Anticosti
ANTICOSTI, an island of the province of Quebec, Canada, situated in the Gulf of St Lawrence, between 49° and 50° N., and between 61° 40' and 64° 30' W., with a length of 135 m. and a breadth of 30 m. Population 250, consisting chiefly of the keepers of the numerous lighthouses erected by the Canadian government. The coast is dangerous, and the only two harbours, Ellis Bay and Fox Bay, are very indifferent. Anticosti was sighted by Jacques Cartier in 1534, and named Assomption. In 1763 it was ceded by France to Britain, and in 1774 became part of Canada. Wild animals, especially bears, are numerous, but prior to 1896 the fish and game had been almost exterminated by indiscriminate slaughter. In that year Anticosti and the shore fisheries were leased to M. Menier, the French chocolate manufacturer, who converted the island into a game preserve, and attempted to develop its resources of lumber, peat and minerals.
See Logan, Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress from its Commencement to 1863 (Montreal, 1863-1865); E. Billings, Geological Survey of Canada: Catalogue of the Silurian Fossils of Anticosti (Montreal, 1866); J. Schmitt, Anticosti (Paris, 1904).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
