of thee,
Mackinac, my Mackinac ;

Thy lake-bound shores I love to see,
Mackinac, my Mackinac,

From Arch Rock's height and shelving steep
To western cliffs and Lover's Leap,
Where memories of the lost one sleep,
Mackinac, my Mackinac.

Thy northern shore trod British foe,
Mackinac, my Mackinac,

That day saw gallant Holme's laid low,
Mackinac, my Mackinac.

Now Freedom's flag above thee waves,
And guards the rest of fallen braves,
Their requiem sung by Huron's waves,
Mackinac, my Mackinac."

Summit of arch rock above lake level 149 feet.

Foster

and Whitney mention the Arch and Sugar-Loaf Rocks, "as particular examples of denuding action.'

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"The portion supporting the arch on the north side, and the curve of the arch itself, are comparatively fragile, and can not for a long period resist the action of rains and frosts, which, in this latitude, and on a rock thus constituted, produce great ravages every season. The arch, which on one

side now connects this abutment with the main cliff, will soon be destroyed, as well as the abutment itself, and the whole be precipitated into the lake."

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Gleaned from "The Highest Old Shore Line on Mackinac Island, by F. B. Taylor, 1892.

"All the lower levels of Mackinac show plain evidence of past glacial action. The modern beach is composed

almost entirely of limestone pebbles which are generally well rounded." The beach on which the village is built, from the water to an altitude of forty-five or fifty feet, is of the same material.

"Lost glacial submergence is more plainly marked from the 170 foot plain where there is a well developed beach ridge, and four others, up to 205 feet, about the base of Fort Holmes hill. Facing the N. E. cliffs of Fort Holmes ("island"), the beach lines are all wanting but the 170 foot ridge. The surface of the island is well sprinkled with bowlders, many erratics, of northern origin, their exposed surfaces strongly weathered. There are no bowlders with glacial scratches below the 205 foot level.

"Then the real 'Ancient Island,' three-quarters of a mile long and less than half as wide, its longer axis northwest and southeast, the highest point, covered by the British earthwork, is the Fort Holmes plateau. It is covered with drift, the bowlders and pebbles striated. The fort embankment, surrounded by a ditch five or six feet deep, is most entirely bowlder clay mixed with striated bowlders and pebbles.

"All the main land, north and south, was submerged when the summit of the Island of Michilimackinac ('Pęquod-enonge') was a dot in the waters. We leave the rest to the reader for deeper study, theories and conjecture."

"Ye call these red-browed brethren
The insects of the hour,

Crushed like the noteless worm amid
The regions of their power;

Ye drive them from their fathers' lands,
Ye break the faith, the seal;

But can ye from the court of Heaven
Exclude their last appeal."

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