Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

From the Detroit Gazette.

The Pictured Rocks, on the southern shore of Lake Superior, are described by those who have had the pleasure to see them, as furnishing one of the most astonishing and magnificent natural curiosities that can be found in our country. An intelligent gentleman, who accompanied Governor Cass in his tour last summer, describes them as surpassing, in grandeur, the far-famed cataract of Niagara.

They form a perpendicular wall of about three hundred feet in height and extend along the shore about ten miles; the projections and indentations are numerous, and the imagination of the observer throws them into various forms—sometimes the fronts of buildings—now a tower, and anon castles and columns appear in varied succession.

In many places vast caverns are worn into the rocks by the waves, the entrances to which are sometimes cragged and irregular, and sometimes regular hemispherical arches, supported by mighty pillars. The smallest wave, rushing into these caverns, causes a loud, jarring, and awful sound, which, to the ear of the passenger, is dashed along by echo, to be mingled with and to increase the noises which rush from more distant caverns.

The Indians never pass these rocks but in a calm time, and when there are no indications of a storm. It is said that they believe the caverns to be the abode of bad spirits, and, owing to their superstition, or to the awe which the scenery inspires, they generally observe a profound silence when passing them.