Few who have visited this spot, only accessible in the calmest weather, where not a seabird finds a resting place, can ever forget the impression of silence and solitude which it leaves on the mind.

¿ Major-General John H. Lefroy RA, Memorials of Bermuda (1877)

It will be necessary to erect on the North Rock a lighthouse, which is said also to be very practicable, in order to serve as a mark by day and night.

¿ Captain Andrew Durnford RE, "Bermuda Defence Report, 1783"

To the unequal distribution of that carbonate of lime in solution . . . I attribute, not only the caverns and sandflaws, but the pinnacle . . . The most remarkable groups are at Tobacco Bay, St. George's Island, and at the North Rock.

¿ Lieut. Richard Nelson, RE, "On the geology of the Bermudas", Trans. Geological Society, V.1 (1837)

The North Rock, called on French maps "La Petite Bermude", is the northernmost land in the Bermuda archipelago, at least some of it is during the hours of low tide. It remains one of the few places of "silence and solitude" in the "Isles of Rest", free as it is from any taint of traffic (except the occasional motor fishing boat) and the often pervasive racket from car radios.

Visually, its collection of limestone pinnacles-once one of Bermuda's greatest geological monuments-is marred by the overbearing concrete tub that is the foundation for the present North Rock Beacon. I write in the plural, but hasten to note that only one of the pinnacles still survives to its original pre-settlement of Bermuda height.

What has not changed for many millennia is the ocean, which attacks and retreats from this obstruction in its path, some nine miles north of Flatts Village, with majestic surges of green water and surf. The line of reefs, which forms the backbone of protection for the northern side of main islands of Bermuda, runs from east of St. George's to the outer limits of the volcanic platform to the west of the Dockyard.

In winter, the ocean breaks massively over these coral fortifications, looking to some, last December ninth, like a tsunami wave approaching the west end. Just to the east of North Rock, a channel to the open sea is defined to the east by the Great Breaker, which always breaks, and therefore around which the ocean constantly heaves. That channel was used to good effect by the Royal Navy fleet when it departed for America during the War of 1812, as contrary winds from the east negated the use of the "Narrows", or "Hurd's, Channel".

With the exception of the black and yellow beacon and the missing pinnacles, this was largely the scene that would have greeted visitors to North Rock into the early 1900s.

It was the scene that welcomed the then Governor of Bermuda, General Lefroy, in late December 1875, when he persuaded James B. Heyl to make an expedition to North Rock to photograph the pinnacles. Lefroy wanted a image to publish in his upcoming book on the early history of Bermuda and he, his Aide-de-Camp, Capt. Trench RA, and a group of friends all went on the adventure.

As the "wet-plate process" was then in use, Heyl had to take his chemicals and a tent to develop the photographs immediately, as so required by that process. The tent-darkroom and the camera were set up on the eastern perimeter of the North Rock boiler and the resulting images captured the site on film, possibly for the first time.

Lieutenant Thomas Hurd RN made the earliest detailed record of North Rock in 1788 and the chart contained a proposal for the building of a lighthouse and gun battery on the platform of reefs. It also had a vignette of the six main pinnacles, of which only one is now extant. What happened to the others is not readily known, though hearsay suggests they may have been used as targets for modern artillery practice.

Lt. Hurd spent almost a decade in Bermuda waters charting the extensive reefs and plotting the channels through them, including the only major one for large ships, off the east end of St. George's Island. His work set new standards for such charts and he was appointed the second Hydrographer to the Royal Navy in 1808. At his death in 1823, Francis Beaufort, who invented the wind force scale for indicating wind velocity for shipping, succeeded him in that office.

A photograph in the collections of the Bermuda Maritime Museum may predate that of James B. Heyl, for it indicates that a fourth pinnacle to the north of the main group was still in existence, but apparently not appearing or obscured in the Heyl image. Today, only one of the large pinnacles still exists of "La Petite Bermude", the last stand against the depredations of man and nature.

As with the Pulpit Rock near Cockburn Cut at the Dockyard, which seems to have been studied by every geologist of note who visited Bermuda, the pinnacles that were North Rock were indicative of prehistoric times, when the island was a much larger terra firma than it is at present. Lieutenant Richard Nelson RE, an officer of the Royal Engineers ¿ the world's greatest corps of techies and nerds in those days ¿ produced the first detailed geological study of the island, brought about by his observations of the formations exposed in the destruction of most of Ireland Island North for the building of the Dockyard in the 1820s and 1830s. The pinnacles were proof of changing sea levels and of a greater landmass that was once Bermuda, but has since eroded away.

Having surviving the ravages of the ocean for many millennia, one suspects that the reduction of the landmass of Bermuda by the destruction of most of North Rock has been a human, rather than natural, happenstance. What a pity, for even though only one rock of the North rocks is still to be seen, "the impression of silence and solitude which it leaves on the mind" is just as powerful now, as it was in the days of the Hurds and Lefroys, and indeed for all humans who there ventured from 1505 onwards. Silence and solitude are forever good food for the mind and soul.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.