r part of that
oppening is as bigg as a tower and grows bigger in the going upp. A
shipp of 500 tuns could passe, soe bigg is the arch. I gave it the
name of the portall of St. Peter, because my name is so called, and
that I was the first Christian that ever saw it." The latter statement
seems unquestionably true. But Radisson's name did not
stick--unfortunately, for "St. Peter's Portal" would be a
better-sounding and more significant name than the meaningless
"Pictured Rocks," which is the common designation of this famous object.

This natural arch affords a striking illustration of the wearing effect
of water. The waves constantly washing and often beating in fury upon
the line of sandstone cliffs has, in the course of ages, {209} hollowed
this arch at the point where the rock was softest. The immense amount
of material thus washed from the face of the cliffs has been thrown
ashore, blown along the coast, and heaped up in the sand-hills which
Radisson describes, and which are reliably reported to vary from one
hundred to three hundred feet in height.

A few days later the party came to a place where they made a portage of
some miles, in order to save going around a peninsula jutting far out
into the lake. "The way was well beaten," says Radisson, "because of
the comers and goers, who by making that passage shortens their journey
by 8 dayes." From this circumstance it is evident that our travelers
were on a frequented route, and that the Indians knew enough of the
geography of the country to avoid a canoe journey of several hundreds
of miles, by carrying their light craft and their goods across the base
of the peninsula, which is here very narrow, being almost cut in two by
a chain of lakes and rivers.[3]

{210}

Radisson was told that "at the end of the point there is an isle all of
copper." This is not very far from the truth, for this peninsula
contains, about Keweenaw Point, the richest copper deposit in the
world. In 1857 there was taken from one of the mines a mass of ore
weighing 420 tons and containing more than ninety per cent of pure
copper.

Traveling on, the party met with some Christinos, or Crees, who joined
it "in hopes," says Radisson, "to gett knives from us, which they love
better then we serve God, which should make us blush for shame." In
time they came to "a cape very much elevated like piramides," probably
the "Doric Rock." In a certain "channell" they took "sturgeons of a
vast