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Awe Rnigtiyinnies chet Pepe ee ney Lava ags renin ly ad ine pmineeeetabepan ene aE Saari sowing gia OEE E vin ii our rae pines nalon 9 Pn oe rey ee el AIH PP neers gre prea erete ee Pree papteg ener aT Rae Spee rwre ye ope eat penne e ets wa rene DLN PRES NN a liad Oe ee a a Ee ae beads peti ADPOM ol y boys ot Sha ty sraatVaM wae 4 eer died piesarelginpayre’y: ear cen Tekh ITF a pinata nena ieee ee deaninded Pini ee a) or gap ee pee tpeeeet yi erene Se erie Sn. a aba pepe ashe g ee a acted ei hie pee ope oiemphpite ene behets eo Page e-giahv in PM circaenins. 55 eee ‘ ey Ny Dupree Wed eS yan is Tue B, S. WRIGHT HELD IN THE IcE AT SQUARE ISLAND HARBOR. (From a photograph by Bradford.) Frontispiece. THE LABRADOR COAST. FOURNAL OF TWO SUMMER CRUISES TOMEERAT UREGION. WITH NOTES ON ITS EARLY DISCOVERY, ON THE ESKIMO, ON ITS PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY, BY ALPHEUS SPRING PACKARD, M.D., Px.D., CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, NEW YORK; AND OF THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB, BOSTON. With Maps and llustrations. NEW YORK: NDC; HODGES; PUBLISHER, 47 LAFAYETTE PLACE. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. 189gI, TO THE MEMORY OF PAUL A. CHADBOURNE, LATE PRESIDENT OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE, AND FOR SOME TIME PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND NATURAL HISTORY IN BOWDOIN COLLEGE, AND WHO CONDUCTED THE FIRST STUDENTS’ EXPEDITION FROM WILLIAMS COLLEGE TO LABRADOR, ' THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY HIS FORMER PUPIL AND FRIEND, THE AUTHOR, WHO GLADLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE ENCOURAGEMENT AND MANY KINDNESSES RECEIVED FROM HIM IN HIS EARLY STUDENT DAYS. ie ls OAC E THE Labrador Peninsula is less known than the interior of Africa or the wastes of Siberia. Its rivers are still stocked with salmon; its inland waters are the breeding places of count- less birds. Its numerous and deep fiords, and the splendid mountain scenery of the northern coast, with its Arctic ice- fields and thousand bergs, and the Eskimos, christianized .and heathen, will never cease to tempt to this threshold of the Arc- tic regions the hardy explorer or the adventurous yachtsman. Though this book is mainly based on observations and col- lections made by the author in his early student days, it was thought that some general and standard account of the Labra- dor coast, its geography, its people, its fisheries, its geology, as well as its animals and plants, might be useful, even if future explorations of the great fiords and of the interior plateaux and rivers might in time result in far more complete works. The scientific results, geological and zoological, are reprinted from the Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History for 1867. Chapters I, II, II], and VI are reprinted by per- mission from the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society for 1888. Chapters IV and XIII first appeared in the American Naturalist, and Chapter V is reprinted from Apple- tons’ Journal. Sportsmen and ornithologists will be interested in the list of Labrador birds by Mr. L. W. Turner, which has been kind- 5 6 Preface. ly revised and brought down to date by Dr. J. A. Allen. Dr. S. H. Scudder has contributed the list of butterflies, and Prof. John Macoun, of Ottawa, Canada, has kindly prepared the list of Labrador plants. The proof of this chapter has, in his absence, been read by Mr. Sereno Watson, Curator of the Harvard Herbarium, and who has kindly made some addi- tional notes and corrections. 3 Much pains has been taken to render the bibliography complete, and the author is indebted to Dr. Franz Boas and others for several titles and important suggestions ; and it is hoped that this feature of the book will recommend it to col- lectors of Americana. The author also acknowledges his great indebtedness to William Bradford, Esq., the Arctic traveller and artist, for con- stant aid and courtesies extended while a member of his party, and for the gift of a number of photographs of the coast scenery and of the Eskimos, some of which have been reproduced in this volume. The results of the three Canadian expeditions to Hudson’s Bay under Lieut. A. R. Gordon, R.N., of which Dr. Robert Bell was the naturalist and geologist; and of the journeys of Dr. K. R. Koch, and of Mr. Randle F. Holme, have been in- cluded, so that the work has been brought down to date and represents our present knowledge of the coast and interior. It is hoped that the volume will serve asa cuide to the Labrador coast for the use of travellers, yachtsmen, sportsmen, artists, and naturalists, as well as those interested in geographt- cal and historical studies. Brown UNIVERSITY, PRovIDENCE, R. I. CHAPTER ce ce ee ce f$ xX. XI. XIl. ALI. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. CONTENTS. . THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. . 3 Who First SAW THE LABRADOR COAST ? THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. LIFE AND NATURE IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR. . ONE oF Firty DAYS IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR. A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. I. From Boston to Henley Harbor. A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. II. From Henley Harbor to Cape St. Michael. A SuMMER’s CrutsE To NORTHERN LABRADOR. III. From Cape St. Michael to Hopedale. é A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. IV. Hopedale and the Eskimos. A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. VY. The Return Voyage to Boston. . : RECENT EXPLORATIONS. : : f Q : Tue Civit History oF LABRADOR, WITH A BRIEF AC- COUNT OF ITS FISHERIES. . : : 5 . THE LABRADOR ESKIMOS AND THEIR FORMER RANGE SOUTHWARD. é THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. : ; < THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 3 5 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. ; 5 : BIBLIOGRAPHY RELATING TO THE EARLY EXPLORA- TIONS, THE GEOGRAPHY, AND THE CIVIL AND NAT- URAL HisToRY OF LABRADOR. , : ; : : 120 140 CHAPTER: I, THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. Our knowledge of the interior of the Labrador penin- sula is still so scanty, owing to its inaccessibility, its un- navigable rivers, the shortness of the summer season, and the lack of game, as well as the enormous numbers of black flies and mosquitoes, that any description of this country must long remain imperfect. The only scientific explorer of the interior is Professor Hind, who ascended the river Moisie, which, however, is a confluent of the St. Lawrence, and is in fact situated only near the borders of Labrador, in the province of Quebec. None of the larger rivers of Labrador have been explored to near their sources; and no one except Indians and but a single employé of the Hudson Bay Company (Mr. Mc- Lean) has ever crossed any considerable portion of.:the interior. And yet the peninsula is well watered with streams, rivers, and chains of lakes. I have been in- formed by residents that the Indians of the interior, pre- sumably the Mountaineers, can travel in their canoes from the mouth of the Esquimaux River, which empties into the Strait of Belle Isle, across the country to the Hudson Bay posts in Hamilton Inlet. So far as we have been able to gather from maps and the accounts of explorers, such as McLean and Davies, the latter of whom published an account of the Grand or Hamilton I 2 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. River, and the Moravian missionaries Kohlmeister and Kyioch, who in their “ Journal of a Voyage from Ok- kak” described the Koksoak River and its probable source, as well as from our own scanty observations taken from elevations near the coast, the interior of Labrador is thickly studded with lakes, somewhat as in the Adirondack region of New York, though the in- ‘terior country is far more broken and mountainous. It is certainly most desirable that explorers should penetrate this vast and unknown wilderness, however formidable may seem the barriers to travel. These obstacles would be the rapids and water-falls, the lone and difficult portages or carries, and the unceasing plague of mosquitoes and black flies. But the annoy- ance from insects might not be greater than that en- countered by explorers in Siberia, or by trout or salmon, fishermen in northern New England and Canada, while the difficulties and dangers of river navigation would not compare with those of a passage through the Colo- rado River. The route which would be most prolific in results would be to ascend the Meshikumau or Es- quimaux River from its mouth near Salmon Bay, in the Strait of Belle Isle, to its source, and thence to connect with the probably adjacent source of Grand or Hamil- ton River to the Hudson Bay post at Rigolet, in Hamilton or Invuktoke Inlet. Another journey which would be productive of good geographical results would be to cross the peninsula from Prince Rupert’s Land by way of Rupert River and Lake Mistassini to Hamilton Inlet. The Koksoak River should be explored to its. sources, and the low, flat, wooded region of the East Main, lying between Hudson Bay and the Labrador MAPS OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 3 coast-region, should be adequately mapped. At present, less is known of the vast region between Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean than of perhaps any region of - similar extent in North America; although the results of exploration might be of more value to geographical and geological science than to trade and commerce. Thanks to the labors of the Moravian missionaries, we now have a much better knowledge of the intricacies of the extreme northern coast of Labrador than is af- forded by the charts of the British Admiralty or the United States Coast Survey; and it is to the rare op- portunity we have been generously afforded by the officers of the Moravian Society in London and Herrn- hut, Saxony, that we are able herewith to present maps which are at least approximately correct, and which must for a long time to come be the only source of any exact knowledge of the multitudinous bays, inlets, promontories, and islands of this exceedingly diversi- fied coast. 7 The first special map of Northern Labrador to be published was that by the Moravian Brethren Kohl- meister and Knoch. It comprised the northern ex- tremity of Labrador, north of latitude 57°, including Ungava Bay, and appeared in 1814. Previous to this, Cartwright, in 1792, had published a map of Sandwich Bay and adjacent regions. Then succeeded the general chart of the coast published by Admiral Bayfield, in 1827, and the later charts of the British Admiralty. In the United States Coast Survey report for 1860, besides an imperfect outline of the coast given in Mr. Lieber’s geological map of the Labrador coast, there is 4. THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. a special map of Eclipse Harbor surveyed by Lieut.- Commanding A. Murray, United States Navy, and drawn to a scale of 4 with the soundings indicated. About the year 1873 (the date is not given on the copy of the map we have received) appeared a map of that portion of the coast embracing the sites of the principal Moravian stations and lying between N. lat. 55° and 59°. It was prepared by L. T. Reichel from the sketches made by himself, and published in the lack of any authentic maps of the coast. For a copy of this and the map of Aivekt6k or Eskimo Bay we are in- debted to the officers of the Society in Herrnhut, Sax- ony. On this map are given the route of the ship-chan- nel from the southward to Hopedale, and thence to the different Moravian stations up to Hebron; also the overland sledge-routes between Port Manvers and Ok- kak, and the latter station and Hebron. There is also an attempt to give in a general way the elevation of the coast, and the elevation of Kaumajet Mt. and Mt. Kig- lapeit is given as 4,000 feet. Scales of German and of English miles are also given. The second special map was also prepared by Rev. L. T. Reichel, and published in 1873. It gives what is probably by far the most authentic map of Hamilton In- let and Aivektok, or Eskimo Bay, and the coast north- ward, the whole area mapped being comprised between latitudes 53° 20° and 56° 20’; it i$ of special value in giving a capital idea of the intricate fiord structure of the coast, and also a census of the white and Eskimo residents. ; We have also been favored by B. Latrobe, Esq., Sec- retary of the Moravian Missions in London, with the THE LABRADOR PLATEAU. 5 loan of a MS. map, by the late Rev. Samuel Weiz, of the coast from Byron Bay in latitude 54° 40’ around to the mouth of George River in Ungava Bay, and kindly allowed to copy it. _ With the aid of the new maps of Messrs. Reichel and Weiz we have been able to have compiled the new gen- eral map of the Labrador coast herewith presented ; the southern portion of the coast being reproduced from the British Admiralty and U. S. Coast Survey charts, as well as those of the Hydrographic Office, U. S. Navy Department, as follows: No. 9.—River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, Newfound- land, Nova Scotia, and the banks adjacent; Sheet 1. English and French Surveys. Published March, 1868. | No. 731.—Anchorages N. E. coast of Labrador, from Br. Surveys. Published Sept., 1876. No. 809.—Coast of Labrador, Cape St. Charles to Sandwich Bay. Br. Surveys to 1882. ‘There are in Lt. Gordon’s Report of the Hudson Bay Expedition of 1885, charts of the Ottawa Islands in Hudson Bay, and of one of the islands at Cape Chidley. In its general features the peninsula of Labrador is an oblong mass of Laurentian rocks situated between the 5oth and 62d parallels of north latitude. On the east- ern or Atlantic coast it rises abruptly from the ocean as an elevated plateau, forming the termination of the Laurentian chain, which here spreads out. into a vast waste of hills and low mountains.* * The mountains in the Quebec Province which appear in the accompanying map are hypothetical, and were wrongly inserted by the artist. 6 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. This plateau of hills and mountains, with barren table- lands, rises abruptly from the sea-level, presenting a lofty but stern and forbidding front to the ocean, throughout the whole extent of 1,100 miles of coast from the Strait of Belle Isle to Cape Wolstenholme. Mountaens.—On the northern shores of the Strait of Belle Isle the general elevation of the coast is from 500 - to 800 feet, and the highest mountains are the three Bradore Hills, which: are respectively 1,135, 1,220, and 1,264 feet in height. From Chateau Bay and Cape Charles the coast rises in height northwards, until at Square Island the higher elevations form mountains about 1,000 feet high. Going farther on, the Mealy Mountains, said to rise to an elevation of 1,482 feet, are seen forming a range extending along the peninsula situ- ated between Sandwich Bay and Eskimo Bay, with Hamilton Inlet. Still higher is Mt. Misery, which we suppose to be ‘the same elevation as Mt. Allagaigai, a noble mountain mass rising to an altitude of 2,170 feet, forming the summit of an elevated plateau region lying half-way between Cape Harrison and Hopedale. It is a con- spicuous peak seen when crossing the mouth of Ham- ilton Inlet, and we well remember the grandeur of its appearance when partly wreathed in clouds, which left its summit so exposed as to make it look much higher than in reality. The highest elevations in Labrador rise from the irregular coast range between latitude 57° and 60°; and judging from the views published by Dr. Lieber in the U. S. Coast Survey report for 1860, and by Professor Bell in the Report of the Canadian Geological Survey THE MOUNTAIN RANGES OF LABRADOR. 7 for 1884, the scenery of this part of the country is wonderfully wild and grand, rivalling that of the coast of Norway, and of the coast of (eet the mountains ‘being about as high as in those regions. According to Prof. Bell: “After passing the Strait of Belle Isle, the Labrador coast continues high and rugged, and although there are some interruptions to the general rule, the ‘elevation of the land near the coast may be said to in- ‘crease gradually in going northward, until within seventy statute miles of Cape Chudleigh, where it has attained a height of about 6,000 feet above the sea. Beyond this it again diminishes to this cape, where it is 1,500 feet. From what I have seen’ quoted of Labrador, and from what I have been able to learn through published ac- ‘counts from the Hudson Bay Company’s officers and the natives, and also judging from the indications af- forded by the courses of the rivers and streams, the ‘highest land of the peninsula lies near the coast all along, constituting, in fact, a regular range of mountains parallel to the Atlantic seaboard. In a general way, this range becomes progressively narrower from Hamilton Inlet to Cape Chudleigh.” * The highest mountains in Labra- -dor were previously said by Messrs. Kohlmeister and Knoch to rise from a chain of high mountains terminat- ing in the lofty peaks near Aulezavik Island and Cape ‘Chidley. One of the smallest of these mountains, Mount Bache, was measured in 1860 by the Eclipse Expedition of the U. S. Coast Survey, and found to be 2,150 feet above the sea-level. This mountain is a gneiss elevation, and a sketch on the geological chart by * Observations on the Geology, etc., of the Labrador Coast, etc., Rep. of ‘Geological Survey of Canada, 1884, p. 10 DD. 8 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR, Mr. Lieber, the geologist of the expedition, shows it to» be rounded by glacial action, while lofty, ‘ wild volcanic-- looking mountains form a water-shed in the interior,. whose craggy peaks have evidently never ae ground! down by land-ice into domes and rounded tops.” While the highest elevations have never been meas- ured, the height of three of the lesser mountains along this part of the coast appears to have been roughly as-- certained. Professor Bell states that the mountains on: either side of Nachvak Inlet, about 140 miles south of Cape Chidley, “rise to heights of from 1,500 to 3,400: feet, but a few miles inland, especially on the south side,. they appear to attain an altitude of 5,000 to 6,000 feet,. which would correspond with the height of The Four Peaks, near the outer coast line, about midway between Nachvak and Cape Chudleigh.” The mountains around: Nachvak, he adds, ‘‘are steep, rough-sided, peaked, and: serrated, and have no appearance of having been glaci- ated, excepting close to the sea-level.” These mountains are formed of Laurentian gneiss, “ notwithstanding their extraordinary appearance, so different from the smooth, solid, and more or less rounded outlines of the hills composed of these rocks in most other parts of. the Dominion.” The height of these mountains was (evi- dently roughly estimated from that of an escarpment oni the south side of the inlet at the Hudson Bay Company's. port, which ‘rises to a height of 3,400 feet, as ascer- tained by Commander J. G. Bolton” (p. 14 DD). According to the British Admiralty chart and the Newfoundland Pilot, Cape Chidley rises to a height — of 1,500 feet above the sea, and the highest point of the Button Islands has an equal elevation (Bell, p. 17 DD). THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN LABRADOR. 9 Port Burwell is situated on the island of which Cape Chidley is the northeastern point. This island is sepa- rated from the mainland by McLelan’s Strait. ‘‘ Nu- naingok is situated on an alluvial flat, extending between the two branches of the strait. The hill which rises steeply on the south side of it is about 700 feet high; but farther in, between the branches and on either side of them, the mountains are from 1,500 to 2,500 feet: high, and have ragged tops and sides” (Bell, p. 19 DD). In his report for 1885 Professor Bell vives no additional measurements of mountains, but observes: ‘‘ The moun- tains everywhere in this vicinity | Nachvak Inlet] give evidence of long-continued atmospheric decay. The an- nual precipitation at the present time is not great, other- wise small glaciers would probably form among these. mountains, which lie between latitudes 58° and 60°, and which overlook a sea bearing field-ice for half the year, and from which bergs are never absent. Patches of snow, however, remain throughout the summer in shaded parts of the slopes and on the highest summits, which range from 4,000 to 6,000 feet above the ocean.” *. Raised beaches were observed on both sides of Nachvak Inlet. South of the region visited by Professor Bell are the two mountains of Kaumajet and Kiglapeit, both of which are put at an elevation of 4,000 feet on Rev. L. T. Reichel’s map. Of these the former constitutes a penin- sula, off which lies the island of which Cape Mugford is the eastern promontory ; while Kiglapeit forms the great headland lying between Nain and Okkak in latitude about 57°, and of which Port Manvers is one of the in- dentations. *Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Canada, New Ser., vol. i., 1885, p. 8 DD, 1886. & fe) THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. From these facts it will be seen that along this part of the northern coast, mountains as high as the Adirondacks, and even the White Mountains of New Hampshire, plunge directly into the sea, and are as wild and sublime as the coast mountains of Norway and Greenland. Drainage and Rivers.—Of the water-sheds and water- systems of Labrador our knowledge is mostly conjecture, ~ on account of the lack of information regarding the in- terior. In none of the charts and maps are the rivers and internal lakes accurately represented, and there is the widest discrepancy between the different maps. The Labrador plateau has an area of about 420,000 square miles. It has a coast-line of about 1,100 miles, stretching from the Strait of Belle Isle to Cape Wolsten- holme, and its greatest breadth is said to be 600 miles. It lies between the 4oth and 63d parallels of latitude, and the 55th and 79th meridians. Bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the north and west by Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay, its southwestern limits are defined by the Bersiamits, Mistassini, and Rupert rivers. The broadest and in general highest portion of the plateau appears to be in the southern portion of the peninsula, and it is here that the larger rivers appear to take their rise. | From the northern shores of the Gulf of St. Law- rence and Strait of Belle Isle the Labrador plateau rises until it reaches a vast table-land or water-shed in the in- terior, the edge of which has been reached by Professor Hind in his explorations of the Moisie River. This elevated region is thought by Professor Hind to attain a height of 2,240 feet above the sea-level, Pro- fessor Hind says of the table-land from which the river THE LABRADOR TABLE-LAND. If Moisie, and also, probably, the Esquimaux as well as Hamilton rivers take their rise: “It is pre-eminently sterile, and where the country is not burned, caribou moss covers the rocks, with stunted spruce, birch, and ' aspen in the hollows and deep ravines. The whole of the table-land is strewed with an infinite number of boul- ders, sometimes three and four deep; these singular erratics are perched on the summit of every mountain and hill, often on. the edges of cliffs; and they vary in size from one foot to twenty in diameter. Language fails to depict the awful desolation of the table-land of the Labrador peninsula.” This table-land or water-shed is probably more or less parallel to the Strait of Belle Isle, and situated between 100 and 150 miles inland. It probably terminates to the northeast in the Mealy Mountains. Numerous rivers descend the steep south- €rn slope into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Of these the Moisie and Esquimaux rivers are the largest. They are Supposed to arise from a chain of lakes on the summit of the water-shed, which also gives rise to the Kenamou River. The Moisie River forms part of the St. Lawrence River | system. It is 250 miles long, and flows south, empty- ing into that river near the Bay of Seven Islands, at a point west of Anticosti and Opposite the northern shore ‘of the Gaspé Peninsula. From this point the streams running into the Gulf assume, the further we go east, a N. W. and S. E. direction. Such is that of the Meshi- kumau or Esquimaux River, which empties into the western mouth of the Strait of Belle Isle, at the lower Caribou Island. This stream is about 250 miles long, as J Jearned from residents, and is only navigable for about 12 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. twelve miles from its mouth by ordinary fishing-boats. There is no large river between this and Hamilton River, which flows into the Atlantic in a direction a little north of east. The latter river seems to flow in a fissure that runs at right angles to the line of upheaval in the syenite and traps of the Atlantic coast ; as upon the Gulf coast the _rivers flow from the northwest along natural fissures in the earth’s crust that run at right angles to the axis of elevation of the Laurentian chain on the north side of the St. Lawrence. In this connection it should be no- ticed that the fiords on the Atlantic coast of Labrador assume the same direction, and though they agree much in this respect with the direction of those farther south, there is a yet greater west and east course as we go north- ward toward Cape Chidley, until beyond latitude 58° the fiords run ina N. W. and S. E. direction, especially on the Hudson Bay slope. According to Davies, the Grand cr Hamilton River is supposed to rise from a chain of lakes in the “rear of the Seven Islands, and flows for a considerable distance on the top of the ridge, if I may so express it, between the head-waters of the _rivers falling into the St. Lawrence and those falling into the Hudson Bay and Strait, for they are said by the Indians to be quite close to the waters of the Grand River on either side.” Our author also states that, “two hundred miles from its mouth it forces itself through a range of mountains that seems to border the table-land of the interior, in a succession of tremendous falls and rapids for nearly twenty miles. Above these falls the river flows with a very smooth and even current.” McLean in 1830 descended the river from the now aban- doned Fort Nasquapee, situated on Lake Petchikapou, THE RIVERS OF LABRADOR. 13 to its mouth. He had reached the fort from Ungava Bay. Two other important rivers empty into Invuk- toke Bay: the Kenamou, which flows in from the south, and the Nasquapee or Northwest River, which is a larger stream with a very circuitous southeasterly course. Professor Hind gives us the fullest information as to the rivers of this region, and I should regard his map as, ~ in this respect, the most authentic one yet published. The situations of the rivers and lakes as given in our map are copied from his, with the exception of those on the Atlantic coast mapped by Messrs. Reichel and Weiz. Hind, however, strangely ignores the Esqui- maux River, which empties into the Strait of Belle Isle.* According to Hind, whose work appeared in 1863, and who obtained his information from employés of the Hudson Bay Company: ‘‘ The couriers of the Hudson Bay Company traverse the country between Musquano (or Natashquan) and Hamilton Inlet two or three times every year. The journey can be made in fifteen days in canoes, and this route has long been a means of com- munication between Hamilton Inlet and the Gulf. The St. Augustine forms the great canoe route of the Mon- tagnais through this part of the country. . . . The * “¢The Kenamou River, which enters Hamilton Inlet from the south, cuts through the Mealy Mountains thirty miles from the coast; it is a succession of rapids, and scarcely admits of navigation, even by canoes. The Nasquapee or Northwest River falls into the inlet on the north side, nearly opposite. the mouth of the Kenamou. The inlet is here twelve miles across. About ;two miles from its outlet the Nasquapee River passes through a long narrow lake bordered by high mountains. It takes its source in Lake Meshikumau (Great Lake), and the river itself, according to Indian custom, is called by the Nas- quapees Meshikumau Shipu. There is a canoe communication between this river and the Ashwanipi, which is shown on two maps, constructed by Montag- nais Indians, in my possession.” —Hind’s ‘‘ Labrador,” ii., 138. 14 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. St. Augustine, falling into a fine bay of the same name, has its source in the lakes and marshes on the table- land, which also give rise to the Kenamou, which falls into Hamilton Inlet. By this route the Montagnais can journey in their canoes from the Gulf of St. Law- rence to Hamilton Inlet in seven days.” The country north of Hamilton Inlet is thus described by one of the Hudson Bay Company’s officers (presum- ably Mr. McLean) who was sent to explore it: ‘“ From Northwest River House the Nasquapee River is as- cended for about sixty-five miles, when it is left at Mont a Reine Portage. The country from Mont a Reine — Portage to Little Seal Lake is as barren and as miser- able as can be seen anywhere; the trees are all burnt, and nothing but stones and dry stumps to be seen. On the ist of July, 18309, the ice was still firm on Meshiku- mau or Great Lake. There is no wood to build on the shores of that extensive sheet of water; it is only at Gull Nest Lake that wood remains in that direction. The borders of Nasquapee River,-when the expedition ascended it in June, were still lined with ice, some of it ten feet thick.” (Hind.) South of Hamilton Inlet, after passing the first range of mountains on leaving the bay, an elevated plateau is gained, says Hind, which continues until the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence are apprdached, when the country becomes more mountainous and slopes rapidly to the seaside. The breadth of the plateau is 100 miles, and it abounds in lakes. i The Atlantic system of streams to the north is one ' of small rivers flowing into the ocean in an easterly course. THE RIVERS OF NORTHERN LABRADOR. 15 Ungava Bay receives two important rivers which im- perfectly drain the northwestern slope of Western Labrador. The smaller of the two is the Kangutlua- luksoak or George River, which empties into the bay in lat. 38° 57’, and is 140 miles long. Its water-shed is said by Kohlmeister and Knoch to be a chain of high mountains which terminates in the lofty peaks of syenite at Aulezavik Island and Cape Chidley. The two Moravian missionaries mentioned above state in addition that “this chain’ of mountains may be seen from the Kangutlualuksoak River, in Ungava Bay, which is collateral proof that the neck of land termin- ated to the north by Cape Chidley is of no great width. Boththe Nain and Okak Esquimaux frequently penetrate far enough inland to find the rivers taking a westerly course, consequently towar ds the Ungava coun- try. They even now and then have reached the woods skirting the estuaries of George and South rivers.” These missionaries describe the Koksoak or South River as flowing smoothly through a low, rocky (prob- ably Silurian) district, and emptying into Ungava Bav in lat. 58° 36’. It is said to resemble at its mouth the Thames, and affords anchorage for vessels twenty-four miles from its mouth. This stream probably arises near the source of the Grand or Hamilton River, and flows in a N. N. W. direction, probably along a natural fissure formed by the juncture of the Silurian rocks and Lau- rentian fo . * This river is data to tiie its Source in jae Csniapaseaw, which i is 70 oithiles long and 20 broad, situated in the centre of the peninsula, equidistant from the St. Lawrence, from Ungava and. Hamilton Inlet, being 350 miles from each of those points. “It is rapid and turbulent, flowing through a partially wooded country. At 16 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. At the western political boundary-line between Labra- dor and Prince Rupert’s Land, according to recent maps, we find apparently another water-shed, which on the eastern slope sends a few streams into the Koksoak River, while on its western slope descend several streams which flow in a westerly course into Hudson and James's bays. Thus. it will be seen that thése four river systems take their rise from a great water-shed which curves in a southwesterly direction from Labrador along the north- ern shores of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. ee Lakes.—The following remarks are taken from our memoir on the ‘‘Glacial Phenomena of Labrador and Maine.” * Labrador is essentially a dae district. Its numerous rivers afford a very imperfect system of drainage to a country densely covered with lakes, ponds, and pools, and morasses innumerable. It resembles in this respect the probable aspect of the Lake or Terrace period in New England and Canada after the Glacial period, when ‘ South River House (now abandoned) it receives the Washquah River, which forms the route of communication between Ungava Bay and Hamilton Inlet. From this point to the sea (150 miles) the current, though strong, is less broken by rapids: it also widens very much, and ninety miles from its mouth it is a mile in breadth, flowing between high rocky banks, thinly clothed with trees ; it is nearly a league in width. Fort Chimo is situated twenty-eight miles from the sea.”’ George’s River was ascended by officers of the Hudson Bay Com- pany to establish relations with the Nascopé Indians, near its source. For 220 miles it was, though full of rapids, deep enough for barges. ‘‘ The general course of the river is north, running parallel to. the coast of Labrador, where it is at no time more than 100 miles distant, and often much nearer,” (Hind.) We may expect a full description of the region about Fort Chimo when Mr, L. M. Turner’s report is issued, as he spent two years at this station. * Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, i., 210-303, 1866. LABRADOR LAKES. 17 the present broad rivers’ were only chains of lakes, and may thus be said to be in an embryonic stage, as its river-beds have never been remodelled and scooped out into gentle declivities and broad valleys, nor immense depths of sand and clay deposited to smooth over the inequalities of the rocky surface of the country, such as in the temperate zone render a continent inhabitable throughout its breadth ; while in Labrador man can only inhabit the coast, and gain a livelihood from the sea. We must distinguish two classes in the lakes of Labra- dor, viz.: the deep mountain ¢arzs, lying in the interior, directly upon the summits of the water-sheds ; and the far more numerous broad, shallow lakes and pools spread profusely over the surface below the height of land. ‘These last occupy shallow depressions and_ hollows, most probably excavated by glaciers in valleys which have been simply remodelled by glacial action. The deep tarns, on the contrary, evidently fill original depressions, sinking between lofty ranges of hills. Davies says that in the region about the source of the Hamilton River the lakes are very deep, and lie directly on the height of _ land, while the ponds on the lowlands are shallow ; and, on the other. hand, those which directly communicate with the ocean or with the fords are in general distin- guished for their depth. ‘‘ This almost universal shal- _lowness of the lakes isa singular feature, when the nature of their borders is taken into consideration, as they are generally surrounded by hills, which would lead one to look for a corresponding depth in the lake; but instead of this some. are so shallow that for miles there is hardly water enough to float a half-loaded canoe. I am in- formed by my friend, John McLean, Esq., that this is 18 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. likewise the case with the lakes lying on the water-shed of Ungava Bay. The lakes lying oz the table-land are said to be deep.” He also states that the large lakes in the interior are well stocked with fish, while the shallow lakes, and, in fact, the deep ones communicating with the ocean, are in general very destitute of them. We must believe that the same causes that produce the deep fiords likewise account for these deep fissures and depressions in the summit of the water-sheds. It is evident that any amount of glacial action, however long sustained and vast in its operation, can never account for these rude, irregular, often ‘ geoclinal,” troughs which follow lines of fracture and faults, lying along the axis of elevation of mountain chains, or at neariy nght angles to them. Frords.—The fiords onthe Labrador coast are of great extent and depth. They are either original lines of frac- _ ture.and faults, or what Professor Dana terms geoclenal troughs, occurring at the line. of juncture of two rock formations. Thus, Chateau Bay is a fissure at least 1,200 feet in depth. The western shore rises 600 feet above the sea-level, and the waters of the bay at their deepest are 600 feet in depth. This fault must have — been produced at the time of the upheaval of the syenites of the coast. All the broad, deep bays and fiords on the Atlantic Ocean occur at the juncture of the syenites and gneiss. There are deep bays between Cape St. Lewis and Cape St. Michael’s, where syenites rise through the gneiss, producing faults and lines of dislocation. The large bay just north of Cape St. Michael’s occurs at the junc- tion of gneiss and “hyperite” rocks. Sandwich Bay GLACIAL LAKES. Ke) and Hamilton [nlet were formed by the denudation of the Domino gneiss. Despair Harbor is a deep fiord oc- curring at the juncture of the *‘ Aulezavik gneiss” of Lieber, with syenitic rocks forming the coast-line between this point and Hopedale. The irregular overflows of tap and syenitic rocks which enclose the gneiss rocks, produce an immense number of cross fiords and channels, from the presence of innumerable islands which line the coast, and are composed of these eruptive rocks. These original fissures and depressions have been modified by glaciers, by frost and shore-ice and icebergs, and by the waves of the sea. The shallow lakes, formed most probably by glaciers, lie in shallow troughs, upon a thin bed of gravel and boulders. We only learn in some regions, especially in Southern Labrador, that the country has been covered with boulders by their presence on the banks and in the centre of these pools. Clear examples of lakes partially surrounded by walls of rock, with the banks at one end completed by a barrier of sand and gravel, are frequent. Such barriers of drift have lost entirely their resemblance _ to glacial moraines, to which they undoubtedly owe their origin, since the drift deposits have been remodelled into sea beaches composed of very coarse gravel and boulders, while the finer materials have been swept away by the powerful “ Labrador current,” with its burden of icebergs and floe-ice that has so effectually removed traces of the former presence of what we must believe to have been extensive glaciers. | From all that has been published, it would seem that the entire interior of the Labrador peninsula is strewn with boulders, having once been covered with land-ice, 20 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF LABRADOR. which flowed into the Atlantic on the east and south, and Hudson Bay on the west and north. The forest growths sometimes clothe the lower hills, but in general are confined to the protected river-valleys and lake basins. : Itis to be hoped that at no distant day some skilled explorer, with a sufficient knowledge of geology, may thread the interior of the peninsula from Ungava to Hamilton Inlet, passing thence by the Esquimaux River to the Strait of Belle Isle. The region from the head- waters of the Hamilton River to Hudson Bay should also be traversed, and when this is done we shall be pro- vided with a knowledge of this vast, shadowy, gloomy, forbidding region, of which we now apparently know less than of the interior of Alaska, the tundras of Siberia, or the plateaus of Central Africa. CHARTER IT. ; WHO FIRST SAW THE LABRADOR COAST ? THOSE rovers of the northern seas, the Norsemen, pushing out from the fiords of Greenland in their one- masted craft, no larger than our coasters or mackerel boats, without doubt sighted and coasted along ‘the Labrador,” nearly five centuries before John Cabot made his first landfall of the American Continent. The Labrador coast was not, however, the first Ameri- can land visited by the Norsemen.* Kohl states that New England was first’ discovered by Biarne, in 990. It appears that Heriulf, one of the earliest colonists of Greenland, had a son, Biarne, “who, at the time his father went over from Iceland to Green- land, had been absent on a trading voyage in Norway. Returning to Iceland in ggo, and finding that his father, with Eric the Red, had gone to the west, he resolved to follow him and to spend the next winter with him in Greenland. ; oe ‘They boldly set sail to the southwest, but having * We should acknowledge that, not having access to the primitive sources in which the voyages of the Norsemen to the American shores are. described, we have placed our dependence on the account given by a learned German geogra- pher, J. G. Kohl, in his History of the Discovery of Maine, as the most authori- tative exposition of early voyages and discoveries in northwestern America. Kohl’s views are based on Rafn’s Antiquitates American. (Documentary History of the State of Maine. Collections of the Maine Historical Society. Second Series, Vol. 1. 1869). 21 Die, WHO FIRST SAW THE LABRADOR COAST? encountered northerly storms, after many days’ sail they lost their course, and when the weather cleared, they de- scried land, not, however, like that described to them as ‘Greenland.’ They saw that it was a much more south- ern land, and covered with forests. It not being the intention of Biarne to explore new countries, but only to find the residence of his father in Greenland, he im- proved a southwest wind, and turned to the northeast, © and put himself on the track for Greenland. After sev- eral days’ sailing, during which he discovered and sailed by other well-wooded lands lying on his left, some high and mountainous and bordered by icebergs, he reached Heriulfsniis, the residence of his father, in Greenland. His return passage occupied nine days, and he speaks of three distinct tracts of land, along which he coasted, one of which he supposed to have been a Jarge island.” So much for the facts taken from the Norse records and sagas. Dr. Kohl then goes on to say: ‘‘ That Biarne, on this voyage, must have seen some part of the Ameri- can east coast is clear from his having been driven that way from Iceland by northerly gales. We cannot de- termine with any certainty what part of our coast he sighted, and what was the southern extent of his cruise. But taking into consideration all circumstances and state- ments of the report, it appears probable that it was part of the coast of New England, and perhaps Cape Cod, which stands far out to the east. One day and night's sailing with a favorable wind, was, in Iceland and Nor- way, reckoned to be about the distance of thirty German miles. Two days and ‘nights,’ therefore, would be sixty German miles, and this is about the distance from Cape Cod in New England to Cape Sable in Nova Scotia.” BIARNE’S LANDFALL. 23 Vhat the-Jand first seen by Biarne was necessarily so far south as Cape Cod does not, we would venture to submit, follow from the facts we have quoted. Is it not more probable that the country was some portion of Nova Scotia, a land as much “‘ covered with forests” as New England? But Dr. Kohl] maintains that the second Jand which was ‘“ well-woodea”. was Nova Scotia. In his own words : “The second country seen by Biarne must, then, probably have been Nova Scotia. The distance from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland is about three days’ sail ; and from Newfoundland to the southern part of Green- land, a Northman navigator, with fresh breezes, might easily sail in four days, and thus Newfoundland was probably the third country discovered by Biarne.” We should not have the hardihood to criticise Dr. Kohl’s statements and conclusions, if we had not made two voyages to Labrador, in which we sailed from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, skirted that coast, approached within a mile of Cape Ray, Newfoundland, and spent a summer on the northern shores of Belle Isle, opposite Newfoundland ; and a second summer in coasting Lab- rador as far north as Hopedale. Hence the general appearances of the Nova Scotian, Newfoundland, and Labrador coasts are, though in a slight degree, to be sure, known to us. The records state that the southernmost Jand seen by Biarne was ‘covered by forests ;’ this would apply to Nova Scotia as well as to the coast of Massachusetts. It is then said that without landing, improving a southwest wind and steering northeast, “he put himself on the 24. WIIO FIRST SAW THE LABRADOR COAST ? track for Greenland.” This would be the course from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, it is true, but such a course would also take him from the eastern end of Nova Scotia to Cape Race, Newfoundland, while from the present position of St. John’s the course to the site of the Green- land Norse settlements is a northerly one. As Kohl states, the distance from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland is about three days’ sail; but the wind would have to be strong and fair all the time, for the distance from Halifax to St. John’s, Newfoundland, is about 530 miles. A Viking’s ship was by no means a modern cutter either in her lines or rig. I have seen in the Sogne ford a vessel of forty or fifty tons, her hull clumsy and broad, with her single mast placed mid- ships and carrying a square sail; her stern rather high, and her prow rising five or six feet above the bows. A Norwegian friend observed to me at the time, ‘“‘ There,” said he, “hang the gunwale of that vessel with shields and fill her with armed men, and you would havea Vik- ing’s ship!’ We doubt whether Biarne’s craft could have made in “one day and night’s sailing with a favor- able wind,” more than. 138 statute miles, or thirty Ger- man miles. At sucha rate it would take from five to six days to go from Halifax to St. John’s, Newfound- land. The passage by a swift ocean steamer of the Allan Line requires from forty-two to forty-cight hours. Passing by Newfoundland, which is well-wooded, ex- cept on the more. exposed northeastern coast, Biarne, sailing by a land .“ said to be high and mountainous, and bordered by icebergs, reached Heriulfsnas.”. ‘This land could have been none other than the Labrador coast from the mouth of the Strait of Belle Isle northward. BIARNE’S RETURN VOYAGE. 25 If Biarne’s return passage occupied only nine days, he could not possibly have sailed from Cape Cod to Greenland in that time. A nine days’ trip from Boston to the Labrador coast at the mouth of the Strait of Belle Isle is a remarkably short one for an ordinary fishing- schooner. The distance from Boston to the Greenland coast a little north of Cape Farewell, where the southernmost Norse settlements were made, is about 2,300 miles. The southern coast of Labrador is about half-way. The exact sailing distance from Thomaston, Maine, to Caribou Island, ‘Strait of Belle Isle, Labrador, is 910 miles. The “‘ Nautilus,” the vessel in which I first sailed to Labrador, was a staunch schooner of 140 tons. She sailed from Thomaston, Maine, June 27, and passing around Cape Breton, reached Caribou Island in ten days* (July 7th): after leaving our party on the Labra- dor coast, she set sail for Greenland July oth, over nearly the same route as the Norsemen must have taken. From Captain Ranlett of the ‘‘ Nautilus,” I learn that he first sighted Jand on the coast of Greenland on the 17th, in lat. 62° 58’, and long. 52° 05’... The land next seen was about lat. 63° 10’, long. 50° 45’. This is about fifty miles south of Fiskernaes, and 25 miles north of Prederickshaab. The voyage to Greenland was thus -made in about nine days, as the vessel did not reach land before the 18th. The return voyage from God- thaab to Bonne Esperance, Labrador (three miles west from Caribou Island), was made in twelve days. The * Rev. C. C. Carpenter writes me that he sailed in a fishing-smack from Cari- ou Island Oct. 3d, and made the shores of Maine on-the 13th. 26 WHO FIRST SAW THE LABRADOR COAST? ‘Nautilus’ left Godthaab Aug. 13th, and entered the Strait of Belle Isle Aug. 24th, anchoring at Bonne Esperance Aug. 25th. Then sailing from Bonne Espe- rance Aug. 26th, owing to calms and a storm she did not reach Thomaston until September 11th, a period of about fifteen days. It thus appears that the voyage. from the mouth of the Penobscot River, Maine, to southern Greenland, through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a shorter route than that of the Northmen east of Newfoundland, took nineteen days, not including the detention on the Labrador coast, while the return voyage from southern Greenland to Maine required 27 days. ' In 1864 my second trip to the Labrador coast was made in a Wellfleet oysterman, a schooner of about 140 tons, built for speed, with long spars and large sails.. She was probably the fastest vessel which ever visited the Labrador coast. The voyage from . Boston to Mecatina Island on the Labrador coast, through the Gut of Canso, was made in seven days; it was. probably the quickest voyage from Massachusetts to Labrador ever made. We ran from Provincetown to Port Mul- grave in the Gut of Canso in just forty-eight hours. The return trip from Caribou Island to Boston, a dis- tance of about nine hundred miles, was made in nine days. The average was therefore just a hundred miles a day. How could a Norseman’s clumsy craft of forty or fifty tons, with but a mainsail and a jib, outdo such - sailing as that ? The Norse record says that Biarne’s ‘‘ return passage occupied nine days,” and Kohl adds that ‘“ from New- | foundland to the southern part of Greenland a North- man navigator, with fresh breezes, might easily sail im . HELLULAND THE MODERN LABRADOR. ZY four days. But we have seen that with fresh breezes a modern schooner, at least three times as large as a Viking’s ship, required eight or nine days to run from a point but a few miles from northern Newfoundland, z.2., Belle Isle, to southern Greenland. The distance from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to the Norsemen’s colonies in southern. Greenland is not less than 1,500 miles. To perform a voyage of this length in four days would be an impossibility fora modern yacht. It is not impossible, however, that Biarne sailed from southern Newfound- land to Greenland in a period of about nine days. Buta voyage from Cape Cod to Greenland by an ordinary schooner requires at least three weeks, or from twenty to thirty days at the most. Instead then of accepting Kohl’s summary of Biarne’s voyage stated on p. 63 of his work, we should be m- clined to believe, as the results of the expedition, that Biarne was the first European to sight the coast of Newfoundland, possibly the eastern extremity of Nova Scotia, while he also saw the mountainous, desolate, tree- less, rocky coast of Labrador. The next Norse adventurer, Leif, the son of Erik, not only sighted the Labrador coast but landed on it. To this country he gave the name of stony land, or « Helluland,” a name perpetuated in an Iceland map of 1570 by Sigurd Stephanius. The records tell us that Leif, the son of Bk the Red, the first settler in Greenland, having bought Biarne’s ship in the year 1000, manned her with a crew of thirty-five men, among whom was Biarne himself, and followed Biarne’s track towards the southwest. Kohl then says: ‘‘ They came first to that land which Biarne 28 WHO. FIRST SAW THE LABRADOR COAST ? . had last seen, which, as | have said, was probably our Newfoundland. Here they cast anchor and went on shore, for their voyage was not the search of a son after his father, but a decided exploring expedition. They ‘found the country as Biarne had described it, full of ice mountains, desolate, and its shores covered with large fat stones. Leif, therefore, called it ‘Flelluland’ (the stony land).” Here again we should differ from Kohl as to Leif’s first landfall. A southwest course would naturally carry him to the Labrador coast, while the description— ‘full of ice mountains, desolate, and its shores covered with large flat stones’—well describes the barren, rock-bound, treeless coast of Labrador, in distinction from the much lower, wooded coast of Newfoundland. Moreover, St. John’s, Newfoundland, lies nearly due south of the southern extremity of Greenland. While it is to be doubted whether Biarne ever went south of Newfoundland, we see no reason for dis- believing the conclusions of Rafn and Kohl, that the followers of Biarne, Thorwald and Thorfinn Karlsefne, became familiar with Cape Cod and wintered at Vin- land. There is no reasonable doubt but that they landed on Nova Scotia; there is no reason to disbelieve the records which state that they wintered farther west where no snow fell, so that the cattle found their food in the open fields, and wild grapes were abundant, as they certainly are in Rhode Island and southern Massa- chusetts, as compared with Maine or Nova Scotia. Without reasonable doubt, then, Helluland of the Norse and Icelandic records is Labrador, though it is not impossible that the bare and rocky coast of north- HELLULAND THE MODERN LABRADOR. 290 eastern Newfoundland was by some regarded as Hellu- land. It would be easy for a vessel in those days to pass by without seeing the opening into the Strait of Belle Isle, and, owing to the somewhat similar scenic features of the two lands, to confound the northeastern. extremity of Newfoundland with Labrador. That, as some have claimed, the Norsemen ever sailed through the Strait of Belle Isle, coasted along Southern Labrador and wintered at the mouth of the river St. Lawrence, is certainly not supported by the early Norse records as interpreted by Kohl. Their vessels sailed to the seaward of Newfoundland. That they did not feel drawn to sojourn in Helluland is no wonder. Its coast presented no more attractions than Greenland, while the grapes, food, and furs, with the verdure and mild winter climate of “ Vinland the Good,” led to one expedition after another, as late per- haps as 1347, when, according to the Icelandic annals, ‘“‘a vessel, having a crew Of seventeen men, sailed from Iceland to Markland.” Then came the decadence of Norse energy and _ sea- manship, succeeded by the failure of the Greenland col- onies, which were overpowered and extinguished by the Eskimo. At doubt visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the southern coast of Labrador. Their discoveries were perhaps recorded in Gastaldi’s map. Labrador first became clearly differentiated from Newfoundland by Jacques Cartier. To him we owe Inte SY aa 3 es is ————I ———4 6 -— —“—— —[——= re oe pa ae ANCIA. — pRo Ayer ered hy Per (Sal aw New France by the Jtalian Jacomo di Gaftaldi in about the year 1550 the discovery of the Strait of Belle Isle; of Belle Isle, the Isola De’ Demoni of earlier voyages; of Chateau Bay and other poits on the Gulf coast of Labrador. Sailing from St. Malo the 20th of April, 1534, he arrived May roth on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, ‘near Cape Buonavista. From this cape Cartier pushed northward until he came to what is now called Foge Island, which was one of the resorts of the great auk, or 42 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. “penguin” of the early explorers. But we will let Cartier describe the scene which met his eyes in his own words translated by Hakluyt from ‘‘ The first Relation of Iaques Carthier of S. Malo, of the new land called New France, newly discovered in the yere of our Lord 1534. ‘““Vpon the 21 of May the winde being in the West, we hoised saile, and sailed toward North and by East from the Cape of Buona Vista vntil we came to the Island of Birds, which was enuironed about with a banke of ice but broken and crackt : notwithstanding the sayd banke, our two boats went thither to take in some birds, whereof there is such plenty, that vnlesse a man did see them, he would thinke it an incredible thing: for albeit the Island (which containeth about a league in circuit) be so full of them, that they seeme to have bene brought thither, and sowed for the nonce, yet are there an hun- dred folde as many hovering about it as within ; some of the which are as big as iays, blacke and white, with beaks like vnto crowes: they lie alwayes vpon the sea = > they cannot flie very high, because their wings are so little, and no bigger than halfe ones hand, yet do they flie as swiftly as any birds of the aire leuell to the water ; they are also exceeding fat; we named them Aporath. In lesse then halfe an houre we filled two boats full of them, as if they had bene with stones: so that besides them which we did eat fresh, eury ship did powder and salt five or sixe barrels full of them. ‘« Besides these, there is another kinde of birds which houer in the aire, and ouer the sea, lesser then the others ; and these doe all gather themselves together in the Isl- and, and put themselves vnder the wings of other birds THE VOYAGES OF CARTIER. 43 that are greater: these are named Godetz. There are also of another sort but bigger, and white which bite even as dogs: those we named Margaulx. “ And albeit the sayd Island be 14 leagues from the maine land, notwithstanding beares come swimming thither to:eat of the sayd birds; and our men found one there as great as any cow, and as white as any swan, who in their presence leapt into the sea; and vpon Whitsun - mvnday (following our voyage toward the land) we met her by the way, swimming toward land as swiftly as we could saile. So soone as we saw her, we pursued her with our boats, and by maine strength tooke her, whose flesh was as good to be eaten as the flesh of a calfe of two weres:. olde.” Cartier then sailed north, entered the Strait of Belle Isle, anchoring at Blanc Sablon, still a settlement east of Bradore Bay. “White Sand [Blane Sablon] is a road in the which there is no place guarded from the south, or southeast. But towards south-southwest from the saide road there are two Ilands, one of the which is called Brest Island, _and the other the Iland of Birds, in which there is great store of Godetz, and crows with red beaks and red feete: they make their nests in holes vnder the ground euen as conies.” 3 ; The great French navigator harbored in the ancient port of Brest, near these Islands; the “Iland of Birds,” being the present Parroqueet Island, fifteen wee east- ward of the mouth of Esquimaux River. Our voyager then coasted along these forbidding shores to St. James River, where he first saw the natives; “they weare their haire tied on the top like a wreath of 44 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. hay; ... they paint themselves with certain Roan colors; their boates are made of the barke of birch trees, with the which they fish and take great store of seales, and as farre as we-could vnderstand since our comming thither, that is not their habitation, but they come from the maine land out of hotter countries, to catch the saide seals and other necessaries for their liuing.” These red men must have been the Mountaineer Indians, which still come down to the coast from the warmer interior each summer to fish for seal. Cartier makes no men- tion of the Eskimo, who would undoubtedly have been encountered if their roving bands had been living on the coast from Chateau Bay to the Scven Isles, which he so carefully explored. This coast appeared to Cartier so disagreeable, . un- productive, and barren, that he exclaimed, “It ought to be the country which God had given to Cain.” So he crossed the Strait of Belle Isle, sailed over to Newfound- land, coasted that Island to Cape Anguille, which he reached on the 24th of June. From there he sailed over to the Magdalen Islands, to the Bird rocks (Isles aux Margaulx), thence to Prince Edward’s Island, thence to Miramichi, afterward to Gaspé Bay, and coasted Antt- costi, crossing over again to near and within sight of the Mingan Islands. Not on this voyage discovering the river St. Lawrence, he finally turned homewards, coast- ing along the Labrador shore, touching at Cape Tien- not, now called Cape Montjoli. Thence he returned to France through the Strait of Belle Isle.. The next year Cartier returned, sailing again through the Strait of Belle Isle ; and, coasting along the southern shores of Labrador, discovered the river St. Lawrence. 696] AANgam AOPEIMIW 9 1° POM AM) (0 duyy oq) Woy LNIUY-quon foystoy jeg | | mites Ss ;| Ww f sy ; | S 1 + N29 jx: ; sin) 2 oa oe : bee Scie i! : : 4 Peed A : \ : 3 - So ee MEDULLA BF 2, Ss UOWON'S 3. S ‘ ! ul salad * | POON H A | . =a iy iG punjung {,) J 3 fa je - an Me a) & | : “3 — Gt@ fester | oh ah : ; a ae cof Sor i we % jm Ss 10K = we . ae sauend Eynaioh ap { SW Sumi a pares Se : { 3 4 sana uanfie A, Se Rae Nees a. { %3 | upnjqop Dy vas : / u sp uopaiy ye. M4rn/ 10 © soupy e > - uopaqng | oo ate he Ie St i Gopi A marayY) 2 dpapye gee 2 < = 5 vavlfg son a YOY of alee = BLA: 3 i ri 1 sop 5 3 2% = 3 4 =i ne wa 4 rae: 3 4 ae suondunsfa Wa eas > Dy png SV |.z . pees Higa ile fyueineg sg. = snus 3 -syepPueoNs . UveUn YS i ok TU ot rN ote era 3 Sa pS i } i Yh APH SSS = ee 5 | Lee eae 2.8 < WIONWH4 WNON ) Se eesoes ones Aye) iy ee Ay eee ayy f° 4d SRST HH ae | Reid gS So nth \ ‘ gues uae > "2 *Soupadal - onynbingy — tt oF nan] so EMP, reuangeg ) fe osuf ! ayjoh sang big ‘osbosg ujuouiap snp 3k, Sa oe nf 22 6 ms eM) anny a ¥ Le yess 0 DHT , ; S Gok S, | ounpsofng mys \ is oom H v ls | Sa Z pa : | SOY ge . f ¢ F; SI * | 3 3 ee Bey Frgee see, gn x oe f | afjoy OVI Y > ¥3 $. Pe ede Dy aay RS é , amy ofa vibe § THe Te Ses) Se = yan unf /, S S358 88 FE OES : 2 Seas a2 55 eS PP ss = aypuanbug njojatx2 sof gs S533 § SOF RTS ss 2 y Ape SC ete eater QS EN uzgpuoz iupsoubs wna “= 8 b Bowe AE j | aucaay ering ‘uinionbe. 5 ce a } . R af = Gee hes cai 8 g ee smijosD | stynIig ese. | gee 46 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. On his third voyage, Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, passing in between Newfoundland ‘and Cape Breton, thus for the first time demonstrating that New- foundland was an island and not a part of the continent. The next step in the geographical evolution of Lab- rador is seen in Mercator’s great map of 1569. Kohl tells us that for the compilation of this map Mercator had collected many printed and manuscript maps and charts, and many reports of voyages of discovery. ‘‘ But,” says Kohl, ‘‘the best portion of Mercator’s work, and a real and valuable improvement upon all former maps, is his delineation of the large peninsula of Labrador, lying southwest of Greenland. On all former maps, that re- gion was ill-shapen and most incorrectly drawn. But here, under the name of ‘Terra Corterealis,’ it receives its proper shape, with a full and just development, which had not been given to it on any map prior to 1569. He makes its eastern coast run southeast and northwest, as it really does from about 53° to 60° N. In the north he plainly shows the narrow entrance of Hudson’s Strait, and at the west of it a large gulf, called by him ‘ Golfam de Merosro.) This remarkable gulf may be an indica- tion of either Hudson’s Bay or only the Bay of Ungava. I think that the latter was meant; first, because the ‘Gulf of Merosro’ has the longitude of the mouth of the river St. Lawrence, which is also the longitude of the Bay of Ungava; second, because the said gulf is represented as closed in the west. The western coast of the Bay of Ungava runs high up to the.north, where Hudson’s Strait is often filled with ice. This may have Jed the unknown discoverers, the informants of Mercator, to suppose that it was closed in the west. If they had THE PORTUGUESE. VOYAGES. 47 looked round Cape Wolstenholm into Hudson's Bay, they woutd have perceived a broad bay and open water before them. . ‘‘ Mercator does not indicate, so far as I know, the sources from which he derived these remarkable improve- ments for his chart, which were not known by Homem in 1558, and of which there are only slight indications on the Cabot map of 1544. He adopts the Portuguese names for his ‘Terra Corterealis, namely, ‘Golfam de Merosro,’ ‘Y. dus Demonios,’ ‘Cabo Marco,’ ‘Ilha da Fortuna, ‘Baia dus Medaus,’ ‘Rio de Tormenta,’ “Vlhas de Caravillo, ‘Baia de Malvas,’ etc. Some of the names are not new, but had been long known, though not always put in the same position. We know of no official Portuguese exploring expedition made to these regions between the time of Homem (1558) and Merca- tor (1569); and therefore the suggestions of Dr. Asher, for the solution of this problem, have a high degree of probability. He says :* ‘The Portuguese fishermen continued their surveys of the northern coasts,’ com- menced by Gaspar Cortereal in 1500, ‘ most likely for no other purpose than to discover advantageous fisheries. They seem to have advanced slowly, step by step, first along the shores of Newfoundland, then up to the mouth of Hudson’s Strait, then through that strait, and at last into Hudson's Bay,’ or, as I think, into Ungava Bay. ‘With a certain number of ancient maps, ranging from 1529 to 1570, before us, we can trace this progress step by step. In i544, the time of Cabot’s map, ‘the Por- tuguese seem not yet to have reached the mouth of the Strait; and in 1570, or, as I think, 1569, the date of * See G. M. Asher's ‘‘ Henry Hudson,” * Introduction, p. xevi. , London, 1860. 48 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. our Mercator’s map,* ‘they have reached the bay,’ Hudson’s, or at least Ungava Bay. ‘We ¢an, there- fore, state with the greatest certainty that Hudson’s Bay,’ Hudson’s Strait as far as Ungava Bay, .. . ‘had been discovered before the publication of Ortelius’s at- las, which took place in 1570,’ or, better, before the pub- lication of Mercator’s chart, which took place in 1569. ‘But we are not equally certain that the discovery falls within the years 1558 to 1570, or, better, 1569, ‘because — we have only the negative evidence of Diego Homem’s chart to support the latter assertion. The fact itself is, however, probable enough.’ ” To the English navigators of the 16th and 17th cen- turies succeeding Cartier we owe the next step in our knowledge of the geography of the Labrador peninsula. In 1577 Master Martin Frobisher sighted the coast of Northern Labrador, which he called ‘ Frisland,” using a: word which frequently appears in the early charts. The point he first sighted was probably north of 58°, for after coasting four days along the coast for perhaps a distance of nearly two hundred miles, a voy- age of eight days, between the 8th and 16th of July, would carry him to Frobisher’s Strait. Moreover his description of the coast apphes well to the northern ex- tremity of Labrador beyond, Hopedale and Okkak. The narrative reads thus: “The 4. of luly we came within the making of Fris- land. From this shoare ro. or 12. leagues, we met great Islands of yce, of halfe a mile, some more, some * Dr. Asher does not mention Mercator’s map of 1569. He had before him the map of Ortelius of 3570, who was only a follower and copyist of Mercator, but adopted his views.’ THE PORTUGUESE VOYAGES. 49 lesse in compasse, shewing above the sea, 30. or 4o. fathoms, and as we supposed fast on ground, where with our lead we could scarce sound the bottom for depth. ‘‘Here in place of odoriferous and fragrant smels of sweete gums, and pleasant notes of musicall birdes, which other Countreys in more temperate Zones do yeeld, wee tasted the most boisterous Boreal blasts mixt with snow and haile, in the moneths of [une and Iuly, nothing inferior to our vntemperate winter ; a sudden alteration, and especially in a place of Parallele, where the Pole is not eleuate aboue 61. degrees ; at which height other Countreys more to the North, yea vnto 7o., degrees, shew themselues more temperate than this doth. All along this coast yce lieth, as a continuall bulwarke, and so defendeth the Country, that those that would land there, incur great danger. Our Generall 3. days together attempted with the ship boate to haue gone on shoare, which for that without great danger he could not accomplish, he deferred it vntil a more convenient time, All along the coast he very high mountains cou- ered with snow, except in such places,where through the -steepenes of the mountains of force it must needs fall. Foure days coasting along this land, we found no signe of habitation. Little birds, which we judged to have lost the shoare, by reason of thicke fogges which that Country is much subiect vnto, came flying into our ships, which causeth us. to suppose, that the Country is both more tollerable, and also habitable within, than the out- ward shoare maketh shew or signification. ‘“From hence we departed the eight of luly ; on the 16. of the same, we came with the making of land, which land our Generall the yeere before had named the ‘SHIUAAODSIG S,AAHSIAGOYA ONIMOHS advw HLAOS SHOT}. BROS SUN a RE a Sey obanf{ yop vL13 4 comeree, = peer Ee Oe a i= feunsads muon op odbo z é * Sand = = 2a = F: — aa = OAs, Seas § £ — LXE \= 2 P= ae =P ‘= =] e Ee ses ae one ys LOE = snuyg) @) 3 e, = RS J 5 = waonidos sm1douy Sos = —s = Sm Se << f= Br us N = = oe E e = 3 — = = = si a hyuse moe se =... CHa IEE” te i = = if nm & Sy Ww aa 3 = [id ye h : wnoifiaV, aly bar niki AA Mint ~ LSA ies e & af a qv oy So f : — c $3) vpUuay 3290 snu091() eS hs } , uh te 2 = tae a —} Jats = Mane 2 oh rane eee - snc terete A Se es See sd 3 SUI1LY, Zoi 51 = = SR a = — = ec BA 2 x aa ei ad ees Se SS = = aay V6LL3 [> B pee ee = : — So ere = 50 FROBISHER’S VOYAGE. 51 Queenes foreland, being an Island as we iudge, lying neere the supposed continent with America; and on the other side, opposite to the same, one other Island called Halles Isle, after the. name of the Master of the ship, neere adiacent to the firm land, supposed Continent with fcia. er (Page..57;)" In Rundall+ we find it stated that ‘ Frobisher, now - left to himself, altered his course, and stood to the S.W.; and, seventeen days afterwards, other land, judged to be LABRADOR, was sighted in latitude 62° 2’ N.” (p.11). In this latitude, however, lies Meta Incognita. _ “The great cape seen [by John Davis] on the 31st was designated, it is stated, Warwicx’s ForeELAND; and the southern promontory, across the gulf, Cape CnHrp- LEY.{ On this Fox observes: ‘Davzs and he {| Wey- mouth, a later navigator] ad, / concezve, light Hudson into his Streights.. The modern authority before cited expresses a similar opinion; and there is no reason to doubt the fact. ‘From Cape Chidley a southerly course was taken to seek the two vessels that were expected to be at the fishing-ground ; and on the toth, in latitude 56° 4o’, they had a fresking gale at west-northwest. On the 12th, in about latitude 54° 32’, an island was fallen in with which was named Darcie’s Island. Here five deer were * «© The second voyage of Master Martin Frobisher, 1577, written by Master Dionise Settle. Hakluyt, vol. iii., New Edition, London, 1810.” + Narratives of Voyages towards the Northwest in search of a passage to Cathay and India, 1496-1631. By Thomas Rundall, Esq., London, Hakluyt Society, 1849, 8°, pp. 259. t “*‘ The worshippfull M. John Chidley, of Chidley, in the county of Deuon, esquire,’ was apparently chief promoter of an expedition whichsailed Anno 1589, for ‘the province of Araucoon thecoast of Chili, by the streight of Magellan. Of this expedition M. Chidley was also the General. Hakluyt, iv. 357.” 52 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. seen, and it was hoped some of them might be killed, but on a party landing, the whole herd, after being twice coursed about the island, ‘took the sea and swamme towards ilands distant from that three leagues,’ They swam faster than the boat could be pulled, and so escaped. It was represented that one of them ‘was as bigge as a good prety cowe, and very fat, their feet as big as oxe feet.’ ‘“The 13th, in seeking a harbour, the vessel struck on a rock and receiveda leak ; which, however, was mended the following day, in latitude 54°, ‘in a storm not very outragious at noone.’ On the 15th, in latitude 52° 40’, being disappointed in their expectations of finding the Elizabeth and Sunshine, or of finding any token of those vessels having been in the vicinity, and there being but little wood, with only half a hogshead of fresh water on board, it was determined to shape the course homeward for England. This was accordingly done, and they arrived on the 15th of September in Dart- mouth, ‘giving thanks to God’ for their safe arrival.” (Page 49.) But it is to Davis, after whom Davis Strait was named, that we owe the most exact knowledge of the Labrador coast, until modern times. The following extracts contain all that we can find regarding his ex- ploration of the Labrador coast. : Davis, in the V/oonshine, \eft Greenland in latitude ~ 66° 33’ Aug. rst, 1586. “She crossed the strait in nearly a due westerly direction. The 14th of August she was near Cape Walsingham, in latitude 66° 19’ on the American side. It was too late for anything more than a summarv search along the coast. The rest of WEYMOUTH’S VOYAGE. 53 - the month, and the first days of September, were spent in that search. Besides the already known openings, namely, Cumberland Strait, Frobisher’s Strait, and Hud- son’s Strait, two more openings were found, Davzs’s [net in 56°, and Jvuctoke Inlet in 54° 30’. Davis's men had to cross the Atlantic in his miserable craft, and he per- formed the voyage through the equinoctial gales in little more than three weeks. He reached England again in the beginning of October, 1586.” (Henry Hudson, cxyv.) Davis was followed by Weymouth in 1602. Accord- ing to Rundall : ; “From the 5th to the 14th of July, the navigator appears to have been ranging along the coast of Labra- dor, where, on the toth, variation 22° 10’ W., he saw many islands. On the 15th he was in latitude 55° 31’, variation 17° 15’ W.; and the day following saw ‘ a very pleasant low land, all islands,’ in latitude N. 55°, varia- tion 18° 12’ W. On the 17th he entered and sailed up an inlet for thirty leagues, in sanguine hope of having found the desired passage ; but he was doomed to dis- appointment. In this inlet, which has been identified with Sleeper’s Bay on Davis’s Inlet, Weymouth en- countered his last peril, and escaped in safety. The fly- boats were assailed by a furious storm, which terminated in a whirlwind of extreme violence, that rendered them, for a while, completely unmanageable ; and though very strongly built, they took in so much water, for want of spar decks, that they narrowly escaped being swamped. As soon as the weather cleared up, the course was shaped for England.” (Page 68.) The Labrador coast was next seen by Master John 54 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. NORTHERN DISCOVERIES or JOBN DAVIS 1585-6 -7, | Fy, f pe ta 60 Longitude West 55 from Greenwich 50 45 “aad FOP ie HOTU T SILLY ‘Eaw4 Weller ,PRGS- VOVAGE OF CAPTAIN KNIGHT. 55 Knight, who sailed April 18, 1606, from Gravesend in the Hopewell. “ After a most tedious and uninteresting passage, the vessel arrived off some broken land, in latitude 56° 25’ N.: much ice driving to the southward. The wind was fresh and the commander made fast to a piece of ice ; but falling calm, he endeavored to row in between the masses. This wasan unfortunate attempt. The weather became thick and foggy, and a furious storm arose on June 14: they were driven about in the ice. Lost sight of land till the roth, when it is described as being . seen again, rising like eight islands in latitude 56° 48’ N., variation 25° W. The vessel was then taken into a cove, and made fast by hawsers laid out on shore. On June 26th, Capt. Knight, his mate, and three hands set out, well armed, to explore a large island. They disappeared, having probably been killed by the natives. “On the night of the 29th, ‘they were attacked by savages, who set on them furiously with bows and arrows; and at one time succeeded in obtaining posses- sion of the shallop. However, the eight mariners, with a fierce dog, showed a resolute front, and the assailants, upward of fifty in number, were finally driven off. The savages are represented to have been ‘ very little people, tawnie colored, thin or no beards, and flat-nosed.’ They are also described as being ‘man-eaters;’ but for this imputation there appears to be no warrant, except in the imagination of the parties on whom the attack was made.” On the 4th of July, the vessel was in great danger of foundering, the craft leaking badly. ‘Shaping their course towards Newfoundland, with 56 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABRADOR. a strong current in their favour, they made Fogo on the 23d of July. At that place they were most hospitably entertained. Having refitted, they left on the 22d of August, full of grateful feelings towards their generous friends; and arrived at Dartmouth on the 24th of December.” (Pages 75, 76.) In 1610 Henry Hudson discovered the strait which bears his name, his discoveries being recorded in the accompanying map, copied from the volume on Henry Hudson published by the Hakluyt Society. In the narrative of the Voyage of Szr Thomas But- ton (1612-13) we find the following reference to Cape Chidley: “On this part of the voyage, the following remarks are reported, by Fox, to have been made by yurniaer uous pardon) 094410 o1ydwssorp ht S-1 pues Io “AA Jo sdoyy Mors poyiduroy ~ HOCTRATS NUAIILNOS avn noduy= MOT: on WOSTLIGH *f A FLOCK OF CURLEWS. gI a red-sandstone island. On this patch of rock, whose soft, crumbling surface they bore in all directions, mak- ing galleries about a foot from the surface, they have bred from time immemorial. However wild they are on the waves, here they suffer themselves to be pulled forth from their holes and summarily choked by ardent ornithologists without a squeak of resistance. Indeed, June and July, or the first of August, is no time to come to Labrador for birds: all the ducks are among the inland ponds, breeding. The sea-birds that breed here gather in one place sixty miles down the coast, on the Bird Islands, forming the Mecatina group. There are few to molest their nests, and they live in compara- tive quiet. Leta crew visita breeding-place in the middle of June, and they can very quickly load a boat with eggs. . It is said that vessels come up here from Boston every year, and load up with eggs to carry back to the States. About the middle of August that beautiful and grace- ful bird, the sea-swallow, or arctic tern, makes its appear- ance, flying about the sea-cliffs, hovering over the fisher- men’s boats, and keeping up an interminable screeching and twittering; they are the most garrulous of gulls. With them appear a few of the rarer gulls. Then the ring-necked and semipalmated plover, and flocks of sand- peeps and yellow-legs gather on the flats. But the cur- lews eclipse them all. We had had intimations of their arrival. Already had small squadrons been seen wheel- ing around the hill-tops, and now over the sea, and as they advanced or retreated, their “mild mixing cadence” now grew loud and near, and now waxed fainter and fainter. On the afternoon of the 1oth of August I heard the alarm of “Curlew!” and, sure enough, over Q2 ONE OF FIFTY DAYS IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR. across the neck, a mile away, was a flock of these birds, darkening nearly a square mile of the sky. There must have been many thousands in that flock, all piping and whistling like the jingling of ten thousand sleigh-bells, or the whistling of the wind through the ropes of a squadron of seventy-fours, while performing a series of evolutions of wonderful celerity and precision. The whole mass wheeled around the hills and over the plain, now stretching out over the bay, made up of smaller, troops, chasing each other around and through the whole moving mass in the greatest apparent confusion and dis- order. It was really a great sight, this marshalling of the curlew hosts. After this grand review of their forces they separate into small flocks, scatter over the country to feed on the curlew-berries now ripening, or to patrol the shore at low-water in search of stray worms and snails. The inhabitants kill large quantities of this deli- cious bird, and salt them down in barrels for winter use. They cannot conjecture where they come from, but say that the first northeast wind in late summer always brings them. But the sun is going down in the fog and mist driving in from the gulf. The wind has hauled to the east, and blows chilly and damp ; and so ended many of the thirty fair days of the fifty I spent in Southern Labrador. CHAPTER: VI. al[sUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. I. From Boston To HENLEY HARBOR. In the spring of 1864, Mr. William Bradford, the well- known marine artist of New York, organized a party to cruise along the coast of Labrador, and if. possible to reach Hudson’s Strait, for the purpose of painting ice- bergs and arctic scenery. After having previously spent a summer on the southern coast, with no opportunity of extended explorations, it seemed rare good fortune to make one of a party bound for the Moravian settle- ments, and possibly Cape Chidley. On the 4th of June, at 10.15 A.M., the fast schooner Benjamin S. Wright, Captain Brown, with two pilots, Capt. Ichabod Handy of Fair Haven, Mass., for the northern coast, and Capt. French for the southern shore, a Norwegian mate and two deck hands, with a cook and two cabin boys, carrying a party of fourteen gentlemen comprising lawyers, clergymen, naturalists, sportsmen, and pleasure-seekers, left the Philadelphia Packet Pier, Boston. Owing to an easterly wind a tug towed us down to the Narrows, where we spread our canvas, and beat down to Provincetown for the purpose of buying a -whaleboat, making harbor there at 9.30 in the evening. Spending Sunday at Provincetown, where we visited some friends in the coast-guard, several of whom after- wards distinguished themselves in the war of the Rebel- 93 94 A SUMMER'S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. lion, on the 6th, with a fresh northwest wind which so effectually ruffled the ocean that nearly every man set- tled his account there and then with the sea-god, our course was laid for Cape Sable, which we sighted at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon of the 7th. The following day we bowled along at the distance of twelve miles from the Nova Scotian coast, the wind blowing a fresh gale from the northwest, and about 2 A.M. of the 8th ran into Chedabucto Bay, anchoring four . miles from Port Mulgrave. Weighing anchor the next day and moving up to the town, a mean little fishing- hamlet, while the crew took in wood and water, each one, according to his taste, went either shopping or trouting in the rain, or geologizing. On the following day I walked towards Porcupine Point, a bold headland said to be 275 feet above the Gut of Canso. ~( The view over the Gulf of St. Lawrence is a very pleasant one. The Gut of Canso opens into the Gulf four miles from the Point. The drift material consists of a rich soil con- taining bits and masses of red sandstone, some of the fragments containing calamites and the impressions of delicate sea-weeds. The rocks zz sztw are a white con- glomerate dipping at an angle of 80° and with a N. and S. strike. The shores of the Gut of Canso are high and bold on the western side, but much lower on the Cape Breton shore. The contours of the hills on the Nova Scotian | coast are like those of a granite-gneiss region, the hills terminating in drift “scaurs.” On the Cape Breton side the houses are more numerous and the farms either more fertile or cultivated with greater care. At Port Mul- grave the inhabitants did not raise vegetables enough for IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE. 95 their own consumption; and not infrequently a farmer was seen ploughing with a single ox. Exchange was $1.95. The people were all ‘“sesesh.” Although for the disunion of the “ States,” nothing could separate them from the love of whiskey and gin, as in the course of the afternoon there was a miserable stabbing fray, witnessed by a good many of the inhabitants, though it should be said that there were thirty sail then in the port, from which part of the material for the affray was afforded. Our fishermen returned with a liberal supply of trout, and Mr. Bradford shipped a steward, who turned out to be an Indian soldier, and had assisted in blowing Sepoys from the cannon’s mouth. Whether he was morally and intellectually worse or better than a Sepoy was often a matter of discussion on the cruise. We were now ready to push out into the Gulf, and the latter was now ready for the reception of the Benz. S. Wright. Yor but a few days ago vessels had been jammed in the ice immediately north of Port Mulgrave, the ice having remained later in the Gulf and been more abundant the past spring than for years. We were told that it was possible for people to walk on the ice a hun- dred miles out from the Magdalen Islands. The next day found us off St. George’s Bay, the sport of light, baffling winds or of dead calms, but these ena- bled us to receive lasting impressions of the beautiful green slopes of the Cape Breton shores, with their ex- panse of green sward framing the square acres of ploughed land centred by red farm-houses. These were our last views of cultivated fields and well-trimmed glebes, until on our return we beheld the rich red farm-lands ot Prince Edward’s Island. | 96. A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. Sunday the 12th was a red-letter day, spent about the home of the gannet or solan-goose. At seven o'clock in the morning—and what a glorious one it was: the air soft and balmy, our good vessel’s bows gently rising and falling on the swell as if saluting in a measured, dignified way the appearance of the god of day—at this hour Entry Island, one of the Magdalens, was twelve — THE LARGEST OF THE BIRD ROCKS, AS SEEN IN 1864. (From a Photograph by Black.) miles off. It is a high mass of red sandstone with abrupt sides and surmounted by two knolls; near it were several small islands, and a high grayish rock deeply incised by narrow valleys plunging suddenly down to the sea. At noon we approached the Bird Rocks, a group of three islets, the largest 250 feet high and from a THE BIRD ROCKS. 07 quarter to half a mile in length, the longest diameter extending east and west. The top is nearly flat and slopes gently towards the south. It is formed, as seen from the south side through a good glass at a distance of half a mile, of red friable sandstone, with thin beds of grit, which near the water’s edge are several feet in thickness, while several loose fragments look like bowl- ders, though there are no true transported rocks on the island. The islets were nearly white on top, and I supposed this was due to the guano, but Mr. Bradford assured me that the white frosting, as it seemed to be, was the birds themselves; and sure enough, except a central patch of brown and green herbage, the western end was in part, and the eastern half of the island entirely, white with female gannets, resting on the rock above as well as on the larger shelves on the sides, while the small nooks and shelves of grit wére appropriated by myriads of murres. At the report of a gun swarms of birds would rise from the rock and flutter in the air like flies, and at a rough estimate 10,000 were there. To the leeward many gannets, males, were seated in the water or flying over it, in company with a few murres—but nearly all were as if in ceaseless motion, and busy fishing or re- turning with fish to the avian metropolis.* * In this connection it is interesting to read the description of the Bird Rock in Cartier’s first voyage. ‘“*Wee went southeast about 15 leagues, and came to three Ilands, two of which are as steepe and vpright as any wall, so that it was not possible to climbe them; and betweene them there is a little rocke. These Ilands were as full of birds, as any field or medow is of grasse, which there do make their nestes ; and in the greatest of them there was a great and infinite number of those that wee call Margaulx, that are white, and bigger than any geese, which were seuered in one part. In the other were onely Godetz, but toward the shoare 98 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. Mr. Bradford spent ‘a busy day in sketching the unique scene, and his photographer, Mr. Pierce, from Black’s studio in Boston, took four good photographs of the rocks and birds. These rocks are the remnants of what were once vastly more extended strata, and the question arose in my mind whether the red soil of Port Mulgrave and vicinity were not the débrzs which had been in part borne from the Magdalen Isles, and in part from Prince Edward’s Island. | Since 1864, when the photograph was taken by Mr. Bradford of which the accompanying sketch is a repro- duction, great changes have come over the famous gan- net rookery of Bird Rocks. Mr. W. Brewster, who, with Prof. Hyatt and others, visited these rocks in 1881, says in his account: ‘“‘In 1860 the number of gannets breeding on the ¢of of Great Bird (then uninhabited) was estimated by Bryant at about ‘ fifty thousand pairs,’ or one hundred thousand birds. In 1872 Maynard found this portion of the colony reduced to about five there were of those Godetz, and Apponatz. We put into our boats so many of them as we pleased, for in lesse than one houre we might have filled thirtie such boats of them: we named them the Ilands of Margaulx. About five leagues fro the said Jlands on the west, there is another Iland that is about two leagues in length, and so much in breadth: there did we stay all night to take in water and wood. That Iland is enuironed round about with sand and hath a very good road about it, three or foure fadome deep. Those Ilands have the best soile that euer we saw, for that one of their fields is more worth then all the New land. We found it all full of goodly trees, medowes, fields full of wild corne and peason bloomed, as thick, as ranke, and as faire as any can be seene in Britaine so that they seemed to have bene ploughed and sowed. There was also a great store of gooseberies, strawberies, damaske roses, parseley, with other very sweet and pleasant hearbes. About the said Iland are very great beastes as great as oxen, which have two great teeth in their mouths like vnto elephants teeth, and liue also in the sea. We saw one of them sleeping vpon the banke of the water; wee thinking to take it went to it with our boates, but so soone as he heard vs, he cast himselfe into the sea. We saw also beares and wolves ; we named it Brions Iland. (Hakluyt, iii. 254.) FIRST VIEW OF ‘‘ THE LABRADOR.” 99 thousand birds (a lighthouse had been erected on the | summit of the rock and several men were living there). When we landed in 1881 the top of the rock was prac- tically abandoned, although there were some fifty nests at the northern end, which had been robbed a few days before, and about which the birds still lingered.” Mr. Brewster says, however, that the common guil- lemot (Lomvza trozle) still breeds at Bird Rocks in amazing numbers, but that the number is rapidly de- creasing, owing to the introduction of a cannon which is. fired every half-hour during foggy weather. ‘At each discharge,” he says, “the frightened murres fly from the rocks in clouds, nearly every sitting bird taking its egg into the air between its thighs and dropping it after fly- ing a few yards. This was repeatedly observed during our visit, and more than once a perfect shower of eggs fell into the water around our boat.” At 6 oclock this evening we were 95 miles from Little Mecatina Island, and at 11 o’clock of the next day (the r3th), we sighted land lying under a mirage which looked like the land itself, while the snow-banks ashore were transformed into icebergs floating in the guase sea. This singular mirage lasted until evening. As the land gradually “hove” in sight the mirage re- ceded and thé.bergs became veritable banks of snow. Little Mecatina was passed at 6 in the evening; its longer diameter was north and south, and the southern end of the glaciated island showed finely the “stoss” side, the “struck” side gradually sloping towards the north. ‘The Labrador coast at this point becomes high and bold, presenting a continuous front to the Gulf, with an occasional “hump” rising perhaps 300 feet or more 100 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. above the general level of the land. The Island of Mecatina is 685 feet above the Gulf, Cape Mecatina being the highest land from Mingan to Bradore. We dropped anchor in Sleupe harbor in Gore Island, after the quickest voyage Capt. French had ever made. The run from Boston had been a fine one, with north- west winds throughout, and no fog. At sunset the thermometer was 42°, and it grew still cooler as we ran into our harbor, which was on the southern exposure, on which were numerous snow-banks in the deep gulches leading down to the water. The rocks were red syenite, like those of Mt. Desert, Me., with its characteristic hummocky outline and pre- cipitous walls fronting the sea. No bowlders were seen about the harbor, but the rocky shores were marked and polished by the ice for a few feet above the water's edge. The murres and saddle-back gulls were now just hatching, while the eider-ducks were beginning to lay their eggs. The curlew-berry was now in flower. In the garden of one of the settlers (Michael Canté), who were French Canadians, the rhubarb or pie plant was just above ground, the parsnips were six inches high, — and the grass about the houses was four inches in height, but as yet there was no verdure on the hills, the surface being still sere and rusty, the snow having so recently melted away. The season opens here the middle or last of May, when the snow mostly disappears. The ice left the bay the 20th of May, and about this date the black bear comes out of his winter quarters. It was too early for cod or salmon, and the capelin had not appeared. Our harbor was between two islands, and on one were two houses, and on the other five, one of them a well- THE EIDER-DUCK AND ITS NEST. IOI built, neat house. About them lounged several Esqui- maux dogs. We dredged in ten fathoms ona rocky bottom, not, however, bringing up any novelties, though the animals were all of purely arctic typés. June 14 was spent in egging and in collecting insects, Mr. Bradford secured the services of a Frenchman and his sail-boat, and with several others of the party landed on three islands situated four or five miles away. We found eight nests and twenty-five eggs cf the eider- duck, with those of the murre or guillemot and auk, besides three gull’s eggs, probably those of the saddle- back. We_-also found a nest of the red loon: it was situated on the edge of a small pond, The nest, partly submerged, was fourteen inches in diameter and in size and appearance like the gulls’ nests, though the latter were placed in dryer localities. The eider-ducks’ nests were abundant, as were those of the razor-billed auks, but those of the murres were even less common. The - eider-ducks ten years ago were extremely abundant, but the unremitting attacks upon their nests by “‘eggers” has resulted in the partial extinction of this valuable and interesting bird. All the eiders were busy in making their nests and in laying their eggs. The old or com- pleted nests contained a great mass of down, and were 12 to 15 inches in outside diameter, the downy mass in which the eggs sank being five or six inches high; the newer nests were without down; there were about five eggs to anest. Most of the nests which we saw were built on low land, near pools and not far from the sea- water, in a dense thicket of dwarf spruce trees, called “‘tucking-bush”’ or ‘‘tuckermel.” The murres and auks, as is well known, do not make nests, but drop their eggs \ ; ae : 102 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. under proj*cting rocks, or on overhanging shelves on high cliffs, or under blocks of granite. I found one murre’s egg which had been laid on the ice under a huge rock, and as I v;orked my way under the rock to get at the single egg, the stupid bird did not fly, but simply moved a few steps beyond my reach, making an odd guttural noise. It need scarcely be added that the vicin- ity of a murre’s or auk’s nest is filthy in the extreme. The egg-shell of these nestless birds is very thick, so that they may roll about or drop down without break- ing; how they came to be so much more conical or pointed at one end than usual is an interesting question.” We also saw a king eider flying with a small flock of eiders, as well as several “shags” and a northern phal- erope. : Insect-life was now stirring; the pools abounded in water boatmen (Corzxa), and whirligig beetles (Gyvz- nus), while a species of feathered gnat (Corethra) was just leaving the pupa, the cast skins of the latter floating on the surface of the pools. A lonely humble-bee was flying fussily about, a syrphus-fly was hovering over the flowers of the cloud-berry, and other insects were found under stones, amongst the moss, or in the water. The appearance of insect-life corresponded to that of south- * “« There was one bird in particular which we watched for some time, the proud possessor of a brilliant green, strongly marked egg—as usual, to all appearance quite out of proportion to her own size—which she arranged and rearranged under her, trying with beak and wing to tuck the sharp end between her legs, but never quite satisfied that it was covered as it should be. Azt for the wonderful provision for its safety in the shape of the guillemot’s egg (a round, flat-sided wedge, which makes it, when pushed, turn round on the point instead of rolling, as eggs of the usual form if placed on a bare rock would do), most of those we saw would probably have been dashed to pieces long before.” (T. Digby Pigott’s Birds of the Outer Faroes, 1888.) THE CORMORANT AND ITS NEST. 103 ern Maine at the end of April. The next day a white- faced wasp (Vespa maculata) flew aboard the vessel. The day was spent in searching for eider nests, of which I found a dozen in the ‘‘ tucking-bush,” with thirty eggs, and the rude nests and eggs of the saddle-back gull. June 16th was a beautiful day, rather warm, with light Pads from the east and south, or quite calm. In the ~ afternoon a shower passed over from the west, and at night the wind was northerly ; the southwest summer winds had not yet set in, the prevailing winds being northerly. We spent the day in a search for the eggs of the ‘“‘ waupigan ” or common cormorant, and those of the shag or double- crested cormorant; William, a very intelligent French Canadian, taking us to their nesting-place in his row-boat. The nests were situated on a high cliff, a sort of shelf. We let William down over the precipice with a rope. There were fifty-five nests in all, and over them. rose flocks of cormorants disturbed at our coming; they were very shy and flew rapidly far off, wheeling about in cir- cles, but not daring to come near the nesting-place. There were five eggs in a nest; the latter were about 20 inches in outside diameter, built of thick birch limbs, — whitened, as was the rocky shelf, with the excrement of the birds, and the entire neighborhood was pervaded with a far-reaching and intolerable stench of decaying fish. The eggs of the common cormorant are said to be laid earlier in the season than those of any other bird ; they are long, pointed, and of a dirty tea-color, some nearly white. The shags’ nests, mixed with those of the Waupigan, were situated in another place adjoining. They are usually laid on the bare rock, and William was surprised to find them on the precipice. The eggs are . 104. A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. smaller than those of the common cormorant, are whiter and more pointed, and are laid later than those of any other bird. On our return we went by invitation into William’s house ; his children were attractive in looks, with fine eyes. This family and a neighboring one were the two - leading French Canadian families on the coast. They - told us that it was harder to gain a livelihood than here- tofore, the game and fish getting scarcer. Still, one family winter before last shot 1100 partridges. William, by the way, told us that there were four varieties of part- ridge: the spruce partridge, and the white or ptarmigan, of which they distinguish the mountain ptarmigan and the river ptarmigan, the latter the rarest ; the fourth kind they call the pheasant. The partridges were said to be now laying their eggs. William raised last year twenty- five bushels of potatoes, also turnips, while barley, hav- ing three months to grow, ripens on this inhospitable coast. Sheep might be raised; there were: no cows, though to the westward they are kept the year through. We were told that a walrus was killed near St. Augus- tine within twenty-five years, and that two had been seen in this vicinity since then. ~It will be remembered that the walrus formerly abounded in the Gulf of St. Law- rence, having been rendered extinct by the early fisher- men on the Magdalen Islands. We saw an egging vessel at a distance. The “‘egg- ers” watch their chances to take great quantities of eggs of sea-birds, especially those of the eider-duck and murres. But there are now few who follow this illegal and nefarious occupation. Twenty years ago the busi- ness was at its height, and a schooner would load a cargo TRANSPARENCY OF THE WATER. 105 of 65 barrels of eggs and take them to the States or up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec or Montreal. Of late years they would give half of what they found to the settlers on the coast as hush-money. When collecting the eggs they would make ‘“‘caches” of them, covering the heaps with moss; and if they were on the point of -being caught they would smash the whole cargo of eggs rather than be seized with them. Many are the adven- tures which the eggers have passed through, and the stories told of them rival the tales of smugglers and pri- vateersmen on more favored shores. They still collect and wantonly destroy the eggs of murres. The eggs of the eider-ducks we found to make a good omelet, but those of the murres and gulls were too fishy to be palatable ; the food of the murres and puffin as well as gulls consisting largely of small fish, such as capelin and lance fish (A mmodytes). We saw male eiders two years old; they were brown with a little white; we were told that the eider is four years in arriving at maturity ; the guillemot only two years; the puffins and murres becoming adult in one year. The eider-duck is easily domesticated, and the young will follow a person to whom they are accustomed like a dog. As soon as our vessel came into shallow water,—and in our boat excursions we were constantly impressed by the transparency of the water on this coast—we could look down for thirty or forty feet and see with distinctness the bottom with dark masses of sea-urchins and _ starfish. The water is more transparent than on the Florida coast. Indeed the fishermen sometimes complain of this prop- erty of the water, saying that the fish can see the nets too readily and do not enter them. The water is so clear ° e 106 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. that the Ctenophores, /dyza roseola and Pleurobrachia, as well as anotner kind I could not secure, were beautifully distinct far down in the pellucid depths. Fishing had begun at this locality to-day, the cod having struck in. It is evident that the ice having disappeared for nearly a month the water inshore undoubtedly had grown warm enough to allow the cod and other fish to come into shoal- water and spawn. It was manifest that as the season opened later and later from south to north, the move- — ment inshore would be later and later from south to north, and this fact has undoubtedly given rise to the popular impression that the cod and other fish migrated from the southern to the northern portions of the coast of our continent. I anxiously questioned William as to the nature of the interior of Labrador. He told me that there were plains and terraces inland; that there were toads and frogs and ‘‘lizards,” which being interpreted undoubtedly means the salamander, most probably Plethodon elutenosus of Baird. He had been here twenty years before he saw a grasshopper, but this was not on the coast, but in the interior; and I know scarcely a better criterion of an arctic land-fauna than the entire absence of grasshoppers on the Labrador coast, since none occur in the circum- polar regions, either treeless Arctic America, Greenland or Spitzbergen ; but the interior wooded portion of the Labrador peninsula supports a truly boreal or “ Canadian” insect fauna, with grasshoppers. Among the insects found were the showy caterpillars of Arctza caja and a weevil. Of the more noticeable flowers, there were a pink Arenaria, and a leek-like plant which I have often seen on the summit of Mt. Washington. CARIBOU ISLAND. 107 The 17th we weighed anchor, and with light winds and some rain early in the morning, but a strong north- easterly head-wind in the forenoon, we made only twenty- five miles during the day. The coast along our course was of very even height, the monotonous outline being relieved by an occasional elevation. The rock was of syenite with its characteristic scenic features. It was of warm, reddish flesh tints, but full of chinks and cracks, made by the water percolating or running into them and freezing, resulting in the cracking and disruption of large rock masses. Then the continued action of the frost year after year widens the chinks into gulches, with even, precipitous sides, now filled with snow-banks ten or fifteen feet long, and sometimes a dozen or more rods in extent, their edges bordered with arctic flowers. The hills were barren on top, with moss and dwarf spruce in the cavities or ravines. Here and there were to be seen clumps of grass, but the herbage in a Labrador fore- ground is not grasses or sedges, but low shrubby woody plants such as the dwarf cranberry, the curlew-berry (Empetrum nigrum), etc., which form a dense uniform carpet of varied but dull green hues. On the afternoon of the 18th we dropped anchor near Caribou Island, and on landing found Mr. Carpenter, the missionary of these shores, who had befriended us in so many ways while camping on this island in the summer of 1860. He waswell and prospering in his good work. I lost no time in borrowing a spade and digging for quaternary fossils, and was rewarded with the discovery of several species not detected in 1860; among these were Serripes groenlandicus, Buccinum undatum, etc. On the evening before June 20, the longest day of the 16s A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. year, I could read fine print until half-past eleven at night. The next morning. I dredged in eight fathoms before weighing anchor, and was delighted to find several large specimens of a delicate bivalve shell (Paxdorzna arenosa); it was afterwards dredged up the coast at Long Island in fifteen fathoms in sand and stony bottom. It had not before been found south of the polar seas ; its discovery so far south was interesting from the fact that we had found it in a fossil state in sandy strata of clay at Brunswick, Me., and had also been found in the quaternary clays at Saco, Me., by Mr. C. B. Fuller. The association of this shell with Mucula expansa (antiqua) in the brick-yard clays gives positive proof that during the wane of the ice period the shore of Maine was the home of a truly polar assemblage of marine animals, and that then as now on this coast these shells were not con- fined to deep water, but lived in shallow retired bays in water not over fifty feet in depth. Throughout the day we were in sight of the butte-like Bradore Hills, the highest of the three mountains being 1264 feet above the level of the Gulf. As these moun- tains overlook the scene of Jacques Cartier’s explorations in the Straits of Belle Isle, we would suggest that the highest of the three elevations be named Mt. Cartier. On the shores of Bradore Bay are still to be seen, it is said, the ruins of the ancient port of Brest, which was founded by the Bretons and Normans about the year 1500. The ruins are situated about three miles west of the present boundary of Canada at Blanc Sablon. Samuel Roberton states in his Notes on the Coast of Labrador : ‘“ As to the truth of Louis Robert’s remarks there can be no doubt, as may be seen from the ruins and MOUNT CARTIER. 109 terraces of the buildings, which were chiefly constructed of wood. I estimate that at one time it contained 200 houses, besides stores, etc., and perhaps 1000 inhabitants in the winter, which would be trebled during the sum- mer. Brest was at the height of its prosperity about the year 1600, and about thirty years later the whole tribe THE BRADORE HILLS, THE HIGHEST PEAK MT, CARTIER. of the Eskimos, who had given the French so much trouble, were totally extirpated or expelled from that region. After this the town began to decay, and towards the close of the century the name was changed to Bradore.” IIO A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. By sundown our vessel had made only ten miles, be- ing off Belles Amours, with a southerly and very light ~ breeze. The sunset was a glorious one, while the moon rose through the haze and mirage over the snow-banks of the Newfoundland coast. At three in the afternoon we saw several miles ahead of us the fields of ice which we were soon to encounter, choking up the straits, and enhanced in apparent extent by the mirage. The Labra- dor coast, along which we were sailing, is very bold and bluff-like, with lower points of land reaching out to us in a picturesque way, the remarkably even outline of the coast being interrupted by the Bradore Hills. The dredge was put down about two miles from shore in from ten to fifteen fathoms ona hard, stony bottom, with good success. - Beautiful specimens of Lucernaria guadricornes, four inches in height and of a dull amber brown, came up in the same dredge with that superb naked mollusc, Dexdronotus arborescens, which were of a beautiful amber hue, dotted with white points. From the stomachs of fishes caught by some of the party were extracted specimens of a rare arctic crab (Chzonacetes oprlzo), which proved to be not uncommon in from ten to fifty fathoms in the Straits of Belle Isle. The next day, from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon, we moved slowly through the floe-ice, which proved to be the outskirts of the immense fields of ice which this summer lined the northern coast of Labrador. Mr. Bradford kept his photographer busily at work taking views of the more remarkable forms. The splendid green hues, so varied and striking; the endless variety in the water-worn forms; the weird noises, now harsh and grating, now loud and roaring, produced by the CTENOPHORES IN THE FLOE-ICE. Ii! attrition of the cakes of ice ground together by the slight swell or-the conflicting currents, lent unending interest to the scene. The floes had evidently the air of tired and worn travellers; they had been borne for at least a thousand miles from Baffin’s Bay ; had been thrown upon one another by storms and ocean currents, broken and frozen together over and over again ; they were now rap- idly melting away in the bright, warm sun, for the water was filled with bits of clear dark ice, the fragments of large floes. Our vessel, her sails scarcely filled out by the light baffling breeze, rose and fell, ploughing her way through the yielding floes. The water between the cakes was alive with bits of animated ice, myriads of transparent Ctenophores crowding the sea from the surface to a depth of a fathom or more. The roseate /dyza, throwing off the most delicate reddish tints, seemed be- sides to reflect the delicate blues and greens cast off by the floes; an Alcinoe- like form, floating on its side, with blood- red tentacles, rose and sank among the ice- cakes, and with these in lesser numbers was associated that beautiful spherical liv- : ing ball of ice, the Beroe or Pleurobrachia a ; rhododactyla. The Alcinoe-like form was“? "ural size. the JJertensza ovum, a creature as fragile as it is beauti- ful. It is of a delicate pink color, with iridescent hues; the ovaries bright red, the deep purple-red tentacles in striking contrast with the delicate tints of the body itself. From this point until we reached Hopedale in lat. 55° 30’ it constantly occurred in the floe-ice, but was rarely seen in waters from which the ice had disappeared, as in harbors free from ice the Mertensia would keep out of I12 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. view near the bottom ; but as soon as the ice drifted in and choked up any harbor we were in, myriads could be ~ seen near the surface, rising and falling between the ice- cakes, gracefully throwing out their tentacles, which were nearly two feet in length, and suddenly withdraw- ing them when disturbed. No true jelly-fish were to be seen ; the season was early for them, but the beautiful polar shell-less snail, the C/zone /emaccna, with its long wings and bright red tints, was not uncommon. . Stopped by the ice early the next morning we came to anchor at Belles Amours, waiting for a change of wind to allow a passage past or through the floe-ice. The coast is high, abrupt, and precipitous. Numerous streams well stocked with trout tumble into the sea, and the drift deposits, of limited extent, consisted of coarse gravels and bowlders of syenite. We looked for insects, finding nothing of particular interest, though noticing that the ants had just come out of their winter quarters. Glad enough were we to finda snail (//yalina electrina), and in the mud at the bottom of the ponds a little bivalve shell (Peszadzum); under stones in the brooks were larval stones-flies and Ephem- eree; while a little salamander (Plethodon glutznosus) of a slate color with a paler light dorsal band ran into the water, to my great disappointment just eluding my grasp, as it is doubtful if any salamander occurs much farther north on the coast than this species. Here the alders were still in blossom, showing that the season had just opened, though the shadberry, the golden thread (Cop¢zs) and the bunch-berry (Cornus canadenses) were likewise in bloom; on the other hand the mountain-ash was just unfolding its buds. : \ 14 THE KILLER. rac) Dredgings carried on in so shallow water as four and six fathoms revealed pelicans’ feet (aporrhazs) in abun- dance and very fine large Serrzfes groenlandica, and with them in the mud and sand a great abundance of nemer- tean and other worms, and Amphipod Crustacea, with fine examples of Cuma bzspinosa. The principal house-owner at this fishing-station was a Mr. Buckle, who had been out here for twelve years from Boston. To his comfortable house was attached a conservatory and garden. Though the scanty soil on this barren point looked unpromising enough, it was comparatively rich. He had built his own schooner, a vessel of thirty tons. On the beach was the skull of a ‘‘ killer”; it had re- cently been~ brought ashore and was surrounded by a number of hungry whelks (Auccznum undatum) which were Cleaning off the flesh from the bones. The killer is the most voracious of the smaller cetaceans, and is the bulldog among the-whales. The head is very blunt, the skull thick, the jaws powerful, the teeth longer than those of the grampus. It is at once known when swim- ming in the water by its high, narrow, pointed dorsal fin, which projects five or six feet out of water. It at- tacks with great boldness and pertinacity the right and finback whales, gouging out from their lips and side lumps of flesh, and, as Captain Handy told me, is espe- cially fond of the whale’s tongue. The next day we walked inland, following up the stream which empties into the Gulf at Belles Amours. We, however, took the wrong side of the brook and failed to see the cascade where the stream, as we were told, falls down over a precipice forty feet high ; but irom a I14 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. hill perhaps five hundred feet high, which overlooked the country, we could trace the course of the brook for about two miles, where it ran down a steep ravine, with ponds on either side, from which flowed streams sending thin and broken sheets of water over steep precipices. The | lake from which the stream issued was perhaps a mile long, situated on high land, and a foaming stream poured into it from the northwest, while farther on in another depression was probably a second lake like the one in view. Such is an ordinary Labrador stream—a chain of ponds connected by rapids or waterfalls. There was a dreary sameness to the surface of the country, relieved, however, by a few snow-banks. During our ramble we heard the familiar liquid notes of the wood thrush, and saw some coots flying over the pond. In the afternoon the wind hauled into the eastward and was followed by rain. : ) The 24th was misty and drizzly ; the wind east veering to the northeast. We dredged all the afternoon, part of the time scraping a coralline bottom. An arctic sea-cu- cumber (Pentacta calcigera) was common in five fathoms in mud, with the largest Serripes yet met with. The most interesting form brought up was a beautiful hydroid (Coryne mirabilis) growing on the red sea-weed (Pézlota elegans). \t was anchored by its stalk, with bell-shaped medusze attached, which were provided with four pink eyes and short, thick, knotted tentacles, the pendant proboscis being very long, club-shaped and of a pinkish hue. | : While lying at anchor a few boat’s lengths from shore we were visited by two or three weasels, which must have swum off to the vessel. They were exceedingly BELLES AMOURS. II5 tame, approaching within a foot of my finger even when it was kept in motion. On one side of our harbor was, as at Caribou Island, a sandy beach where the fishermen could haul their nets for lance. The Newfoundlanders would come here in their clumsy boats from a distance of eight miles, where their vessels were at anchor, and seine for lance fish. They made a great deal of noise about it, though there were only two boats; one man would stand up in the stern paying out the net, while the full boat’s crew would row rapidly around the fish, and another man standing up to his waist in the water hauled in the net; in this way four barrels of fish are often caught at a single haul. Mr. Phoenix, one of our party, here caught a young salmon eight inches long. The next day (the 25th) saw us still weather-bound with thick fog and rain, clear- ing up towards the evening. In codfish caught at a depth of fifteen or twenty fathoms we found large fine specimens of the lobworm (Avrenzcola piscatorum) and a fine polar shrimp (Crangon boreas). ‘To-day I found the first Cyavea or nettling jelly-fish, the species which grows on the banks of Newfoundland by the end of summer, two feet in diameter, with long, trailing ten- tacles sometimes six fathoms in length; it is these feelers, filled with microscopic darts or lasso-cells, which become entangled with the lines and poison the hands of the fishermen. As yet not a common jelly-fish, the Aurelia aurita, had been seen. The next day we were released from our prison; a fresh northwest wind cleared the ice from the shore, and our good ship made a fine run to Henley Harbor ; time from.6 A.M. to 3.30P.M.4 FAs we sailed out of the harbor 116 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. we could see that the low point running out into the Gulf from the Laurentian background of syenite was the western extremity of the basin of Cambrian red sand- stones and grits which extend between Belles Amours and Anse-au-Sablon. Skirting the coast within a mile or two of these interesting series of rocks, they are seen to rise to a height of five or six hundred feet, forming the coast line, but with a contour tame and monotonous compared with the syenitic hillsof Bradore. The belt is a narrow one, and while sailing past the shore we could look up through the harbors and bays to the low coni- cal hills of Laurentian gneiss in the interior. Passing by Bradore Bay the lofty buttes of Bradore are seen to rise up from the low foreground of red sandstone. We then passed within sight of Greenly Island, where in 1856, during a severe southwest gale, so sudden and common in the strait, thirty-one vessels for want of good anchor- age and shelter were driven upon a lee shore. Parra- keet Island then hove in sight, a favorite breeding-place for the parrakeet or puffin, with a single house on it, the hospitable mansion of a member of the ubiquitous Jones family, where in 1860 a party from our camp on Caribou Island received board and lodging for which only thanks would be accepted. We then sight Blanc Sablon. The land here is high and descends to the sea in five very distinct terraces, of which the second is much the highest. There were huge bowlders of grit on the beach; the raised beaches were packed with bowlders and the terraces in general direction appeared in perspective, as if dipping up the strait; like river-terraces they were parallel to each other, but the lower one gradually dips down and loses THE PRIMORDIAL SANDSTONES. II7 itself in the water, while another slopes in the opposite direction. The higher terraces appear as if wooded or green. There were indeed three shades of green : in the lower terrace the debris is covered with a pale green herbage ; the older vegetation is darker, while the upper rusty green tint is very dark. At Blanc Sablon, which was originally so named by Jacques Cartier, the settlement consists of twenty houses; they were painted white and from the vessel appeared like masses of floe-ice stranded on the shore. Of the houses four are ‘‘rooms,” or fishing-establish- ments. We then pass the fishing-settlement of Forteau, with a lighthouse on the point, besides about twenty houses, and a Catholic church. Off the lighthouse is Shallop Island ; the harbor is two or three miles deep, walled in by vertical cliffs, furrowed and streaked by rain and frost. Into the harbor empties a salmon stream ; one man here seems to have the monopoly of the salmon fishery, put- ting up from twenty to sixty barrels a year ; they are salted and sent to Europe. Now as we pass on, the bay opens and at its head we can see the Laurentian formation, with its low, ob- tusely pointed gneiss hills; but the general surface of the Labrador coast is very uniform, while the opposite shores of Newfoundland now recede and appear to be much lower. ‘The strait is about eleven miles wide in its narrowest part. Sailing on but half a mile off shore at Anse-au-Loup, we can plainly see that the Cambrian rocks are red and. gray sandstones—that the strata, almost horizontal, dip a little to the west, descending to the strait: by three 118 A SUMMER'S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. rock-terraces or shelves. A large brook here plunges in a broad sheet of foam straight down into the sea. The east side of the harbor of Anse-au-Loup is much higher than the western, the surface is irregular, and the but- tressed steeps recall the Palisades of the Hudson. Then we pass along a beautiful green glacis, and on the northwest face of the bluff are five terraces, with the sandstone strata slightly inclined. Here on the lowest bluff are to be seen four terraces (Fig. 4). In the bay east of Anse-au-Loup, whose shores seemed EAS aAN AW SOnunnn AY NS “tl A N A,TERRACES AT BLANC SABLON; &, AT ANSE-AU-LOUP; C, TERRACES SEEN FROM THE MOUTH OF A BAY EAST OF ANSE-AU-LOUP. to be well wooded, we can again look through to the original broken Laurentian rock, and the Cambrian sandstone (Fig. C) runs out into a low point terminat- ing in a low, shelving, green glacis. On this point is the fishing-hamlet of Semedit (a corruption of Saint Modeste), with but two houses. The wind freshened off the cliffs, and now sailing on, —————— == = = ——SS = = SS == BELLE ISLE. 119 the rough and fissured syenitic coast is in marked con- trast to the Cambrian shores we had just left. Going farther on we pass from syenitic to gneiss rocks, which rise from the water in long swells. Belle Isle, the Isle of Demons of the early navigators, — now heaves in sight ; the Labrador coast is more sub- dued, the shores sloping to the water's edge. There are no islands along the coast, and within five miles of Henley Harbor the rock becomes entirely gneiss in char- acter, and we lose sight of the rough, hummocky syen- -itic hills, though masses of flesh-red syenite are seen resting upon the dark gneiss rocks, forming a sea-wall. Now that notable landmark, the Devil’s Dining Table, appears to view, and we soon distinguish Henley and Castle Islands, the two latter like two flat oblong blocks laid by Cyclopean hands on a foundation of rock. CHAPTER Va A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. II, HENLEY HARBOR TO CAPE ST. MICHAEL. As we entered Henley Harbor the scene was unique. The strait was clear of ice, though a.few days earlier the harbor had been packed with it, and remnants were stranded along the shore or carried hither and thither with the tides. The outlines of some of the pieces were beautiful; many were painted with green tints while the sun was high, but later in the afternoon the greens were succeeded by bright azure blues, contrasting with the almost cobalt blues of the distant Laurentian hills. The entrance to Henley Harbor is very fine, the sea- cliffs being over 200 feet high, while behind are the pe- culiar outlines of the Laurentian gneiss, rising in long swells like whales’ backs to a height of perhaps five or six hundred feet. Henley Harbor lies under the lofty, precipitous basaltic cliffs of the Devil’s Dining Table, which caps Henley Island. We sail through a fleet of Newfoundland fishermen, whose low, thick masts, strong, clumsy rigging, and ironed and planked hulks—for they were sealers, and had not stopped to doff their ice-armor —contrasted with the beautiful model, slender, tapering masts and spars of our fleeter craft. Their decks were crowded with men, women, and children, dogs and goats, for these people had, like the old Norsemen, brought their families and stock with them for a sum- I20 "ee THE SEAL FISHERY. {2I mer’s stay on the coast. Ashore, under the dark, beet- ling crag, lay the fishing-hamlet of Henley Harbor. The houses were small and mean, the flat roof of some covered with turf, the grass or moss growing on them, while the fish-houses and “stages” were of the meanest description. After coming to anchor we were boarded by the cap- tain of one of the sealers, a brigantine of perhaps 140 tons burden, lately in from Carbonear in Conception Bay. Her bows and also her sides were planked and heavily ironed to resist the ice in the spring sealing in the Gulf. The captain had, immediately after discharging his cargo of sealskins and blubber—and the smells rising up through the hold and companion-way proved the fact ad nauscam—only delayed long enough in port to put in 130 bushels of salt, and then cleared for the Labrador coast without stopping to strip off the outer planking. The captain was an intelligent, stalwart, English-born man only twenty years old, who had been to sea for six years. He was frank and communicative, and in half an hour gave us some insight into the mysteries of fish- ing and sealing. He had inherited the business, his fa- ther having been a sealer for fifty years. He owned the vessel and had brought along a cook; he took, pas- sage free, eleven families, numbering 130 souls, men, women, and children, with goats, dogs, cats, and provi- sions for the whole party, and was to land them at some harbor on the coast north of the Strait, where they might spend the fishing season in their rude summer houses, called ‘‘ tilts.” During the voyage up the women are stowed aft and in the hold, and in a storm——and when are there two 122 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. continuously pleasant days on this coast ?—the hatches are battened down, the food is handed to them through a hole in the cabin, and then they are left to take care of themselves as best they can until the storm clears off, when the hatches are removed, and the forlorn passen- gers can take a breath of fresh air. The captain doesnot take an active part in the fish- ing, but makes his profits by charging for freight on the fish. If the season is a good one and his vessel is soon filled, he goes back to Newfoundland and charters more vessels to carry back all the fish which have been caught. The season lasts from the end of June until about the 2oth of October. The season for the seal fishery during the past spring was from March 25th until June 4th. The Gulf, of course, was filled with ice, no water being in sight from shore. A successful “catch” of seals is ‘“‘ better than gooo.” Each vessel carries fourteen boats, which are piled up on deck; four men man a boat; each man is provided with a gaff or boat-hook and a piece of ratline three and one-half fathoms long. On coming up to where the seals are lying, the crew land on the ice. The sealer runs up to a seal lying near its hole, which may.be only a rod or so from the vessel or boat, clubs it—and it is easily stunned and killed with one or two blows sculps it, then peals off the skin and blubber, leaving the carcass on the ice-floe. Each man can tie up five sealskins, and drag them to the vessel, and sally out again, rushing ahead and racing with the other crews of “‘bloodhounds.” The scene is one of excitement and peril, the ice constantly endangering the vessel, which is liable to be ‘“‘ nipped” and to founder, leaving the ship- THE SEAL FISHERY. 123 wrecked sealers to burn their vessel and make their way ashore over the ice. One of Mr. Bradford’s most suc- cessful paintings represents a sealer “nipped” by the ice, the crew abandoning her after having set fire to their vessel, and walking with mournful steps over the ice in the direction of land. The delicate blues of the ice, the sullen, neutral tints of the sky, the red glare of the flames breaking out of the burning ship, and the warm tints of the costumes of the men in the foreground, vividly portray a most tragic scene, enacted only too often on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. To return to our statistics: a “crew” of sealers on the ice is composed of fifty men; each one, if successful, securing five seals. Two hundred and fifty pelts may be brought back after each sally from the vessel. In this way, when the seals are abundant, from 2500 to 3000 sealskins are taken in a single day, gooo making a cargo. The shares in the enterprise are £60 each man. The captain takes‘half, “leaving the men in the lurch,” as our informant said, which being interpreted means that the men realize little or no profits from the voyage. A sealskin is worth $4.00, a full cargo, perhaps, sell- ing in the rough to traders for $30,000 or $40,000 ; the profits on a full cargo are therefore considerable, but the men’s “half,” being distributed among a large number, does not amount to much for each man. This spring (1864) the seal fishery was a failure. The young seals are killed by knocking them on the head with a boat-hook or club, and the old ones by Shooting them with heavily loaded old muskets. The hunters make holes in the ice and then watch for their heads to appear above water. Of all the different kinds 124 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. of seals, the Greenland or harp seal is the most fero- cious. | The summer at Henley Harbor was a very backward one ; the salmon had not yet appeared at the mouths of the bays and rivers; nor had the cod and their natural food, the capelin, moved in from the deep water. The enormous extent of floe-ice which skirted the coast had lowered the temperature of the sea; at the same time the ice-fields had prevented any icebergs from entering the Strait. The prevailing winds were cold and easterly ; the cold climate, the strong tides and the three-knot Labrador current passing around the cape into and down the Strait of Belle Isle render navigation here uncertain and dangerous. June 27. The light southeasterly wind brought into the Strait the fog which had lain all the day previous outside of our harbor, and inland the clouds rested on the hills; the day being dark and lowery. In the morn- ing some of us rowed three miles up to the head of Pitt’s Arm, in Temple Bay, a deep fjord penetrating the high gneiss hills, into which pours, over a stony channel, a rapid trout stream about five yards across. The sandy beach was an ancient sea-bottom containing deep-sea shells.* On each side of the mouth of the brook were two terraces; on the upper terrace, which was about forty feet above the sea, were two winter houses. I par- ticularly observed the appearance of these houses. One was 21X15 feet in size, the walls of upright, thick boards, the frame of poles; the flat roof was constructed of poles — * The shells were Buccinum undatum, a variety with two ribs on the whorls; Saxicava rugosa, Mya uddevallensis, Macoma proxima, Serripes groenlandica, Natica clausa, of large size, and a branching polyzoon, Celleporaria surcularis. A WINTER HOUSE. 129 placed near together and covered with birch and hemlock bark, the strips, which were a foot wide, being placed crosswise; the eaves were scarcely five feet above the ground, and the floor was in part of boards and in part of turf. The door, hung on iron hinges, and closed with a wooden latch and string, was only four and a half feet high, and there was a single window, 1615 inches. Within were three beds and a settle. The lumber for these shanties had evidently, by the piles of sawdust near by, been sawn upon the spot and taken from the Labra- dorian forest of firs near at hand, which measured twelve inches through at the butt, and were about twenty feet — high. In their branchesa robin and a sparrow wete flit- ting about. The willow bushes were here five feet in height. On the sides of the sandy terraces were blackberry and raspberry bushes, and currants, shadber- ries, and golden thread just in blossom, while the alders were still in flower. I dredged in water about fifty fathoms deep, in Chateau Bay, bringing up, among molluscs, fine large Leda pernula, Astarte banksiz, Lyonsta arenosa, Car- dium wslandicum ,; rare sandstars, and young and old arctic crabs (Chzonecetes optlio). The 28th was almost wintry in its cold, changeable weather. A northeast storm raged, with a few drops of rain and a little snow in the forenoon, while after dinner there was a thick snow-storm, the hill-tops being whit- ened with snow for several! hours, which, however, disap- peared by the evening. The water in the harbor was intensely cold, and the Mertensia and Clione, those beautiful creatures of the icy seas, abounded. The forenoon was spent in examining the trap rocks 126 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. on the harbor side of Henley Island, and in shore-col- lecting. The rock-weeds or fuci do not grow luxuriantly on the coast of Labrador, but are stunted and dwarfed, like their more highly-born relatives of the vegetable kingdom ashore. Below tide-mark, however, though the tide on the Labrador coast rises and falls only two or three feet, the Devil’s Apron or Laminaria is seen, but not so common and large as on the coast of Maine. Life between tide-marks is scanty compared with the New England coast. We never detected the common whelk that gives the purple dye (Purpura lapzllus) ; _ but the two Littorinas (Z. rudzs, less commonly L. “¢- toralts) were common; these are circumpolar forms, abounding at the water’s edge at Greenland. In this region scarcely a sea-bird was to be seen, and rarely even a gull; but on one occasion three ducks, | while a lonely raven flew about the cliff. Insect life was scanty, and with the animals and plants showed in its appearance a strange intermixture of what at home would have been characteristic of early April and late May. Frogs are seen here, we were told: in the garden the turnips were just up. Thirty'years ago there was but a single house at Henley Harbor, and none at Red Bay, where now there are thirty. The fish and birds here, meanwhile, have vastly decreased in numbers. The fish are principally cod, salmon, and herring. Old Captain French, our pilot, never saw a hake on the Labrador coast, and only two haddock, though both.kinds are abundant and troublesome to cod fishermen at Bay Chaleur, on the New Brunswick shore. | Detained another day by head-winds and rain in the DREDGING. 127 early part of the day, the wind in the evening hauled around to the S. W., giving us a fine evening sky. I dredged in the morning in the rain over the side of the vessel in four fathoms, the bottom rich in the red sea- weed (Pézlota), the Desmarestia, and the sea-colander (Agarum turnert), and besides a portly queer-spined amphipod (A mphzthonotus cataphractus), which carried its brood of young, also bristling with spines, a fine large Crangon boreas with other bright red shrimps came up. NEBALIA BIPES. (ealareea six times.) In*the afternoon we sailed out two or three miles to the mouth of the harbor, and dredged in from ten to twenty fathoms on a hard, pebbly bottom, evidently the contin- uation of the beach, and showing that the land was for- merly at least from one hundred to three hundred feet higher than at present ; besides Lyonsza arenosa, Kenne- rlta glaczalzs, and other shells and crustaceans, the interest- ing WVebala bifes was taken: it was also found in as shal- low waterasfourfathoms. This form is less than half an inch in length and is found throughout the Arctic Ocean, iscommon on the coast of Norway, and its family is now 128 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. regarded as the sole existing type of a distinct order (Phyllocarida), whose gigantic fossil prototypes, some of them nearly two feet in length, occur in the paleeozoic rocks in America and Europe. The next day also we were wind-bound, but the gale was from the southwest ; the wind blew very fresh, hav- ing a good sweep over the Gulf, the breakers ran high, as nearly all the harbors in Southern Labrador, z.¢., south and west of Belle Isle, are exposed to gales from this direction. We put out our kedge anchor, and fre- quently had to haul in a part of the cable to keep the vessel off the rocks. We should have put out to sea and taken advantage of the gale to go on our course up the coast, but were afraid of running upon a sunken rock at the mouth of the “tickle” or narrow passage forming our harbor. A part of the day was spent about and upon the Devil’s Dining Table. This is a mass of columnar basalt, which has been described by Lt. Baddely in the Transac- tions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec for 1829. The height of the rock above the sea is 225 feet, to the base of the pillars of basalt 180 feet; the height of the columns themselves being 25 feet. The columns are quite regularly prismatic and of nearly the same size and nature as those of the Giant’s Causeway. Ascending the terrace, carpeted with the mountain trident, I climbed up the cliff over the basaltic steps, by the only means of ascent situated on the eastern side, where the columns had been worn away by a little stream, on top of the flat table, which was 125 paces broad at the widest part. The ends of the prismatic columns occasionally protruded through the dense TERRACED BEACHES. 129 matted covering of curlew-berry or Empetrum. The air was cold, chilly, reeking with the sea-drift, and the gale buffeted my face as if a demon were trying to throw me over the cliff, down to the sea-margin of former days. From the summit of the table the view was an inter- esting one, though the atmosphere was very hazy. Belle Isle was shut out of sight by a thin bank of fog or thick- ened vapor which lay on the seato the eastward. A few miles up the shore was another cliff of basaltic columns, the bases of the pillars wrapped in snow. There are in this bay eleven sea-terraces which mark the former levels of the sea, eight of which could be seen from the top of this rock. On the west side the terraces slope towards the north, while on Castle Island they slope towards the southwest. The most distinct example of these terraced sea-beaches lay at our feet, forming the western shore of Henley Island (on which the Devil’s Dining Table is situated). This magnificent beach rises 180 feet above the sea-level, and when the sea covered it the waves washed the base of the basaltic pillars, as indicated by the débris of broken columns forming the talus at the foot of the cliff on which I stood. This beach is com- posed of three terraces, and the two lower ones widen out into delta-like expansions on the northwest end of the island, which are free from the usual covering of moss and curlew-berry, and are so distinctly marked with windrows of pebbles and gravel that it would seem as if they had been but yesterday thrown up by the waves. Greville’s Fort*, as we may name it, the ruins of which * According to a writer in Harper’s Magazine for May, 1864, who describes’ this fort and gives a plan of ‘it, the fortifications were. supposed to have been 130 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. are quite distinct, was built on a broad terrace not far above the sea. On the mainland, north a little east, are three beaches with two terraces, which were beautifully marked, and corresponded with the two lower terraces at our feet, though covered with the rich deep green of the Empetrum leaves. Pitt’s Arm and Chateau Bay are also terraced, the beaches themselves of unequal size and height, but the terraces, as we should expect, are of even height throughout, as they mark the former level of the sea. One of the beaches on Chateau Bay was remarkably steep, composed of large, sea-worn bowlders, and overhanging like a precipice the winter houses below. Indeed, all along the Strait of Belle Isle from the Meca- tinas to this point, wherever there is sand, gravel, or bowlders, the sea has, when at higher levels, rearranged and sorted them into terraced beaches or sea-margins. The future geologist who visits this coast will have an interesting task in measuring the heights of these ter- races and comparing them with those of Northern Lab- rador, of Arctic America, of Greenland, and northern Europe. These beaches are also seen in inland river- courses, and by every pond and lake; they are not, as along the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, concealed by vegetation, bushes or forest growths; but here, owing to the absence of bushes and trees, they were as distinct as if the Labrador peninsula had been upheaved but a year ago. Darwin has studied the formation of the ter- races along the coast of South America, where the ele- vating forces were undoubtedly volcanic, but the nature of the causes which in the northern hemisphere have re- constructed by the French Canadians, by whom it was abandoned in 1753; another author states that it was built by the Acadians. TERRACED BEACHES. 131 sulted in the secular elevations and depressions of the land, such as took place during and after the glacial pe- riod, is purely conjectural, and belongs to the domain of theoretical geology. To study the causes we must first learn the facts, hence the careful examination of the os- cillations of the eastern coast of America from Aspin- wall to high polar latitudes is of the first importance. The measurement and comparison of the ancient sea- beaches on a coast like that of Labrador and Arctic America, where they are so easily perceived, will well repay the labor and time involved. Robert Chambers’s interesting work on the ancient sea-margins of Norway and Sweden gives valuabie data for comparison with those of the opposite coast of Lab- rador, and from the rough observations which have been made it would seem that the oscillations were about the same, both in height above the sea, and in time, on each side of the North Atlantic. I have also seen well- marked terraces in Puget Sound which are beautifully marked, and these should be carefully measured and compared in height with those in the arctic region and Labrador. It was with no little interest that we ob- served the old beaches on the Labrador coast, and we shall note their occurrence in the following pages wher- ever seen. We remained on the top of the Devil’s Dining Table until the sun had set and the darkness began to creep over the scene below. Whether his Satanic Majesty was concerned in the transformation which then came over the scene we will not undertake to say, but as the sun went down the rocks and hills beneath seemed to diminish in height; an undefined, subtle, neutral tint 132 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. spread over the landscape; a brownish haze due to the vapor in the air came in from the sea and settled over the hills far and near, and as the twilight came on the hills were still more dwarfed in size, when the chill southwest wind from the Gulf, the coldest that blows over this ex- posed point, sent us back to our vessel, where the ther- mometer at 8 o'clock in the evening was 44° F. The fishing-hamlet of Henley Harbor consists of a few dwelling-houses, some of them inhabited during the winter, with fish-houses and light wharves here called “stages.” The winter houses are built of thick boards, with flat tarred roofs, the sides of the houses being well battened. The domestic animal here is the dog, New- foundlanders—seven of them at one house—brought up by the fishermen for the summer: there were no Eskimo dogs or Eskimos at this point, though in the last century they here congregated by hundreds. The fish-houses were rude structures of one low shed, roofed with turf and built on piles, reminding us sotnewhat of pictures of the ancient pile-dwellings of prehistoric Switzerland. The fisherman’s sail-boat is a ponderous, clumsy affair called a “jack.” It is twenty-five or thirty feet long, with not much breadth of beam, rudely built, with short masts, and small sails stained red or black, or with both colors; the oars are of spruce, and very large and heavy, and the stern of the boat is provided with two stakes, such as whalemen use for sculling. I interviewed a Mr. Stone, one of the settlers, regard- ing the fisheries and hunting at this point, and he gave me the following facts: At the height of the herring fishery in August—and it should be borne in mind that this fish is only a summer visitant, not spawning on the ke alia rite THE FISHERIES. 133 Labrador coast, but passing up, as Hind in his work on the Labrador peninsula states, as far as Hudson’s Strait —Stone has caught 200 barrels in a season. He has to pay twelve barrels for a hogshead of salt, the price of which is now (1864) very high. He secures 800 quin- tals of fish at 18s. a quintal, which amounts to £720 for a successful season’s work. He can cure the fish on this coast during the short summer, and is now building a shed for this purpose. Of salmon 180 quintals are taken in a good season ; they are pickled and sell at the rate of $5.00 a quintal (112 lbs.), so that he would realize about $900 from this fish- ery; but considering that he had a family of ten chil- dren, it is not probable that on the average he more than comfortably supports his family, and in many sum- mers the fisheries on this desolate coast are a failure. And to show what little chance there is to retrieve his fortunes by the products of the winter’s hunting, he told me that last winter nothing was shot about Chateau Bay from Christmas until the first of February. During the entire winter but a single partridge was shot, while at the same time they were very abundant at Blanc Sablon, showing that possibly these birds are somewhat migra- tory, going in flocks from one point to another in search of food. There are now neither beaver nor otter, nor silver nor black foxes to be had; only two or three wolves were shot, and two deer. When I asked him what the people would doif the hunting and fishing con- tinued to fall off, he replied hopefully, and in his fisher- man’s dialect, ““Oh, we'll have a spurt by and by.” He added that the S.W. wind was insummer ‘the coldest wind that blows.” Winter comes on in November; by 134 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. the 1oth to the 2oth of this month the lakes are all frozen over, and by the 2oth the harbor is frozen far out into the Strait, while in winter they can go out in sledges on the ice to Belle Isle. The people here in general were well-mannered, though rough and out-spoken, asking freely of our stores, and commenting as freely on what they considered poor returns in trade. To return to the Devil’s Dining Table, whose geology is interesting: it is a high ovate mass with vertical sides and a flat top, which slightly inclines towards the south- west, and consists of two layers, showing that the rock is the remains of two separate eruptions, the lower con- sisting of regular prismatic five-sided columns, each about two feet in diameter, fluted on the sides and curi- ously worn by transverse impressed lines. The basaltic mass rests upon the upturned edges of strata of Lauren- ‘an gneiss which have been penetrated by dikes of sye- ‘ite. North of the basaltic cap, the underlying rocks CASTLE ISLAND FROM THE WEST ; @, RED SYENITE; a GNEISS ; ¢, BASALT oe DEVIL'S DINING one ; @, RAISED BEACH. are least disturbed, being reddish gneiss-like or foliated syenite, crumbling and quite fissile, dipping at an angle of 50° south, 25° east; just beyond, this reddish rock runs into the usual dark Laurentian gneiss of the region. Upon submitting a specimen of the basalt to Mr. J. S. Diller, lithologist of the U. S. Geological Survey, he tells me that it is a doleritic basait. At the southeast end of the island, along the shore bE avg aovf a7, (‘projperg Aq ydes8ojoyd e wWolg) ‘aIdV[ ONINIC S$,/1lAGG AHL HLIM ‘GNVIS] aiLSVD UNV Yod'vfy AINA Ls He Rul Aber er: PrN ae gu £ ‘ , CASTLE ISLAND. 135 looking out towards Belle Isle, the flesh-colored syenitic rocks present a rough and broken front. to the ceaseless swell of the Atlantic, rising from seventy-five to a hun- dred feet above the waves, the beetling crags broken and pierced by deep ocean caves; with jutting headlands and little pebbly beaches nestling between them—all the characteristic scenic features of this syenite, whether at Nahant, or Mt. Desert, or on the Labrador coast. The southern end of Castle Island repeats the geology and scenery of Henley Island; but a little farther down, away from the sea-cliffs, the syenite and gneiss meet, and seemed splashed together, like two masses of paste or dough which has been stirred up and baked. In places, both rocks were interstratified, dipping north and south in much disturbed strata, but with a general inclination towards the north. The first of July saw us released from our prison; the day was clear and delightful, and a light southwesterly breeze bore us along a remarkably bold and picturesque coast. About two miles from our harbor is another trap overflow capping and, at the southwest end, concealing from view the syenitic base; at the northern end the basalt is columnar. ‘We soon came up to our first iceberg, a magnificent pyramid of ice perhaps a hundred and fifty feet high, white as Carrara marble, smooth, as if fresh snow had fallen on it during the past night, lending it a virgin whiteness, here and there brought more clearly into re- lief by the subtle azure blue reflected from the sea. Across its base ran several suggestive cracks, and though we sailed within two hundred yards of it, it was rather risky, and we remembered Scoresby’s stories of the dis- 136. A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. asters attending the overturning and breaking of floating bergs. Captain Handy, whose life-long experience as a whaler in arctic regions made him a good judge, re- marks as we are passing that a berg will not usually injure a vessel unless a piece of ice falls upon it, but that the waves will swamp a boat. At Resolution Island he rowed past an immense berg, so that it could almost be touched from.the boat, saying to himself, ‘‘ It won't last three weeks;” he had gone scarcely three ship’s lengths, when, with a report like the discharge of.a park of artil- lery, it burst into a thousand pieces, many still forming large bergs; the boat was put head-to, and nearly filled with water, but there was no further danger. Off Cape Charles the coast grows more broken and hummocky, more so than west of Chateau Bay. This is partly owing to the fact that we look directly up into the fjords and bays, and that the headlands run out towards us. We pass Battle Island, a comparatively low island, HARBOR. C, CHARLES BAY. with the ‘‘ice-loom” or mirage resting over it. We were glad to pass Battle Island Harbor, which has a bad repu- tation, or, to use an Anglicism, is a ‘‘nasty” place. The entrance is very sinuous, the turns short, and the vessel must answer her rudder quickly when going in. Our fishermen enter it late in the season, as “it is a place that holds fish late.” Perhaps half of the harbors here are unknown, and the fishermen seldom have occasion to enter the innermost ones. THE ICE-PACK AND ICE-BLINK. 137 The ice-pack which we were soon to encounter lay north and east of us, with the ‘“ice-blink” over it. We pass Outer Battle Island, and the ‘‘Two Sisters,” bare, low islands of nearly white gneiss rock. We now sail into the ice-pack, and are gradually surrounded by floes, ——~ ———— OUTER BATTLE ISLAND SEEN FROM THE SOUTHWEST; 4, CARIBOU ISLAND. though they are not near enough to impede our progress. The shore of Caribou Island—for there are two of this name on the coast—is of a singular pale gray shade from top to bottom. The people ashore, struck by our model and spars, so unlike the other craft on this coast, set the British flag to ascertain our nationality. CARIBOU ISLAND, BEARING TWO MILES WEST. We pass St. Lewis Bay, a large broad indentation, with its north shore evidently syenitic, as the sea-wall is high, and the rocks rough and fissured, and more broken than lower down; the headlands of syenite probably ex- tend out from the gneiss mainland. The ice-floes become larger and more hummocky than any we have seen before. A humpback whale now pre- CARIBOU ISLAND, BEARING WEST. sents a broadside view of himself, with his angular hump, small fin, and as he ‘‘sounds,” reveals the pale underside of his tail and flukes. 138 A SUMMER'S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. At Spear Point the outline of the coast is very rough ; at the entrance to Spear Harbor, which isa shallow bight, there is a high, sugar-loaf island ; two black-sailed “jacks” are entering it. Cape St. Francis is a bold, syenitic head- land. Over Square Island, which now comes in sight, being fifteen miles ahead, there is a fine mirage, with castle-like, shadowy forms resting on the rock. We are now sailing between the ice-pack and the shore, one nearly as solid in appearance as the other. The wind is still off shore, but should it change to the eastward the ice would come in upon us and choke up the bays and harbors. Behind us isa pale bluish haze which passes into a well-marked mirage, and as we sail on it raises the higher points of the land beneath and expands above with weird, strange effects. Beyond us the mirage mag- nifies the larger floes into huge bergs. NORTH SIDE OF FISHING SHIP HARBOR. In St. Francis Harbor isa “room” and a “ look-out” house ; a small bay beyond appears to be filled with ice. The coast at Fishing Ship Harbor is unusually rough and broken, like the waves of a chop-sea ; and there ap- peared to be two terraces at this point, the upper one very high, but whether of gravel or of rock was difficult to distinguish. The wind now become very changeable and baffling, veering from one point to another ; and our progress was compared by the Captain to sailing up the Potomac. Passing by perpendicular sea-cliffs, and a — OCCASIONALJHARBOR. 139 bold headland on which are dead spruce trees, the rock on the north side of Occasional Harbor changes its char- ‘OCCASIONAL HARBOR.@ acter, becoming a gray, Labradoritic syenite, like what we afterwards found on Square Island.;; CHAPTER VIII. A SUMMER'S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. Ill. FROM CAPE ST. MICHAEL TO HOPEDALE. Carre St. MicHAEL rises from the sea in the boldest, most vertical cliffs we had yet seen; they are perhaps — from two to three hundred feet high and pierced by five caves, one very large and deep, and another oven- like. In one of the bights indenting this promontory there are four irregular but well-marked rock-terraces in the gneiss cliffs. On a following headland the syenite is seen to be interstratified with much-distorted gneiss strata, and penetrated by a deep fissure with remarkably fresh and angular sides. At the head of the bight is quite a forest of spruce. We are now off St. Michael's Bay, at the mouth of which is Square Island, with Sugar Loaf Island just beyond, and now the contours of the land-surface again begin to be rough and broken. We run in here to make a harbor, and as we enter it a pleasant breeze blows off shore; it is refreshing in its warmth and in the balsamic flavor of the spruce and firs of the interior. We are now in a completely land- locked little box of a harbor in Square Island, the three “tickles” or narrow passages leading into it not in sight from where we were to lie moored. While our vessel, which had come in by the wrong tickle, was, by a process of towing, and at times by taking advantage of slight puffs of mind, slowly work- 140 SQUARE ISLAND HARBOR. I4I ing into her deep little harbor, where she anchored in thirteen fathoms, some of us landed, and what a scene lay before us! On every square rod of flat rock on the steep sides of the harbor was a Newfoundlander’s “tilt” or summer house. The sides made of logs or plank, the roof of turf, a square chimney of wood and mud, the four corner-posts projecting above. They were scattered about on the rocks like bee-hives, under the shelter of the cliffs on a low promontory, while the landing-places or ‘‘ stages’ were supported on long poles. In the miniature garden-lots some of the children were turning the sod with rude spades, others were bringing soil from the naked rocks about into protected places where they were to attempt the cultivation of a few turnips and cabbages. On the shores of the harbor was a narrow margin of grass enriched by the drippings of years from the fish-flakes which, supported on stakes like those on the Maine coast, ran down in parallel rows to near the water’s edge, where were ground-flakes, or floors of poles lymg onthe ground. The sides of the tilt were here and there ornamented with a sealskin tacked against the wall. The houses of the ‘long-shore-men,” or those of the permanent residents, were clapboarded and a little better looking than the tilts. It was warm and truly delightful ashore, the wind coming from over the hills and mosses ; the thermometer was 70° F., and we learned that for two days it had been unusually warm and pleasant. The insects formed an assemblage which in northern New England would be regarded as a mixture of April and early June forms, Corethra and 7anapus, two gnats, which in New England are April forms, mingled with 142 7? A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. saw-flies which appear with us early in June. The leaf- rolling moths had not yet appeared ; a few bumble-bees were humming their familiar tune, but, as we thought, in a subdued minor key. Just before sunset we climbed a steep round hill, rising perhaps 500 to 800 feet above the harbor, and what a strange, peculiar scene was spread out before us! Far inland to the westward there was a fire in the woods, and the smoke filled the air towards the interior and was carried far seaward; the sunlight passing through the smoke gave a strange appearance to the glowing western sky, the transformed light falling bronzed and red upon the broad bay dotted with “skiers,” or small low islets ; and tinging the distant hills, one of which, a mountain mass of gneiss, seemed to be over a thousand feet high. In the evening it grew cool and damp: a large cake of floe-ice higher than the rail of our vessel floated down upon us and stranded on the shore. All through the night there was a ‘continual sound of running water dripping in streams from its under side, the gurgling and trickling keeping one awake. The next day was cloudy, with, a southeast wind, so that we could not venture,out of our harbor. I went with a party of trout fishers from our vessel to a chain of lakes containing, besides a few_small trout, eels and sticklebacks. The insects were more abundant in the sheltered valleys than along the shore. In the shallow ponds were chrysalids of the stone-flies and case-worms, the latter having been found in the larval condition at the Mecatinas. There were also pupal * dragon-flies, and under the moss and green herbs on the side of a GEOLOGY OF SQUARE ISLAND. 143 little rill, earthworms, groundbeetles, cutworms, and the maggots of the crane-fly. Here mingled with an Empetrum-like plant was the Andromeda polzfolza, with bumble-bees probing its deep flowers ; sedges were in flower, one like our Carex penn- sylvanica and perhaps representing it in the Labrador flora; the leaves of the hackmatack or larch were half an inch long, but the birches and mountain-ash were not yet fully leaved out; blue and white violets were sprinkled among the low sedges, while the flowers of the cloud-berry were now dropping off. The Vzburnum lantanotdes was scarcely full-leaved; the bunch-berry (Cornus Canadensis) was either in bud or else with small green flowers. The gold-thread, or Coptis, was in full flower; the fire-weed (£pzlobcum augustifolium) was but six inches high, the buds not yet apparent. Robins were singing in the old familiar way, and the white-crowned sparrow was flitting about as if thor- oughly at home and rather enjoying the desolateness of the scenery. The geology of Square Island harbor is varied by the presence of a peculiar dark syenite due to the labrador- ite which replaces the flesh-colored feldspar of the syen- ite to the southward, while there are large masses of | dark green actinolite with a little quartz, and some iron pyrites. This peculiar eruptive rock is weathered into ~ high rounded conical sugar-loaf hills, which lends a peculiar feature to the scenery of the coast. At certain points this rock passes into a finely-grained gneiss, with the scenic features of that rock, but yet combined with an added feature due to its granitoid character; the rock crumbles rather easily, and on the shores of the 144 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. harbor and lakes, blocks of all sizes, angular or weather- worn, fall down, disrupted by the frost. No boulders, i.e. travelled rocks, were to be seen. The masses of labradorite are translucent and opalescent, but still not of the precious variety, of which, however, I afterward — purchased fine specimens from the Moravian missionaries at Hopedale. No drift or glacial scratches were to be seen about here, and none had yet been observed on the coast, though they were of course always in my thoughts, and I was disappointed at not finding any, attributing their absence to the rapid weathering of the rocks on this coast. The deep broad bay at whose northern entrance Square Island is situated must have been filled with glacial ice, as the skiers or low islets of gneiss dotting its surface had evidently been ground down and moulded into their present forms by land ice. The rock terraces observable here were interesting ; they were ten or twenty feet high, with the vegetation growing at the foot of the little vertical precipices. On their upper third the hills about oyr harbor were bare, where in similar situations in the Strait of Belle Isle the rocks would be covered with a thick and matted growth of Empetrum and reindeer moss. The steep precipitous sides of the hills facing the harbor plunge naked and dark into the water, and from their summits we can look directly down upon the decks of the vessels at anchor, overlooking the “ tilts” and “stages” on shore. In the afternoon the vicissitudes of a dredger in such a harbor as this were well illustrated. I put my dredge down at the depth of thirty fathoms at the mouth of a “tickle,” and the results were plenty of a little snail THE “SEAL * FISHERY. 145 (Margarita cinerea), the dead shells tenanted by little hermit-crabs; the two varieties of Mya truncata, two beautiful ten-armed starfishes (So/aster papposa), beau- tifully roseate in the centre, as well as at the middle and tips of the fingers; the omnipresent knotted sand-star (Ophioglypha nodosa) with fine gray and red shrimps, and mingled with the deep-water forms were two littoral species, the common edible mussel: and the Lz¢torzna rudis. Another hard pull—and dredging in_ thirty fathoms by hand, in these days of donkey engines and steamers, with all the paraphernalia of the modern dredge, is no fun—over a rocky bottom and not a thing in the dredge was a disappointment, while the third pull off a steep precipice brought up the dredge filled to the brim with a soft ooze, containing only two or three worms and a few dead shells. On Sunday, the 3d, services were conducted by Rev. David A. Wasson, one of our party. About twenty of the fishermen came aboard, and after the meeting we found them very.communicative, the sole topic of con- versation, that which is the staple talk on these shores, being the fisheries, both of the cod andseal. One sealer of 120 tons during a cruise of three months laid in a cargo of 148 tons of seal’s fat obtained from 4700 seals. Last year (1863) twenty to thirty sealing-vessels were lost in Green Bay, and six hundred men were obliged to abandon their vessels and walk home, ‘“‘ with nothing but their boots,” on the ice which was packed in towards-> the shore. A few remained aboard. March was an open month, while April was cold and frosty; ‘‘the ice was packed in 25 or 30 feet, making it bad for the sealers.” On inquiring of an old Newfoundlander why they 146 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. had been driven off of their own fishing-grounds and obliged to spend the season on this coast, he replied, ‘‘Oh, it was the French. Our fishermen have been on this coast for seventy years. It was after the treaty that the French began to fish from Cape St. John around to Cape Ray, and for forty-six years we have come up here in this way. By this treaty the French were not allowed to take anything away from the shore, | nor to cut timber above a certain size, and were not, and still are not allowed to reside on the island of New- _foundland. They leave from fifty to seventy men to — take care of the fishing establishments or ‘rooms,’ an officer being set over every ten men to keep them in subordination, while a doctor is stationed at each ‘room. The men live like dogs, cooking out of doors; they are allowed the first catch of fish for themselves. They cook Sundays—after early morning prayers—and work the rest of the day.” Itisneedless to add that the French are looked upon as intruders by the English settlers. The Newfoundlanders themselves, at least the poorer families, are obliged to fish on credit, running in debt for their outfit, which is worth £190, including salt. When the season is over and the fish is sold, they may clear £15, as they often obtain 350 quintals of fish. The “longshoremen,’” of whom there are here seven families, are sadly improvident, often giving up fishing towards the last of the season and idling; hence as the result, when the traders have failed them, they are re- duced, as happened last winter, to actual starvation. Owing to the lack of fresh meat and vegetables they are afflicted with the scurvy. One man thus suffering showed me one of his legs, which was swollen nearly THE WALRUS. 147 _ twice the size of the well one, and covered with purple spots. I asked. them how they spent their time in the winter, and they said: ‘‘ Oh, we get a stick of firewood” —and it is not much more. But a single deer was shot here last winter by these thriftless people, while the Es- kimo, who came down from “the nor’ard” in their dog- sledges, shot fifteen. The walrus at times appears as far south as this harbor, one having been shot about fifteen years ago. It evi- dently made an impression on the minds of the “long- shoremen,” as the circumstances of its appearance were treasured up for years after. It lifted its head above the water near a boat with a single man in it, who was nearly frightened out of his wits, as he “thought it was the devil.’ His web-footed majesty sank beneath the waves to reappear to the same man three-quarters of a mile away, who was not too much terrified to throw as a peace-offering to the monster a herring, which it swal- lowed and then disappeared. By daylight this morning the ice began to come into our snug little harbor, brought in by an east wind; it drifted in during the day, completely surrounding the few vessels at anchor; though it was a warm, pleasant day, and the thermometer was 70° at noon, by night it grew cold, reaching 39°. The ice often comes in through the narrow ‘‘tickles,” and becoming imprisoned, remains until a strong west wind blows it out. In this way large icebergs frequently come in, as the tickles are about thirty fathoms deep, there being no friendly bars at the en- trance to detain these unwelcome visitors. On one oc- casion, a Saturday night, as a man told me, an iceberg “as tall as a steeple” floated in as if to make a safe harbor, 148 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. and became anchored within fifty yards of his “stage.” | Just after he and his family had gone to bed, the berg broke to pieces—‘‘ foundered "—and nearly swamped his boat, but did not carry away his stage, which was built upon a rock, though the waves washed a row of punch- eons off from a neighbor's stage and entered the house, driving out the occupants. Of the personal appearance and habits of the majority of the summer residents there is not much to be said. Living in dirty, forlorn tilts, smoked and begrimed with dirt, the occupants in some cases thoroughly harmonize with their surroundings: their features and hands are smoked as dark as the herring they eat, and their rough life is more or less demoralizing; but certainly law and order are well maintained on the coast, and no cases of immorality came to our ears. The Fourth of July saw us still ice-bound. We could easily walk ashore over the floe-ice; some of the’ floes were bigher than our vessel’s rail, it being next to impos- sible to force our boat through the too narrow “‘leads’ between the cakes. Our surroundings were thoroughly — arctic ; the harbor choked with ice-cakes, while the high, dreary cliffs, rising on every side, made the outlook so polar and frigid that only a live white bear in the fore- ground was needed to enhance the resemblance. This glorious day was celebrated by the imprisoned party as best they could. At nine o’clock in the morn- ing a salute was fired from twenty-four gun-barrels, the largest number we could muster. The exercises of the forenoon consisted of a prayer by Rev. Mr. Wasson, and an oration by a member of the legal profession, Mr. Ham, followed by the John Brown song. For our dinner we CELEBRATION OF THE FOURTH OF JULY. 149 had a fresh salmon and canned peas, excellent after- courses, washed down with champagne brought out with especial reference to the occasion by Mr. Phoenix. The evening was thick and foggy, and at sunset the American flag was again saluted and cheered, and the ship’s bell rung, due response being made by the people ashore and by ie crews of*the other vessels, while the captain of one of the Newfoundland vessels politely sent up rockets, Roman candles, and burned Drum- mond lights. The effect of the fire-works in the fog and mist, the glare reflected from the ice into the sky and upon the surrounding cliffs, the cheers and shouts, which were prolonged to after eleven o'clock at night, all made a scene, we venture to say, never before witnessed by Labradorians. Before dinner a party was equipped and armed to the teeth to go on land and look up a black bear which was seen ashore yesterday. I joined them with my insect-net. We pushed and shoved through the ice, at times haul- ing the boat over some refractory floe. A cloudy, misty day is anywhere unfavorable to insect life, but on this coast scarcely an insect is then to be seen, so I turned my attention to the tilts and jacks. A raccoon’s skin was shown us, and we were told that four or five years since two white-bear cubs were captured near here and carried into St. John’s, while a large white or ‘“ water bear” was shot last week up at Tub Island. This proved not to be a fish story, as Mr. Bradford afterwards secured there a good skin which was destined to adorn his New York studio on Tenth Street. A white bear’s skin with- out the head is worth more than that of a black bear, for which six dollars is asked. 150 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. The next two days were climatically repetitions of the Fourth, a light easterly wind holding the ice in the har- bor. Going ashore over the cakes, we spent the day in entomologizing, and here the first grasshopper occurred, found floating in the water of a pool; at first I thought it was a wingless form called Pezotettzx, from the short- ness of its wing-covers, but it’ proved to be an allied winged form; two other wingless specimens were the next day found on the hill-side ; a thousand-legs ( Fadus) also occurred under the leaves and sedges. The highest hill in sight from the deck of our vessel was measured by Captain Handy from sextant observa- tions, and found to be 397 feet above the harbor; a hill behind it rose to a height of over 400 feet; another higher hill, used as a lookout, was about 800 feet high ; the mountain across the bay must therefore be not less than 1,000 feet high, while those in the interior, near the head of the bay, seen from the lookout, were probably not less than 1,500 feet in height. Looking out to sea from this high elevation the ice was everywhere in view with leads between the floes, and here and there a vessel caught in them, besides two broad, massive bergs ap- parently forcing their way through the ice-field. On the top of this hill we were in a region of transported rocks, genuine ice-borne bowlders, which could be seen on all sides dotting the tops of the neighboring hills; they were of all sizes, an occasional rocking-stone among them ; one huge rock was nearly forty feet long and fifteen feet high. Many were overgrown and partly concealed by the matted growth of the curlew berry; bowlders are also seen scattered over the bottoms of the shallow ponds, and in the brooks and streams. They appear to FRESH-WATER SHELLS. 151 have travelled but a short distance from their native rock, as they are mostly large and angular, though some are well rounded. The hill-tops, as well as the sides, have been moulded by-ice, voches moutonées being as dis- tinctly marked here as in New England, and the ice must have moved from the north, a little west ; but owing to the weathering of the surface of the rocks in this severe climate, no grooves could here be found to determine the exact course of the ice.. The ranges of hills, however, and the longer diameter of the ice all have a N.E. and S.W. course, while the bays and fjords ran in a N.W. and S.E. direction, and this was the course in general taken by the land-ice. Going ashore again after dinner and following up the chain of lakes, I saw a prostrate canoe or paper birch a foot in diameter, and another one, also lying down, but smaller, only eight inches thick—good-sized trees for Labrador: also spruce trees ten inches through. In the ponds the cow-lily was just beginning to bud, though not yet reaching the surface; a little cyclas-like bivalve (Pistdium steenbuchic), hitherto only known to occur in Greenland, was common in the mud at the bottom of a brook, while a slug (Lzmax agrestis) was found ashore, under a stone, just laying its pellucid eggs; and in an- other brook was found a fresh-water sponge. A robin’s nest containing three eggs with young nearly ready to hatch was detected on the bough of a spruce, and it is most probable that this bird raises but a single brood of young on this coast. Under a hummock of moss and sedges lay concealed a dormouse’s nest. The curlew-berry was still in blossom, its flowers like those of the blue- berry, but of a beautiful pale purple. About the inner- 152 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. most lake were, besides spruce, balsam firs and larches, the latter six inches thick ; the Kad/mza glauca, or arctic laurel, as it may be called, was just beginning to flower. The 6th closed cold and damp: the northeast wind had packed the ice in our harbor thicker than ever, while the thermometer went down to 38° F. The fishermen, how- ever, managed to seine a few cod and herring. Uhe morning of the 7th was the coldest we had expe- rienced, as the ice formed around our vessel between the cakes of floe-ice. After a good deal of exertion a few of us managed, after much tugging and pushing and forcing the ice-cakes apart, to get ashore in a boat; but we had, on returning, to leave our boat ashore and walk back to the vessel. Here I found, my fingers numbed with the cold, the caterpillar of probably Arctza qguenselit on the larch, which also occurs on the Alps, the moun- tains of Norway, and in Greenland and Colorado. It was a truly mimetic or protective form, as‘on first sight it looked like a bunch of moss so common on these trees. At noon it began to rain, and a regular northeast storm set in. Through the next two days (the 8th and oth) we were still ice- and wind-bound, with cold, rainy weather. Sunday the roth was a repetition of the three preceding, although part of the day the wind was from the south- west. Ihe fishermen reported a fight outside of the harbor between a whale and a killer and sword-fish, in which the whale got worsted, turning exhausted upon his back. The night ended in rain, which continued through the next morning; the wind was at first south, then southwest, and at night again returned to its fa-_ vorite quarter, the northeast, with very cold weather. During the day there were some strange cloud effects, the oe ee aE THE COD-FISHERY. 153 higher belt of clouds moving from the southwest, while below the fog scudded in from the east. After supper a squall from the west struck us: this carried the ice off- shore some distance, but from the lookout we could see the ice-pack closely hugging the shore to the northward of our harbor, and we beheld a few icebergs, huge cubi- cal blocks, rising above the ice-pack. We hope to get out to-morrow, as several vessels have come in which left Henley Harbor on the day we did, and which have been ice-bound in Fox Harbor, just above us. The people complain of the lateness of the season: the ice holding so late and in such an immense and unusual quantity is, they say, ‘killing the cod-fishery.” We had found a few days previously what we supposed to be young capelin an inch long, with the tail still heter- ocercal, and they are now coming inshore to breed. This interesting little fish, so valuable as bait in fishing for cod, remains near the coast through the winter in deep water, and is often found in the bay. , The ice having-temporarily left the harbor, we could again dredge, and we had excellent success; the number and variety of marine animals, all purely arctic in type, being very pronounced. Here, more abundantly than elsewhere, ace in deep water, occurred large sea-anemones (JZetrzdzum marginatum) and gorgeous sea-pinks (Urteczna crasse- cornis), With slashes of red on a flesh-colored ground, and as beautifully painted as any carnation, besides shrimps with not less delicate flesh-red and vermilion tints. The colors of arctic marine animals are some- times pale and lifeless, but more often of rich salmon and flesh tints; passing into deep red. Why deep-sea forms 154 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. when highly colored are always of some shade of red is not yet well understood, but such is the case with holo- thurians, starfish, sandstars, crabs, and shrimps, as well as polyps and molluscs, whether living at the depth of 100 or 1,000 fathoms. This evening a trader came into port, which had been in eleven harbors since leaving us at Salmon Bay. The 12th was another of the long, long, weary days of the fortnight spent in watching and waiting for our release from this now detestable harbor, more like a rocky cage than a haven of rest. I went a-dredging and lost my dredge at the first haul on a rocky bottom, which added to the aggravations of the weather, and left but one other for the rest of the summer’s work. The bay was now full of capelin; cod were also be- ing netted as well as salmon, which is said to disappear from here about the 15th of August. Salmon, by the way, were here worth 4o cents apiece ; at Henley Harbor we paid fifty cents for one. The cod are now breeding, as the spawn is full and ripe, and their livers are poor and lean. Now the “stages” presented busy scenes, as there was a “‘spurt o’ fishing” ; one day seven quintals of cod were pitched out of the boats upon the wharf; here the men leave them, turning them.over to the tender mercies of their wives and sweethearts, and it is to be hoped that the gentler sex on this coast are not in other respects so fierce and sanguinary as when left alone with the cod. The “headers,” in petticoats tucked up so as to show their homespun stockings and stout shoes, their sleeves rolled up and in their hand a formidable knife, in an instant seize the cod’s lifeless corse, and with a dexterous stroke behead it; the body is thrown to the THE FLOE-ICE. 155 ” “utter ;’ the woman or maiden thus styled slits up the belly, tears out, like an augur of old, the entrails, but doesn’t stop to inspect them, throws the livers into a hogshead, and the disembowelled fish to the “splitter ;” another girl or woman grown, known by wearing a mit- ten on the left hand, who attacks the fish on the reverse side from the “gutter,” makes a deep cut along each side of the back-bone, dexterously but with her mittened sinistral hand shies that important part of the fish’s skeleton into the harbor, while the fish, after receiving this threefold treatment, is emphatically slapped into a sled-barrow and carried to the other end of the low shed to be salted, when it is ready for the flakes. While on shore we saw at one of the houses a musk- rat’s skin, which had a much better, finer fur than those at home. On the 12th the wind veered from the north to the northeast, and it lighted up so decidedly towards noon that we hoped to get to sea. After dinner, Mr. Brad- ford went out in the whale-boat to get a view of an ice- berg, which he sketched from afar off. It was sur- rounded by cakes of floe-ice, which assumed a wonderful individuality. One in particular impressed itself on my memory:: it wasa lily done in ice, which nodded and swayed to and fro in the gentle ocean swell like a veritable flower moved by a summer’s breeze; another was like a woman’s torso: and so passed in review a series of animal and plant-like forms of every conceiva- ble shape, while mingled with the white ice were smaller pieces of dark, colorless ice which may have been sev- ered from some arctic glacier. But before the artist’s study was fairly made, the insidious northeastern breeze 156 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. deployed afew skirmishers from the edge of the pack and soon brought the whole floe upon us. Down it came, borne by the wind and the Labrador current, at the rate of three or four miles an hour. It closed in at Cape Bluff to the north of us. We ran before the wind, soon leaving in the distance the twin bergs, with their myr- midons of the floe. On entering the tickle we found ourselves completely surrounded, well-nigh cut off from our harbor, but by dint of tacking and pushing the cakes to one side with our oars, and running over some smaller floes which gnashed and ground harshly on our boat's bottom, we got through just in time to escape being completely shut out. Not so, however, a boat’s crew which had hurried out to pull up their salmon - nets, and who did not appear until long after we had boarded our vessel. . Our box of a harbor was again jammed full of ice, eight vessels riding at their hawsers, all ice-bound. And now looking through the pellucid water between the cakes of ice, our old arctic friends the Mertensia and Clione, welled up from below, seeking the surface, as cold and calm as the ice itself. . As the sun went down the fog succeeded the ice; but it hung low, leaving the blue sky above us, screening our craft even from the shore and in part from the neighboring vessel. Before the twilight fell the rays of the sun, then an hour high, passing through the mist gave rise to a ‘“‘fog-eater,” a broad, diffused rainbow, which was dispelled as the moon rose and peered in over the sides of the screen of fog.. Among the late arrivals was a Newfoundland fishing- smack which had two crews aboard, and with them six ‘ ICEBERGS. 157 women, all unmarried, two of them mere girls, who lived in the same cabin with the men, but stowed away in dark holes and corners of the apartment. They were paid from £10 to £10, 7s. for the voyage of five months, or a little over a dollar a week, and their work was to “head,” “cut,” split, and salt the fish. Everything about the interior was forlorn, dirty, greasy, and not a soul aboard had apparently washed for weeks. We remained one more day in Square Island Harbor, the rath, which ended in a thunder-shower and a west- erly squall, which cleared the harbor of ice and gave promise of release from our two weeks’ imprisonment. It was warm and sultry in the forenoon, the westerly wind bringing in swarms of mosquitoes and black-flies, especially annoying while I was ashore beating the herb- age and bushes for insects. Om the rth we slipped out of our stone’ jus at Square Island, and with a mild southwest breeze, which freshened in the afternoon, we gaily picked our way through the ice and amongst the icebergs up the lane. between the shore and the ice-pack, now fairly shoved to the eastward some miles from land. At noon, after making about ten miles, we lay to near a superb marble- white berg, weather-, rain-, and wave-worn, broad at the base, indented by a deep bay, into which the sea-swell rushed and foamed. Wasson and Phoenix got out their boat and rowed around it; Bradford made studies in oil of its many phases, its blues so impossible to thoroughly catch, as well-as its ineffable purples. Another berg was like a huge block of city buildings, the foundations hun- dreds of feet beneath the waves; another was a huge 158 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. pyramid stranded near an island, and looked like a gla- cier descending its precipitous sides. As we go on through the watery lane huge floes swing off shore and are borne down past us by the strong Labrador current; the bays are still choked with ice which the southwest wind is forcing to the seaward. The ice is remarkably hummocky; worn into the most fantastic shapes. The coast has the same rude, broken, tossed, and disquieted appearance as about Square Island, but with more of the high conical sugar-loaf islands of Labradorite rock, such as we were now to see all the way to Hopedale. : At Seal Island the ‘‘Domino gneiss” of Lieber ap- pears, protected seaward by high islands intermixed with low gneiss ‘‘skiers,” and as we press on the shore becomes much lower, the coast-line straight and but little broken; but as we approach the Isle of Ponds the shore seaward becomes high and bold, perhaps 300 to 400 feet, with lofty sea-cliffs. These are formed by the dolerite or trap rock which has penetrated and over- flown the gneiss. The scenery of these trap overflows is quite novel. The seaward side of Spotted Island is of trap rock, and on the west the gneiss rock is low and very slowly slopes towards the channel which separates it from the Isle of Ponds; there are also two or three trap - islets which rise out of the water. Going ashore and as- cending one of the trap hills, perhaps the remnants of some old volcanic crater*which rises out of the sur- rounding gneiss, I can take a view of the whole island, see other trap hills rising cut of the gneiss plain, which is studded thickly with shallow pools and lakes sunk in the peat, and is low and flat compared with the coast ten DOMINO HARBOR. 159 miles to the south; while northward this low land or basin stretches away for several miles, while twenty or thirty miles inland the country rises into high hills and mountains, the highest summit rising perhaps 1,500 feet above the level of the sea. This range or group of peaks was probably the Mealy Mountains situated on the northern side of Sandwich Bay. The low plain before us evidently belonged to a dis- tinct geological system from any that we had yet seen ; it rested in a depression or basin of Laurentian gneiss, and was called by Lieber the ‘‘ Domino gneiss,” and ° probably belongs to the Upper Laurentian system. The plain is worn smoothly, and slopes gradually toward Domino Harbor; scattered over it are patches of large cobble-stones, which indicate that it was once a raised ocean-bottom, now at least 125 feet high, which reached to the base of the angular masses of trap rock capping the gneiss elevation. Strip off the scattered masses of matted growth of curlew-berry and cranberry, and the smooth, wave-worn, pebbly surface would seem as if but yesterday won from the dominion of the sea. Domino Harbor, or Domino Run, as it is called on the chart, is a broad, deep fissure which nearly divides the island in two, the shores vertical though not very high, with fishing-houses along the western side, under which were moored seven brigs with their sails ‘‘unbent,” the bare masts rising but slightly above the cliffs. Not a -tree or bush is to be seen in any direction, only low spreading masses of willow, belonging to two species: one of them just beginning to throw out its catkins ; the other, with small, acute glaucous leaves, had done flower- ing. Running over the leaves of the willow was an 160 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. arctic ground-beetle (Carabus groenlandicus), which had not before been found south of Greenland. Here was the best summer-house we had yet seen, well built and tolerably attractive ; two pleasant, wom- anly faces within, and a spaniel lying in front of the door. Captain Duff, the proprietor, had a spacious wharf or stage and a well-kept fish-house, while he had arranged the white quartz pebbles in an attractive way to form a drying-floor or flake, instead of using poles; and the walk from the stage to the house was neatly -made of short poles, forming a corduroy-path. Another toad was here seen, which some one had brought from the head of the bay; the man said that they were only known to be found here‘and in St. Michael’s Bay. .We also were told that a polar bear was killed here two months ago. We reached this harbor early in the afternoon, and some of the vessels which we had passed on the way after awhile came in and dropped their anchor near us; others sailed on all night, but gained nothing in the a We astonished the natives and fishermen as we sailed past their slower craft—of which we passed to-day about thirty ; some would ina flattering and good-natured way hold out a rope’s end, asking to be towed. They told us they had seen ninety sail that day in the sound lead- ing to the harbor. In dredging at the slight depth of only seven fathoms, to my great joy that interesting and hitherto purely polar holothurian (JZyrzotrochus een came up; with it were associated the short arctic mya (JZya truncata), the Iceland cockle (Cardzum tslandicum), the Greenland Aphrodite, the polar starfish (A s¢erzas polarzs), the inevi DUMPLIN HARBOR. 161 table knotted sandstar (Ophzoglypha nodosa), and other forms only previously recorded from Greenland. The evening was rarely beautiful for this coast ; the ice was out of sight, and the way seemed clear for a good run on the morrow. : The 16th proved all that we could have desired in point of wind, weather, and absence of Ice. A fresh but warm northwest wind, sometimes almost blowing a gale off-shore, bore us a distance of forty-five miles. The thermometer at nine o’clock was 64° F. inthe shade ; at ten o’clock 84° in the sun, and at one o'clock P.M. 73° in the shade. Our way led through a broad sound in- side of the outer islands, and then across the mouth of Sandwich Bay. At two p.m., however, our further ad- vance received a check. We had crossed the mouth of Sandwich Bay and were approaching the Horsechops on the north side of the entrance to the bay, when the wind drew in from the north and headed us off, so that we ran back to Dumplin Harbor. As we entered we nearly ran aground ; and then in trying to escape that disaster, we came near having a collision with a schooner’s stern on the other side of the narrow entrance. On this occasion our pilot, Captain French, nearly lost his head, and it has been my lot on several occasions to sail with pilots who lost their presence of mind at just the critical moment when their senses should be ready at an instant’s call. Thorough knowledge of the rocks, shoals, and headlands of a coast is not always united with the high- est order of executive ability ; but on the whole, no fault could be found with the management of our vessel ; she was a Wellfleet oysterman, built by Donald McKay ; her lines were beautiful, but she was not adapted for the 162 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. perils of this coast and of semi-arctic navigation. We pushed on cautiously and too slowly for the impatient company aboard, but we all reached home safely, and ran into no great danger. Within two hours after we had dropped our anchor a fleet of thirty-seven vessels of all descriptions—top-sail, fore-and-aft, and three-masted schooners, brigs and brig- antines, and hermaphrodite craft—were at anchor ina line ; they came in one after the other in single file, all having been headed off by the ice as we had been; and as they approached us, we, or rather our goodly vessel, was the recipient of admiring looks and complimentary ejac- ulations in Newfoundland dialect, the amount of room on deck and the cleanliness of our craft being the par- ticular points of remark: and there was somewhat of a contrast, which appealed feelingly to our nostrils when we returned their calls. In the hold of one vessel I was delighted to see the head and flippers of a veritable wal- rus. This wasalone needed to complete the experiences of arctic voyaging of the past three weeks. They found the creature, a young one twelve feet long with tusks ~ four inches in length, about fifty miles from shore near the entrance to the Strait of Belle Isle; it was found dead, having been harpooned, and had evidently floated down in the floe-ice from higher latitudes. An interesting feature of the day’s sail was the raised beaches which marked the former level of the ocean. Twelve very distinct ones were seen from the vessel while on her course. At Spotted Island were two low but very regular beaches, perhaps forty feet high. Ona small islet to the north, between two trap hills, was a beach which extended up toa height of perhaps from ERIS 5 HUNTINGION HARBOR. 163 150 to 200 feet above the sea, and divided into three ter- races, with very steep escarpments. On Stony Island, towards the east, was a small short beach between two trap hills, and a much higher one was on the northern side; on an island perhaps twenty-five miles north of Domino Harbor was a beach at least too feet high and facing west. Indeed it looked asif the entire coast and islands had just risen from the sea, while above the for- mer level of the ocean, when at its highest point, the hills were strewn with bowlders. We now passed larger banks of snow than had _ here- tofore been observed: one in Mullein Cove on the south side of Cape North appeared to be nearly a quarter of a mile long. Cape North is a bold headland, fully 4oo feet high, faced with rude, jagged trap rocks, and within composed of gneiss; and on the south side a low raised beach, with large trap islands opposite, called Greely Islands. We then pass Cape Noble, with its overhanging cliffs and a fine deep harbor; near it are ‘The Sisters,” two low, flat islands, one with a trap dyke passing through the middle, the other one half black trap rock, the vegetation on it of a bright green, clinging to the black debris of the volcanic rock. From this point we could again see the ice to the northeast moving out to sea. After passing Long Island head, which seemed to be of red syenite and about 4oo feet high, we sailed by Huntington Island, a noble mass of volcanic rock perhaps 500 feet high, with an evergreen growth seen in the bays indenting its shores. On the mainland a large fire was raging, probably set by the Indians; the sky to the westward and all about us was lurid with the smoke. Here also we felt 164 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. the full force of the Labrador current which hugs this shore, running at the rate of three knots an hour, its effects not much weakened by the outer islands. The water at the surface was perceptibly fresh, brought down by the rivers and streams emptying into these bays. Going ashore in our harbor (Dumplin) we found the beautiful dwarf arctic laurel (Kalmza glauca) just in flower; associated with it was a narrow-leaved Ledum in full bloom, and very distinct from the Labrador tea (Ledum latcfolcum), which was only just beginning to flower ; besides, it is more procumbent and lives on more exposed surfaces than the broad-leaved species. In one sheltered spot was a thick growth of spruce, mostly dwarfed, though one stump was seen to be thirteen inches in diameter. Dredging in four fathoms did not bring to light any novelties. On the north side of the island there was a good deal of ice. Before sunset the sky cleared in the west ; there wasa fresh westerly breeze through the night, and a good prospect. of a fair day on the morrow. Salmon trout were caught here, and the sea-trout are at places common enough ; but the shallow lakes do not abound in fish, although the deep lakes among the mountains of the interior were said by Davies, at the time he wrote, to be well stocked with them. Pike’s Harbor was three miles above us, and Tub Island was also in sight. From this point we could see the famous Mealy Mountain range, composed of lofty hills said by ex- plorers to be from 1,500 to 2,500 feet in height ; we judged their height to be not much less than 2,000 feet ; they are certainly considerably higher than the moun- tains of Mt. Desert, Maine, the highest peak of which is RAISED BEACHES. 165 1,500 feet. This range runs in a general northeast and southwest direction between Sandwich Bay and Hamil- ton Inlet, and it well deserves to be accurately measured and mapped. To the highest peak of this range we have given the name of Mt. Cabot, in honor of John and Sebastian Cabot. The position of Dumplin Harbor was ascertained by Captain Handy by reckoning from, observations.of the sun at noon to be in lat. 53° 48’; rons.; 56° 23%: The 17th was a fine day, with the wind from the south, sometimes hauling east ofsouth. Weran twenty- five miles across the mouth of Sandwich Bay to Tub Island, well known to the fisherman on the coast, and the farthest point reached by American fishermen ; it is high and steep, and so named for its resemblance to a tub ly-’ ing bottom-side up. Beyond this harbor the Labrador coast is the Ultima Thule of America ; and here the ser- vices of our coast-pilot, Captain French, were to be sup- plemented by native guides. We now had high expec- tations of making new discoveries in the entomology, marine zoology, and geology of the northern coast of this little-Known region. Tub Island was found to be in lat. 54° 12’, long. 56° 40’. One of the most remarkable headlands on the coast is the eastern end of Horsechops Island; a lofty basaltic cliff with a human profile, the nose distinctly Roman and the forehead retreating. On the north side of the island were three raised beaches, at least 100 feet high. Inshore the land was very high (the highest portion 398 feet by the chart), with the snow lying on it in extensive fields. A white bear was shot two years ago, on an island a 166 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. few miles south of Tub Island, under the following cir- cumstances : A man was walking along the shore with his little girl ; they separated ; she saw the bearand ran to her father; the bear also ran, and plunged into the water, where the man shot him. I was particular to inquire as to the occurrence of this animal, and from all I learned, it appears to be more or less of a permanent resident on the northern Labrador coast, though I at first supposed that it only occasionally strayed from the arctic regions ; it would seem as if its range overlapped that of the black bear, the two species being found in the same localities north of Belle Isle. We visited American Island, which is a little west of Tub Island, and colonized during the summer by a man named Williams; it is of light-colored gneiss, with ex- tensive broad trap dykes and irregular masses of the same volcanic material. Williams was distinguished from other of his countrymen by having married a full-blooded Eskimo-woman. They had no children of their own, but had adopted, strange to say, a mountaineer or Nas- kope Indian child. The poor thing had been ‘burnt ” by frost during the past winter, and still suffered from her exposure. On our way to the island we saw the fin of a killer projecting four or five feet above the water, moving rapidly to. and fro in a school of grampus, as if engaged in combat with the latter, which were recog- nized by their small fins, only a foot high, which some- times broke the surface of the sea. From Tub Island we could easily see the land twenty miles distant on the north shore of Groswater Bay or Hamilton Inlet, Tub Island being at the southern en- trance ; it is, however, forty miles across the mouth of SEA-FOWL. 167 this great inlet, the largest and deepest bay in the Coast," _ Unfortunately we did not go up Ivuctoke Bay, or Hamilton Inlet, as it is variously called, though well meriting a thorough exploration, since it is the largest and deepest fiord on the Labrador coast. Its general shape may be seen in the map of Eskimo Bay. The principal settlement is Rigolet, a Hudson Bay Com- — pany’s post. The ice-belt was reported “as thick enough to walk on’ afew miles to the westward, and the wind blew chilly and damp from that direction. Day before yesterday the floes were close in shore. Here we saw more sea- fowl than had been observed of. late, a few puffins, murres, guillemots, and a pair of eider-ducks. Years ago these bays swarmed with fowl, where now they are well-nigh deserted. In ‘Old Man’s bight,’ Captain French twelve years ago saw the wild goose in immense numbers. We did not see a goose upon the whole coast ; and now since they have been so closely hunted they are rare and shy. The captain again and again expressed his astonishment at the amount of ice upon this northern coast; he had never seen it before north of Belle Isle, and from all accounts it has been the coldest season, with the most floe-ice, experienced for nearly forty years. The cod had not ‘struck in” at this point yet; a few capelin had been seen, but the fishery had not yet begun, while last year long before this date there was “‘ plenty of fish.” This morning at Dumplin Harbor Mr. Mann caught a Chionobas differing very slightly from C. semzdea, but in Mr. Scudder’s opinion specifically different from that 168 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. species, whose only habitat then known was the summit of Mt. Washington. It has since been observed in the Rocky Mountains. Here also we found the beach-pea — (Lathyrus maritzmus) just flowering. July 18. We left Tub Island at 5 o’clock in the morn- ing, and crossing the mouth of Hamilton Inlet were obliged to put into Sloop Harbor, twenty-five miles dis- tant. The southwest wind freshened after dinner and blew off shore in the evening, but we were prevented from reaching Cape Webuc or Harrison by the ice, some of which floated about our vessel while at anchor. It was, however, waning; large cakes breaking into pieces with a report like a Palley of firearms. The northern shore of Groswater Bay— Hamilton or Ivuctoke Inlet, as it is variously called by the French, English, and Eskimo inhabitants—is in places very high and Fueeer owing to the presence of trap dykes and an- cient volcanic overflows capping the hills of gneiss. Huge dykes of the black rock ran in ruffled crests over the hills of pale, gneiss-like, huge black walls. ‘‘ Black and White” isa notable island, conico-pyramidal in form, the western end of black trap rock, the eastern end com- posed of the pale gneiss common on this part of the coast. There is a similar but less conspicuous and lower island to the eastward. One dyke in particular, seen just before entering Sloop Harbor, was of basaltic columns in horizontal, quite regular, prisms. The highest hills ap- peared to be about seven or eight hundred feet in height, though this may be too high an estimate ;* but owing to the great outbursts of black basalt capping the light * Cape Harrison is estimated on the chart to be 1,065 feet high. ‘“ BLACK-AND-WHITE ” ISLAND. 169 SSS ee = = — Northern Coast of Hamilton Inlet, four Miles distant, bearing EL. Coast near Indian Harbor. A, Indian Harbor. Coast hills, 500 to S800 feet high, on north side of Hamilton Inlet, bearing one mile north. ZA SS Cm ““White and Black” Island near Indian Harbor: a, black basalt; 6, whitish gneiss. Three trap dikes; 1, the top of ‘‘ Black and White”, Island forming the west- ern slope. 46, 6, white gneiss. Northern shore of Hamilton Inlet, the extreme point to the right. a, : , basalt; 4, white gneiss. gneiss hills, and running in ridges or forming great splashes on the face of the hills, and sometimes entire hills, like craters, the hills are transformed from what 170 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. would otherwise be quite tame elevations into high, bold, wild-looking peaks. We went into Indian Harbor, which is an island from ten to fifteen miles from the mainland, forming the northern side of the entrance to Hamilton Inlet, to find a pilot for Cape Harrison, but none could be found. Near here is Ice Tickle, where the ice is usually de- tained later than elsewhere. Around one high head the murres are very abundant ; it was evidently a favorite breeding-place for them; indeed all through the polar regions we imagine that these sea-fowl (murres, dovkies, sea-pigeons, and cuillemots) are somewhat local, breeding about certain high headlands and inaccessible crags and cliffs; while the puffins select points where they may burrow and mine in the crumbling rock. Around the head of this harbor, and especially well marked on the southwest side, is a noble beach at least 150 and most probably 200 fect high, lodged between two hills; its shingly surface was free from vegetation, and it looked as though the waves had receded from it but the night before ; it was divided into two steps or terraces, the lowermost perhaps about 50 feet above the harbor. It wasaconstant source of regret that there was no means at hand of accurately measuring the height of these beaches: not an aneroid barometer was aboard, and ES Soe Bi LEE => Z THE COAST BETWEEN CAPE HARRISON AND SLOOP HARBOR BEARING TEN MILES ; WEST. I was quite unprepared for their accurate study. Indeed almost no attention has been given to the subject of ancient sea-margins in the United States, the terraces of INDIAN HARBOR. 171i ‘the Great Lakes having been measured more accurately, since they are much more distinct than those on the coast. But on my return after this experience with Labrador raised beaches, it was easy to detect them in the vicinity of Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, and Boston, as well as on the Maine coast, though on the New England shores they are difficult to distinguish on account of the vegetable growth and forests which conceal them and prevent their ready recognition. Huge bowlders of syenite, some oval and very round, were scattered about on shore, the smaller ones well rounded by the waves, while the bottom of the harbor is paved with cobble-stones, as we ascertained by dredging. The summits of the hills surrounding the harbor were formed of a pale, whitish, foliated syenite, with scattered specks of hornblende, while lower down on the sides the rock was a very dark gneiss, slightly porphyritic. I found here a dwarf willow new to me, the flowers purple, of nearly the same tint as the flowers of the cloud-berry. A species of field-mouse, which we failed to capture, was common here, its nests lined with mouse-colored fur. The head of the harbor was said to be haunted by a ghost ; we did not attempt to secure it or to lay it, but a more substantial, though still a fleeting treasure, was the huge, glacier-like snow-banks in the vicinity of the haunted spot, which were perhaps 20 feet thick, very hard on the surface, and much soiled: too hard, per- haps, to retain even the traces of the footprints of a Lab- rador spirit—whose tread, judging by the average Labra- dorian, must have been a firm one. One of the banks appeared to have slidden into the water, and from its edge a miniature berg had broken off and was floating 172 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. away. So well marked were the ice-worn hills about us and elsewhere on this coast, that this snow-bank seemed but the dwarfed descendant of the great multitude of glaciers which had so recently filled the innumerable bays, fjords, and “tickles” of this coast. That this is not a mere fancy is shown by the following facts : Mr. Lieber, the geologist of the U. S. Coast Survey Eclipse expedition of 1860, which went near Cape Chid- ley, the point we hoped to reach, speaks of walking over a snow-bank on the flanks of Mt. Bache, which ‘‘ was a miniature glacier,” while ‘‘a regular moraine was piled up along its edges.” Captain Handy told me that on Savage Island, just north of Hudson's Strait, he saw in August ravines full of ice; and on Button Island as late as September 20 he found snow in the ravines. He called them glaciers, one patch of snow being five hun- dred feet long and two hundred feet broad. On Reso- lution Island, only one hundred and twenty miles north of Cape Chidley, he saw glaciers extending into the wa- er, from which small icebergs fell into the sea; and Captain Hall describes the Grinnell glacier on Meta Incognita, which was two miles long, and discharged icebergs into the sea. The next day the wind was against us, being north and very light. The day was warm and pleasant, but towards sundown cloudy, and as usual, as soon as the sun goes down it becomes cold and chilly. Though the floe- ice had now disappeared, a large number of bergs were to be seen outside slowly travelling down the coast, some of the smaller ones stranded a few miles from the shore. After this date, and beyond Cape Webuc, we were not troubled by the floe-ice; for weeks we had. TRANSPORTATION OF BOWLDERS BY FLOE-ICE. 173 watched the progress south of this enormous expanse of floating ice, the stream being not less than a thousand miles long and over a hundred miles in breadth, more or less interrupted, of course, by “leads” and cpen water. It will be remembered that in former years the “ float- ing-ice”” theory prevailed, geologists almost universally be- lieving that the polishing and grooving of the rocks and distribution of drift or diluvium were produced by floe-ice passing over the submerged land. This theory has been almost wholly abandoned, though south of the edge of the’ great continental glacier floating-ice may have trans- ported morainal material southward and dropped it over the Middle and Southern States. It was therefore with much interest that I watched day after day the effects upon the coast of such a mass of ice as beset us for a period of nearly a month in summer. This immense body of floating-ice, as we have elsewhere stated,* seemed directly to produce but little alteration in the appear- ance of the rocks on the coast; in fact, the only imme- diate effects of waves and shore-ice action were observed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence at Little Mecatina Island, where there is no true arctic floe-ice. At Domino Har- bor, as well as the harbor we were now in, the rocks had been disrupted, and the land descended in rock- terraces to the water’s edge, and to a point at least two hundredand fifty feet belowit. This singular appearance I attributed to the action of the ice-fort, or winter-ice, which has been well described by Dr. Kane. Now why should not the floe-ice while in motion along the shore’ have ground down the jagged and angular * Observations on the Glacial Phenomena of Labrador and Maine, Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, 1, pt. ii. Boston, 1867. 174 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. points presented to the ice-current? If our slightly- built vessel could navigate these ice-laden waters, lie in harbors filled with ice, and not even have the paint worn off her bull, how could she have escaped the least of all the tremendous effects which are by some theorists attributed to floating ice? Moreover, no bowlders or gravel or mud were seen upon any of the cakes of floe- ice, nor on any of the bergs, many of which were flat- topped, like ordinary cakes of floe-ice. If they had been thus laden, they had dropped all burdens of this nature nearer their birthplace in Davis Strait, or the re- gions farther north. The icebergs in nearly every case, when closely observed, bore evidence of having been re- peatedly overturned as they were borne along in the cur- rent, often with old water-lines presenting different an- gles to the present water-level. The floe-ice was hum- mocky, which is a strong proof of its having come from open straits in the polar regions, the cakes looking as if — they had been frozen and refrozen, jammed together, | and then piled atop of each other by currents and storms long before their advent upon this coast. The only dis- coloration noticed was probably caused by seals resting upon and soiling the surface. It should however be mentioned that one bowlder was said to have been seen by a member of our party upon an iceberg off Cape Webuc. Finally, as we shail see farther on, the few ice-marks and grooves detected by myself and others on the Lab- rador coast show plainly that the country was once cov- ered by land-ice, that it filled the bays and fjords, and moved into the sea at right angles to the course of the Labrador current, which flows parallel to the shore GLACIAL MARKS. 175 north of Belle Isle. Moreover, we would impress upon the mind of any lingering believer in the sole agency of floating-ice, that the surface of Greenland is covered with a glacier or rather a mer-de-glace, from which ice-streams press through the fjord into the sea, and that there are innumerable glaciers on the land-masses throughout the Arctic Ocean west of the Labrador peninsula, which are constantly grinding down, polishing, and grooving their rocky beds. Their work is perennial: that of the floe- ice is confined to the rocks at the shore of the sea, and there it virtually ends; the after effects of the floating- ice being so inconsiderable as not to rise to the dignity of a geological agency. And so there was a ceaseless charm and interest in the problems in geology, physical geography, and biology which suggested themselves to us, whether clambering over the hill-tops, shuffling over the shingly pebbly beaches, now raised hundreds of feet above the sea, or chasing the arctic butterflies and moths, or dredging polar starpoles and the innumerable marine forms peo- pling these waters. Life was monotonous enough to the others, as they felt bitterly disappointed at their failure to reach the higher Moravian stations and the promised headland of Chidley, from which we could look over Hudson’s Strait and the waters of the Greenland seas; but so far as I was concerned, the opportunity to study the glacial marks, the raised beaches, the insects, and other -life- forms, were so many crumbs of comfort to offset the general feeling of disappointment. It would be next to impossible to properly explore this coast in a single sea- son without a steamer and small steam launches for work 1 . 176 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. in the bays and fjords; thus independent of wind and ice, one could run outside and do in good weather deep- sea dredging, scrape the bottoms of the shallower bays and reaches, measure the raised beaches, geologize, botan- ize, and entomologize, and reach the better breeding- haunts of the water-fowl, and do something toward col- lecting the nests and eggs of land-birds. A well- equipped party in a steamer could, in four months spent on this coast, add vastly to what, on the whole, is perhaps the least-known portion of northern America. With the ample knowledge of polar life and nature we now possess as a basis of comparison, here is a most interest- 2 ing field of exploration for our rising naturalists; it - would at all events be an excellent training-school in physical geology and biology. This day was entirely devoted to insect-hunting, and I found myself in a new world so far as the insect fauna was concerned, many truly polar species abounding. The spiders were thoroughly arctic, dark, dull- colored creatures, occasionally venturing out from their retreats under the growth of curlew berry, or under stones; sim- ilar forms afterwards occurred to me in just such places on the summit of Mt. Washington, on Gray’s and Pike’s Peaks, showing that the Alpine summits of our mountains are but outliers, zrial islands, so to speak, detached zodgeographically from the frozen regions of the north. On a steep, southerly exposure of the harbor, where a long glacis sloped toward an angular precipice, which overhung patches of vegetation, between the worn and polished naked rocks of the shore, we started up a few butterflies and moths. To my genuine surprise and de- = eS es 4 4 y j i 4 ¢ 3 ARCTIC MOTHS AND BIRCHES. HLH light, there fluttered, half skipping and _ half-flying, over the lichened bowlders a butterfly I had never before seen, the high arctic bluet, (Polyommatus franklntz), heretofore only known to occur in the arctic world, and discovered by the naturalist of Franklin’s voyage. I also netted an Argynnis, not hitherto discovered so far south ; it was likewise a polar form. The moths were all arctic species, and when at rest so harmonized in color with the lichens and other vege- tation in which they nestled as to entirely deceive me. And yet what was the use of practising, even uncon- sciously to themselves, this deception? ‘The answer was not far off—there was a shore-lark, or some such bird, flitting about and running over the rocks, busily search- ing for just such moths as these, and the only hope of safety for the insects from their sharp eyes was in their resemblance to the lichens. The only tree seen here was the dwarf birch, Getula nana, those who have seen this Lilliputian tree on the summit of Mt. Washington will well remember its humble stature and little round leaves. No tree per- haps ever underwent greater modification by climate than did the ancestor of this species, and we cannot well doubt but that all these dwarf arctic trees and shrubs, so closely allied to their congeners in the north temperate zone, only escaped utter extinction by adapting them- slvees to the extremes of their arctic surroundings. It will be remembered that the oak, gum, and tulip tree, the sassafras and maple, the cypress and sequoia, once flourished in what is now Greenland in growths as luxu- riant as the forests of the Gulf States. When the ice- period was ushered in, and climate and other circum- 178 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. stances changed the inhabitants of that tertiary polar land, of which Greenland and Spitzbergen are the rem- nants, they were either entirely effaced, or emigrated southward, becoming the ancestors of our American plants and animals, or, as in the case of a few forms, maintained their ground but changed into the present arctic animals and plants. The afternoon was spent on the opposite side of the harbor, where there is an ancient sea-beach at least two hundred feet high, with four terraces, well defined by the windrows of pebbles left by the retreating waves— how many thousand years ago, a wise man would hardly dare to guess. On the two lower terraces the willows grew in irregular rounded patches; there were two spe- cies, one growing to a foot in height, their tops of the same length, as if clipped off with scissors; the other species was still more prone, creeping low in the rein- deer moss and curlew-berry, or spreading vine-like over the rocks. Their catkins were being investigated by bumble-bees of two kinds, one or both truly polar. During the 20th a cold northeast wind blew; the har-_ - bor was open to the wind and sea, so that our vessel was pitching through the livelong day, making everybody's headache, and sending nearly all to their bunks to sleep through the discomfort. No ice, however, was brought in by the wind, which showed that the coast was clear whenever the wind should be fair. The icebergs, how- ever, are seen marching ceaselessly down the coast at a distance of ten or fifteen miles out at sea. The wind and swell did not prevent the fishermen - from seining for capelin, so essential as bait in fish- ing for cod. When the seine is hauled the fish are COD AND CAPELIN. 179 bailed out with scoop-nets. At such times these active little fish throw off from their gleaming sides all the colors of the rainbow. The cod were seen through _ the transparent water hovering about the outskirts of the school, snapping at any which became separated from their fellows, and following them so near the boats that the men would drive them away with their boat-- hooks. After capturing one school, they would row about near shore on the watch for another. The seine- boats differ from others in being narrow and long, from twenty-five to twenty-seven feet in length. We here saw specimens of a variety of cod, called “ duffy,’ which may be the same as Professor Wyman’s “bull-dog cod.” Its head is blunter, the under-jaw is shorter, while the fish is darker than ordinary cod; the fishermen pronounce them “no good;”’ it is possible that such as are taken are simply deformed individuals of the common species. We found, however, that at Hopedale these fish were comparatively common, and taken with the gig by the Eskimo. We left Sloop Harbor early in the morning of the 21st with a light easterly breeze, but we made only five or six miles, playing about the icebergs nearly half the day. The gigantic steps or terraces carved by the shore- ice out.of the lofty rocky shore of the islands about here were very remarkable, especially when we saw them in sections. We counted some thirty bergs to- day. While Mr. Bradford was industriously painting them, a party of us went in a boat to Tinker Island, a lofty rock far out to sea, its sides sheer precipices, whose bases were washed by the ceaseless Atlantic swell; a yawning chasm nearly divides the island in 180 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. two, and by entering the fissure we could effect a land- ing, and climb up to the heights above. The rock and all its belongings, with the sea-fowls flying about or sit- ting by thousands on the projecting shelves, reminded us of the pictures, so familiar in childhood, of similar scenes in the Orkney. and Shetland Islandey ine tinkers and murres breeding here were in immense numbers, the females on the rock shelves, and their con- sorts resting on the waves, or flying overhead to the leeward. This island was situated several miles from TINKER ISLAND, BEARING TWO TO THREE MILES WEST. land, remote from other islands, and consisted of a hard, - coarse-grained granite, the feldspar predominating and of two kinds—one flesh-colored orthoclase, the other smoky labradorite ; it was weathered into regular steps and shelves, and huge blocks had been detached by the frost, the angles having been rounded by the weather ; near the water's edge the waves had worn it into smooth declivities. The east wind blew chill from the direction of the ice-pack, which could be seen a few miles off en- closing a number of large bergs. The pools of water on the higher portions of the island were inhabited by case-worms, and it was evident, by the feathers at the bottom,that the murres used them as wash-basins. Ina deep, narrow chink between the rocks I found a murre’s egg, while the tunnels made by the puffins wound through the scanty soil. I started up a blue fox, which was running toward me with a murre’s egg in his mouth ; 7 ae CAPE WEBUC. 181 on my throwing a stone at him he dropped his egg and scampered off. I hallooed for nearly ten minutes for some one with a gun to come and shoot him, and kept him in sight ; with more of curiosity than fear he would stop at intervals to look at me, keeping a safe distance off and barking, until he disappeared. Soon Mr. Was- son came up; we pursued finding him on the other side of the island with another egg in his mouth. Mr. Was- son gave him his death-wound, though he ran some distance with the egg between his teeth before he dropped dead. His flanks and belly were white, the rest of a slate-blue color, his legs very long, and tail long though not very bushy ; the more remarkable features were his short, rounded ears, as if cropped. Mr. Wasson also shot a Labradorian falcon, which Professor Baird afterward wrote him he thought might be an immature stage of Falco candicans. On this exposed spot the cloud-berry had nearly done flowering ; the cochlearia, growing from two to six inches high, was in bloom, while a pretty, gentian-like flower was found here which was not observed elsewhere. We laid to all the short night, as Mr. Bradford wanted to paint icebergs, getting up at three the next morning to secure some noble ones. Then we soon ran down and doubled Cape Webuc or Harrison, which is a lofty eneiss headland, faced with syenite, its northern face seamed with vertical trap dykes with an N.E. and S.W. direction. Ragged Island now bears N.N.W., and, as its name implies, is exceedingly rough and jagged, and evidently composed of syenite, as are nearly all these headlands, being probably outflows of crystalline rocks capping the Laurentian gneiss. We next came 182 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. in sight of high rounded mountains near the shore, which appear to be not less than twelve hundred feet high; far back of them were several peaks, which rose above a mass of clouds partly enveloping them, and seemed to rise five or six thousand feet into the heavens. The highest peak is Mt. Misery, and. Captain French MOUNT MISERY, OR ALLAGAIGAI, 2,170 FEET, DUE W. OF CAPE HARRISON BY CHART. says that in clear weather the group seems:very near when viewed from the southern side of Hamilton Inlet. I do not doubt-but that this peak, which was obscured by clouds for two days after, was not less than two thou- sand feet high.* The view of this mountain, so trans- formed by the clouds hovering just below its peak, was the grandest coast view of the voyage. Towards the end of the day we ran into Stag Bay, some twenty miles north of Cape Harrison, after a pilot. Dredging in this harbor at the depth of ten fathoms was not very fruitful, except in some fine varieties or species of the very variable genus, Astarée, including A. baxkszz and A. compressa, and a Gammarus new to me. The harbors on the Atlantic coast of Labrador have rather barren rocky bottoms; sea-weeds are scanty, the shores are so steep; and there are so few large streams emptying into the bays, that no sediments are carried down from the ‘land to form muddy or sandy bottoms. If the floating-ice theory were true, we should have expected * My guess I found to be a good one, as I find Mt. Misery is put down in the chart under the name of Allagaivaivik, with a height of 2,170 feet. ‘at SHORE-COLLECTING. 183 to find plenty of sediments borne from the polar seas: hence the absence of such submarine deposits in these protected harbors, as well as out to sea, so far as we could learn,—which, however, are choked with ice during June and July,—is a significant fact. When we lay out- side we were never becalmed, or saw the time.when we could get a chance to dredge over the vessel’s side: and as we have already said, such work can only be thoroughly done by a well-equipped steamer. ° Since leaving the Strait of Belle Isle there has been little chance of collecting the littoral species; indeed, that broad stretch of shore and flats between high and low water mark, which is so characteristic of the Nova Scotia and New England shores, is here well-nigh abol- ished ; the tides rise and fall not much over four, or at the most five or six feet, while the rocks plunge directly into the sea, and there is only a narrow border of fucus hanging sparsely from the rocks, between tide-marks, with little life.—indeed, the only species I noticed be- ing the common shore-snail, Lz¢torzma raudzs, and the little amphipod crustacean, Gammarus mutatus, ‘The same poverty of littoral animals obtains on the Green- land shores, and it may be thus readily understood why the starving members of the Greeley party could find nothing to eat along shore but scattered sea-weed and “shrimps,” the latter undoubtedly the Gammarus muta- zZus, which is common on the shores of the polar seas. The best spots to dredge are the patches of shelly bot- toms situated in eddies at the inner end of a “tickle” leading out from a deep harbor, where the tides and currents have no power; for where the dead shells are gathered, the living ones are mixed with them. 184 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. The whole of the 23d, which was cloudy and rainy, was spent in search of a pilot for Hopedale. A boat’s crew, myself included, rowed some seven or eight miles. to Roger’s Harbor, where in a quiet basin connected with the sea by two narrow “tickles,” were about fif- teen vessels—schooners and barks. We went aboard one, and it was indescribably filthy, above and below ; from the cabin arose a dreadful stench; the women aboard, with one exception, harmonized in point of per- sonal appearance with their surroundings. We asked for a little saleratus, and were kindly given some made ' from the spruce. This island is of syenite, its feldspar flesh-colored, and the shore is in its scenic features like that of the rocks at Nahant or Mt. Desert, with a few small beaches, the slopes leading down to them of an intense green. The cod had not yet “‘ put in.” Last year on the 26th they took a hundred quintals the first day they appeared. The fishermen talk discouragingly of this year’s pros- pects, and seem to be pushing “up to the) mer agan, more rapidly than usual. In fact, for three years New- foundland fishermen have gone for fish beyond the Moravian settlement of Nain. Add to the lack of cod- fish, the failure of the spring’s “‘swile,” ‘“sile,” or seal. fishery, and they were doomed to fare pretty hard that winter. | We found we had not gone far enough to find Tom Bloomfield,* the man we were in search of, but were near the house of Cole, a half-breed, part Englishman, and part Eskimo, with an Eskimo wife and half-breed * See 21 on the map of Eskimo Bay. Cole’s house is 22. EXTINCTION OF THE ESKIMO. 185 children. The captain rowed over, and by the merest good luck found young Cole, who agreed to pilot our vessel up to Strawberry Harbor, twenty-five miles dis- tant, where there were said to be two Eskimos who would be glad to show us the way from there to Hope- dale, since they were desirous of going there, but had no boat, and would otherwise have to wait until the autumn. Never shall 1 forget the grandeur, the utter desolation, and the purple glories of the sky and shore as we rowed back that evening down Stag Bay, which is a wide sound, bordered with lofty terraced hills, the last rays of © the setting sun lighting up the heights of the Webuc Range, as we may term it, up whose slopes gradually rose the purplish tints ushering in the darker shades of the twilight. | Young Cole came aboard the vessel in the evening after we had returned, in a large jack, which was decked over; it had a small punt on it, beside his wife and child, upon whom he depends to help him row back should we be fortunate enough to reach Strawberry Harbor by noon. It seems that there were formerly a few Eskimos living in this region, but they have died off rapidly within a few years past. They had gone with the eiders, the geese, and the sea-fowl, the walrus and the fish; their game and their race had been banished, like them, to the arctic regions. Our pilot, Captain French, said that there was now but one Eskimo where there used to be twenty. Their disappearance here seems due partly to natural causes, to the absence of abundant game and birds, and partly to contact with the civilization of this 186 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR, coast, unless their close winter houses induce chest troubles : any other diseases are unknown. But what- ‘ever may have been the cause, they are rapidly melting away, disappearing by entire families. They have prob- ably faded away before the Nascopi Indians, who are ‘better armed, and their permanence at Hopedale and northward may be due to the absence of the red Indians from that part of the coast. But the Innuit or Eskimo is a doomed race. Whether they are the remnants of the paleeolithic race (which good authorities doubt) and for- merly ranged over northern Europe during the earlier stone age, and extended in America as far south as the border of the great continential glaciers, and were a few centuries ago driven northward by the red Indians, is a problem ; but probably long before the red man entirely disappears, the Eskimo will be represented by but a few thousands in the high northern regions. Cole was not much inclined to leave home, as tite salmon were just about striking in ; and, as he said, they only remained three or four days, and he might lose them, since only his father, who, as we understood, also had an Eskimo wife, would have to attend to the nets single, or rather—as his better Eskimo half would work man-fashion with him—double-handed. At the mouth of the stream where they lived were several huts tenanted by salmon fishers. About them lounged a number of full-blooded Eskimo dogs, which are quite superfluous in summer, but useful in winter, when they can draw sledges at the rate of a hundred miles a day should the travelling be good. The early morning of the 24th of July found us with our pilot aboard ready to start for Strawberry Harbor; but GAME. 187 there was a dead calm. However, at about 10 o'clock a north wind sprang up, so that we put to sea and sailed until within eight miles of Strawberry Harbor, when it blew hard and became too thick to run farther; so we put back three miles and ran under a lee-shore, where the northeast wind blew a cold, fierce gale, with fog and rain. Our vessel dragged her anchor, which was down at a depth of twenty fathoms, so that the larger one was dropped down, making ninety fathoms of cable to haul in on the morrow. . Our pilot wasa very intelligent half-breed who could read and write, his wife also a half-breed Eskimo. He said that the ice had only cleared off the previous week, and up to that time since March they have steadily had in Stag Bay cold easterly and northeasterly winds. Near where we anchored was Cole’s brother, who had built himself a new house. Yesterday he took six and to-day eight salmon in his nets, which were stretched across the mouth of a little brook. He shot eleven deer ‘during the winter, one of them sufficient to supply the family with food for two weeks. They had plenty of deer and other game when too late in the season for obtaining fur ; he predicted an abundant supply of game during the coming autumn. We will give his statement regarding the varieties of foxes here, which may be taken for what it is worth. There are four varieties of foxes which he said crossed among themselves, i.e., the red and white, which are the two most common ones; then the patch fox, which is blue with red on the rump, and the black fox. Whether the red and white or arctic fox interbreed we do not know; the blue fox is undoubtedly the white fox in its summer pelage; the short ears and long tail 188 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. sufficiently distinguish the arctic fox and its varieties from the red or Virginian species. They had never seen the walrus about here. ‘The spruce-trees up in the interior are quite large, Cole said, some of them reaching a diameter of thirty inches at the butt; but the birches are small, none large enough to make canoes. Of the red Indians of the interior but little could be learned. The reader will find the best account of them in Hind’s Labrador, while the subjoined extract will convey some idea of the Labrador Indians as they were.* *<* As for the interior parts of the Labrodore, it is wholy occupied by the northern Indians before taken notice of, who live and depend mostly on fish and deers flesh; woolves, foxes and otters, affords cloathing; and as these are to be had by traps, and guns, and other contrivances, their necessities nor ambition dont prompt them to desire many things from us: our twine, fish- hooks, ice chizzels, ketles, and small wares, make up the ultimate of their wants. As for guns, powder, and shott, their are numbers of them don’t know their use. The moulted fowls at proper seasons, and what else may be had with the bow and arrow, procure enough for change of dyett, who live in great plenty other- wise, do reduce these peoples wants into a narrow compass. ‘“«The skirts and borders of Labrodore are hilly and mountainous on every side (a small part excepted); but the interior parts is covered with lakes and morassis to a wide extent, which affords an easy communication into all our principal rivers; but as above, these people have their food and rayment on so easy terms, that hardly one in twenty have ever taken the trouble to go to ours, or any of the French setlements. Indolence and idleness has a good share in this indifference: but surely tis a mark of great wisdom in them. ‘* However, those few that has frequented the setlements, begin to like our commodities better; their women like our nicknacks and guegaws, and the men begin to love brandy, bread, and tobacco, so that a little address and manage- ment will bring these happy drones out of this profound lethargy. You'll say these people would, from their manner of life, have increased faster than the other indians; but the reason I-gave before has, in some measure, prevented them; and now it will be a good motive to apply themselves in earnest to the use and defence of the gun, who, by the aid and convenience of our setlement at Richmond Fort, will be enabled to keepin a body, and repell force by force,,. without being divided, or under a necessity to travell a great distance from their familys, by having all those things brought to their own doors. “All the hilly and mountainous parts of Labrodore are occupied by the Usquemews, from the bay of Saint Lawrence on the southern, eastern, and THE MOUNTAINEER INDIANS. | 189 They are called Montaignais by the French Canadians, Mountaineers by the English, but referred to the Nas- copi tribe by the more intelligent of the latter. The tribe is a branch of the Algonkin stock, and is the only tribe known to inhabit the Labrador peninsula. ‘They are more commonly met with at Rigolet, the trading port of the Hudson Bay Company up the Hamilton In- let (Aivektok Bay); they are also described by Hind, who encountered them at the mouth of the Moisie River, which empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Along this part of the coast they are rapidly diminishing : last winter many of them starved to death—several hundred, according to Cole’s statement.* It now appeared that the large fire, the smoke of which we saw before reach- ing Dumplin Harbor, was from an area of over forty square miles situated back of where we were lying at anchor, and it burnt up some of the traps belonging to northern borders, and all along the east main.to 56° and 57° latitude, and on all the islands adjacent, who are the seamen and fishermen on salt waters, as those are on inland lakes and fresh water rivers. Both one and other getts great , quantities of deer; but whales, seels, and sea-horses, are the principle support of the Usquemews; wether these retreat and retire to any distance from the sea- side uppon the approach of winter, or are wearid with their long summer day, and creep into their winters cave to rest, this is certain, we never saw but once or twice a single Usquemew in many years experience in the homeward bound passage, altho we have been detained by contrary winds at all their haunts. ‘‘The interior parts of Labrodore affords good shelter, and woods plenty for the northern Indians, who dress their victuals as we do; and dry’d fish supply the want of bread; they are very nasty in their persons, as all the Indians are; but not offensive in their filth, as the Usquemews.” (Coat’s Geography of Hudson’s Bay, pp. 88-90.) * ** Returns of the Hudson Bay Company show that about 4,000 Indians frequent the company’s posts throughout the whole of Labrador; and this ac- count probably includes nearly their whole strength; nineteen twentieths of them are nominally Roman Catholics.’ (Encyclopedia Brittanica, article Labrador.) Undoubtedly since this count was*made their number has con- siderably diminished. 190 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. Cole’s brother. The fire was ascribed to Indians, who probably set the woods in a blaze to drive out the game ; it was preceded by two unusually warm and dry days, at the time when the wind turned westerly and we were let out from our prison at Square Island. The icebergs were still neighborly, two large ones in the offing, one like a church steeple, the body submerged beneath the waves, while the other suggested the form of a huge squirrel sitting on his haunches with his tail over his back. According to Cole the snow and ice clears off from the coast at this point about the 2oth of June; at least that is the date when he leaves his winter house for his residence on shore ; the first of October, when the snow begins to fall, he moves back into the interior. The early part of the next day it stormed, blowing almost a gale from the north, with heavy rain ; we still held on to our rather exposed anchorage under a high point of land; not the least bight or indentation near at hand for harborage. In the afternoon the weather moderating, we got under way, and reached Strawberry Harbor at ten o’clock in the evening. On our way here we were boarded by an Eskimo in his kayak, who had been living in this bay during the summer. We first caught sight of the little craft two or three miles astern. It looked as it came up, bows on, like a large puffin sitting on the waves ; soon we could see the paddle describing a trajectory such as the wings of a puffin might make, and eventually we could recognize the human apart from the kayak, though an Eskimo seems an integral portion of his kayak,—one as human as the other. We throw over a rope, the kayak disgorges the Eskimo, the latter a v : STRAWBERRY HARBOR. IQIt deftly climbs up over the rail hand-over-hand, and then we take aboard the kayak. _ Whether the little box of a harbor we swung in was called Strawberry* because it was but little larger than that berry, history does not record; but it was the queer- est of the queer. harbors we had entered, and by this time the monotony of leaving one harbor in the morn- ing and entering its counterfeit presentment the same evening had been a matter of remark by the grumblers aboard. There was not room enough to swing by our cable, so we made fast to the rocks ashore, which rose in cliffs reaching nearly to our topmasts. Another ves- sel shared these narrow quarters with us. She had had tolerably good luck in fishing, her hole being packed two or three feet deep with codfish. Deep and seemingly inaccessible to outside life as Strawberry Harbor promised to be, the next day, which was nearly calm and sunny, with a little breeze from the east, the mosquitoes, swarming from land and peering over into our den, swooped down upon us and made life miserable. Ashore with my insect-net, they fairly drove me off the hunting-ground, which proved to be richer in arctic insect life than any yet experienced. So with the plants, showing that this spot was warmer and more protected than any harbor we had visited for the past two weeks. In the gulches and ravines the mountain-ash, alder, and willows grew to the enormous. height of three feet ; the white spruce-trees were perhaps twenty-five feet high and one foot in diameter near the ground. Thisspecies of Abies, called in Maine the “cat” * This harbor is very near Ford’s Bight or Nisbet’s Harbor, and about ten miles from Anderson’s house, 16 on the map of Eskimo Bay. 192 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. or “skunk spruce,” from its peculiar odor, is a more hardy tree than the black spruce and grows farther north. We have seen it growing luxuriously in Aroos- took County, Maine, but it is rarely found farther south than Mt. Desert. Violets were in bloom, and one or two were new to me; Ledum palustre was now out of flower, while the Labrador tea (Ledum latcfolium) was still in blossom, as were the bunch-berry, the mountain- ‘trident, and the golden-thread; Aalmza glauca was nearly done flowering, and the green fruit of the curlew- berry was of full size ; evidently the short Labrador sum- mer of six weeks had come. The rocks about us were syenitic, with numerous thin trap dykes, both vertical and horizontal; some of them had weathered away, leaving deep vertical fissures ; where the horizontal dykes had disappeared, great blocks of syenite had fallen down, giving a dismantled appearance to the shore. The south side of the harbor ran in rock- terraced heights to an elevation of nearly five hundred feet, the huge rocky shelves falling away seaward as if laid and smoothed with cyclopean hands. Climbing about over these hills was almost impossible; streams rushed foaming down the ravines, some in sight, others only known by their rumbling, stifled roar under the bowlders concealing their bed. We learned that some Eskimos were spending the summer on an island hard by, and we tried to get one to pilot us to Hopedale, but were unsuccessful. Land- ing on another flat islet near by, where this or some other Eskimo, with perhaps his family, had been sum- mering in his tent or tepic of seal-skins, as evidenced by the circle of stones used to weigh down the bottom of SALMON. 193 the tepic; the marks of his temporary sojourn were in- dubitable, as witnessed by the stones which had been used to prop up his tent, the feathers and bones of sea- fowl he had shot or snared, and by the scattered seal bones and skins and other unmistakable signs of Eskimo occupancy and of Eskimo personal uncleanliness. July 27th and 28th we had a severe gale from the north, with snow and rain. All through the day the poor women on the other vessel had to do their cooking on deck without shelter. On the 28th the thermometer went down to 34° F., and we had nearly two inches of snow on our deck, while on the hills above us were drifts a foot deep which lasted for a day or two, as meas- ured by Mr. Willis, who explored on the following day the heights above us, and reported tracks of foxes in the snow. Two deer were also seen by some fishermen. On the 29th it cleared off, and at sunset the wind changed to the west. At last we picked up an Eskimo pilot for Hopedale. He had been partly educated, and was living with a Norwegian who had been on the coast for eleven years, during seven of which he was in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company, his pay being fifty dollars a year. He brought us two salmon of a species I had not before seen, and which proved to be Salmo tmmaculatus of Storer. | He nets more of these, which he calls salmon trout, than of the true salmon, fishing for them with a twenty- foot net. The salmon come in usually on the 22d of July, and continue to run up the streams until about the 20th of August. The ‘salmon trout” is found nearer shore, while the large true salmon is more abundant at the mouth of the bay than ten miles inland, where our 194 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. Norwegian friend lived. He heard to-day, as he re- marked to us,a wolf howling, and supposed it had killed a deer, as ‘after feeding upon one they usually begin to howl.” During the winter he shot fifteen deer, enough for the winter’s supply of fresh meat. We found here fresh traces of the polar bear, an Englishman, named Tom Oliver, having shot a small one last winter. Part of this day was spent ashore, and on the side of a deep ravine we recognized an old acquaintance in a low white golden-rod like a familiar White Mountain species. The star-flower (77zentalzs americana), also a dwarfed yarrow (J/zllefol’um) and an Andromeda were seen to-day in addition to the flowers we picked before the storm; also a dandelion-like flower. More land shells (including the slug, Lzmax agrestis) were found here than at any other point we visited; they occurred under spruce bark and chips in the damp verdure: all of them (Pupa hoppit, Flelox fabreer, and Vi trina angelwce) were Greenland shells, never before found south of that arctic land, and this fact bears witness to the interesting intermingling of Greenland life, animal and plant, with the Canadian or boreal forms indigenous in the forest- clad interior. There are in Labrador two climates, the arctic on the coast, the boreal or north-temperate in the interior. The Greenland and arctic forms occurring on the coast are the remnants of the glacial or arctic flora which were formerly spread over the entire territory of British America, New England, and the northern cen- tral United States during the supremacy of the ice, and which were, so to speak, pushed out to sea by the migra- tion northward of the temperate forms, only retaining their hold on the treeless and exposed islands and _ head- a. =: TANS ili bi IANS EFAS lite uy? ltitze der joeiss: 2B. Jacques 12. APercals 13. WCauce.Ps 2. ToknFardsye 8. Sohn fane | Edo. Mitel 2 JohnTiecd WBromidd A ~ Lucsy - GLlyall » of. Gaudy 75, RL abeo 18. Sob2 4 HBO. Scom 76. Tostatndersen. iT, J. Thomas 79. J. Brondield 10. HBA fom Goer 04. am TGD er se LABRADOR Atvekt6k od. Eskimo Bay 1873. 10 2a Engl Melenn, $Jéss. Stat. § Hamdels Station. S \ , GAY S€ Wey: ol AWfa\ a WW) : ; MWY h 5 (Z PN IE ad ee SCIIIVIA\s Wald t Willizas= \ ARRON wary SET Ge RT ak \ @ Ss A\ Fy Wii In di aner Ansiedler und -Sakinne 2am Bromfield HA. CS Loyd ree ja 22. rank Cove 32. SMa Agenbot lope 23.AVesheor 39. ChE Oto Norman 245 Tuktusuw Bh. Aside 25 SobuMikUisuna 3 6 Plomer em HB=, 26. Waxkuse 86, Jos.Ohaen =u 27.Tom Houlleé SY, G.Klowenigre 28.I. alla S58, TRE Groves: smn 29.B. Write 20.Dam Oliver \? Oe a ES MAP OF THE COAST OF NORTHERN LaBrapor, (Atter Reichel.) To face page 194. THE COAST NEAR HOPEDALE. 195 lands of this coast, which in nearly all respects are arc- tic and circumpolar, though Hopedale is in the latitude of Dublin. Another Greenland shell, a little fresh-water bivalve (Pistdium steenbuchiz) not before known to live south of Greenland, was common in the pools, from which Were arising caddis-flies and an Ephemera. A worker bumble-bee was also seen here for the first time, not- withstanding the cold weather of the past few days. Here were again to be observed the signs of the for- mer depression of land which marked the height of the Leda-clay epoch (the Champlain epoch of the books) ; beaches at least 100 feet high, with two terraces, the lower one from fifteen to twenty feet above the sea-level. The afternoon of July 30th saw us safe in the harbor of Hopedale. A fresh, fair, west wind blowing all night let us out of our snug little haven at Strawberry. Our pilot simply knew the way to Hopedale, and some of the more dangerous rocks along our course. The wind was so fresh that our cautious captain took two reefs in the mainsail, but it only blew strongly out of the bay, being an off-shore wind, and the force of the breeze di- minished sensibly as we went out to sea. The mountains and hills around our harbor and perhaps for a distance of ten miles northward, some of them 800 and 1,000 feet high, were spotted with snow, the remnants of the past storm. As we approached within twenty miles of Hopedale, the outer islands at the mouth of Kippokok Bay were seen to be more or less hummocky, some of them high and rounded, evidently composed of the lab- radoritic syenite, while the mainland at the head of the bays was of Laurentian gneiss. Still as we advance 196 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. northward the whole country, or at least the coast, grad- ually rises higher above the sea, which made me more than ever anxious to see how it culminated in the wild, crater-shaped, snow-streaked lofty mountains near Cape Chidley ; but it was not to be our good fortune to reach that promised land. CEVA TE Rx A SUMMER'S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. | IV. HOPEDALE AND THE ESKIMO. * AsoutT an hour before we reached Hopedale, we passed a high sugar-loaf-shaped island, ‘‘The Beacon,” with four well-marked terraces carved by the weather or shore-ice when the sea. stood at different levels in the ages gone by, asthe land halted in its upward rise. This x \y WK ee y AB ROCK TERRACES ON ‘‘ THE BEACON,” 700 FEET ELEVATION, NEAR HOPEDALE, was the landmark for the Moravian vessels from London, and by boiling water on the summit it had been ascer- tained to rise 700 feet above the sea. The rock was evi- dently that variety of syenite containing labradorite and green hornblende. In the interior a few miles distant was to be seen a high elevation, broad and massive at the base, but conical or nipple-shaped at the summit, and rising perhaps 1,500 feet above the sea. As we entered, on a Saturday afternoon, the harbor of Hopedale, which is situated at the head of a deep, ; 197 198 A SUMMER'S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. broad bay or sound, we nearly overhauled the Moravian supply ship “ Harmony,” just out from London. She was a bark of 300 American tons, very neatly kept, thor- oughly well-appointed, and well-officered and manned, her chief officer, Captain Linklater, a Scotchman. As she approached the harbor and before we discovered the mission building ashore, she fired a salute from two nine- pounders, at the same time sending her flag up to half- mast : both announcing her arrival and signalling disas- ter—the death in London of Rev. Mr. Latrobe, Secre- tary of the Society of the United Brethren. A salute from a small gun near a flagstaff on the rocks not far from the mission, and an irregular volley from the fowl- ing-pieces of the Eskimos answered ; then a dory anda kayak put off from shore, followed by a heavy, clumsy boat with a square block tiller, which bore the three mis- sionaries, clad in seal-skin frocks with capotes, who greeted the others aboard with a kiss on each cheek. The boat’s flag was also at half-mast, as the oldest mis- sionary, Superintendent Kruth, had died at Hopedale but a few days previous. The ‘‘ Harmony” had brought over besides a missionary who had been absent for two years, the agent or supercargo, Herr Lintner, who had been educated as a civil engineer, and wasthe son of the owner of the vessel ; he visits the three mission stations, and reports to the Society at home as to their condition and progress.” * This was the only vessel which visited Hopedale while we were there. Since that date this part of the coast has been visited by fishermen from New- foundland and Nova Scotia, attracted northward by the greater abundance of codfish. Dewitz states that up to the year 1879 nearly 2,200 vessels had visited Hopedale, from 500 to 600 annually reaching the port, while in the year 1879, 800 vessels touched at Hopedale, and on one morning 72 vessels lay in Hope- dale Bay. ESKIMO WOMEN. 199 Meanwhile we were boarded by a large delegation of the squat, square-faced aboriginals ashore, full of curios- ity and interest, quite ready to accept any offering from our dinner-table, or even the scullion’s waste-pail, and examining our spars and deck with approving glances. We returned the visit, and it may be confessed that we fully reciprocated their interest in our surr PUL age when we inspected their own. There are six Moravian settlements in Labrador, the - oldest being Nain, which was founded in 1771 ; Okkak was founded in 1776; Hopedale in 1782; Hebron and Joan 1) 1930.. Flepedale is situated in lat. 55° 25, Nain in lat. 56° 25’, Okkak in lat 57° 33’, and Hebron in lat. 58° 50... At these stations there were in all, in.1860, twenty missionaries and about 1,400 Eskimos. Rama was founded a year or two after our visit. The new science of anthropology was not so generally cultivated in 1864 as now, and we took no notes of the height of the Eskimos at Hopedale and elsewhere ; but mn ‘“Science’ for July 29, 1887, we find the following statements by Mr. W. A. Ashe as to the mean height of the Eskimo at North Bluff on Hudson Strait, taken from measurements of ‘‘6o families,” the exact number of persons measured not being stated. The men aver- -aged 5 feet, 3.9 inches, and the women approximately 5 feet, in height. And here it may be said that the condition of the women, whether the effect of their semi-civilization and Christianization or not, was certainly not that of subjec- tion, but of normal equality. They were certainly sharper at a bargain than their husbands, and within doors, at least, appeared to be mistresses of the mansion. 200 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. The women’s dress differs from that of the men in the long tail to their jacket-like garment ; some wore an old calico dress-skirt over the original Eskimo dress,—a thin veneer of civilization typical perhaps of the educa- tion they had been receiving for the past few generations, which was not so thorough-going as not to leave external traces at least of their savage antecedents. But may this not be said of all of us? Foronlya few centuries ago our ancestors were in a state of semi-barbarism, and the An- glo-Saxon race can date back to Neolithic Celts and bronze-using Aryan barbarians. However this may be, the Eskimos at Hopedale were a well-bred, kindly, in- telligent, scrupulously honest folk, whereas their ances- tors before the establishment of the Moravian mission- aries on this coast were treacherous, crafty, and murder- ous. To be shipwrecked on this inhospitable coast was esteemed a lesser evil than to fall into the hands of wan- dering bands of Labrador Eskimos. The natives have evidently been well cared for by the missionaries, kept from starvation in the winter, and their lives have been made nobler and better. Even in an Eskimo tepic life has been proved to be worth living. Fishermen and cruisers are (1864) not welcomed here, and it was not until a day or two had elapsed and the object of our ex-_ pedition made known that we were cordially welcomed. There were four missionaries at Hopedale: Brothers Shutt, Kreuchmer, Vollpracht, and Samuel Weiz, the latter, who died in 1888, a good botanist and interested in the zoology of the coast. They were now living with their families under one roof in the new mission house—a red-roofed yellow building of wood, of two stories and a half, a large, convenient, warm house— 1864. ’ ADOR R 2 > La 5] HOPEDALF KIMO FAwILy At (From a photograph by Bradford Ss A FULL-BLOODED E ) To face page 290. THE NORTHERN LIMIT OF TREES. 201 there being seven buildings in all, including the unfin- ished new chapel; at a distance from the others was a small powder-house. The servants in and about the sta- tion were Eskimo, neat, cleanly, and intelligent. There was plenty of lumber, judging by a pile of spruce-logs, which were about fifty feet long and twenty inches in thickness at the butt.* We were also told that the Eskimos had built and manned a schooner of fifty tons. The mission is in part a trading-post, but at present is paying only half its ex- penses ; the missionaries dealing in furs and curiosities, which they sell in London. Mr. Weiz kindly gave me a list of the plants and vertebrate animals of Labrador, accompanied with notes, and his herbarium was very complete in the plants of Okkak, which he said was ‘warmer, more protected, and had a more luxuriant flora * The northern limit of trees on the Labrador coast appears from the state- ‘ments of L. T. Reichel to be not far north of Hebron, as he says that while ‘the extreme northern part of the coast is treeless, the bays south of Hebron are well wooded with spruce and larches, and south of this point with birches. Although situated considerably more to the south than Greenland, the winter is longer and the cold greater than in Greenland, since the southern extremity of Greenland is warmed bya branch of the Gulf Stream, while the winter climate of the Labrador coast is lowered by the floating ice borne by the Labrador current from Baffin’s Bay. In Greenland the water becomes open in April, while in ‘Labrador the bays are not free from ice till the first of July. On the other hand, the summer months are considerably warmer than in Greenland, and hence there is a forest growth, since the interior of “Greenland is buried in ice. In Dewitz’s pamphlet it is stated that in the deep bays between Zoar and Hopedale birches occur, also willows, stunted bushes of ‘tthe mountain-ash, and alders, until south of Hopedale the vegetation passes into the forest flora of Canada. But we observed that the outer islands are nearly bare from Cape Harrison to Hopedale, the shrubs and stunted trees mentioned only growing in protected valleys. Dewitz adds that there are rem- mants of forests on the coast, but that the missionaries have been unable to plant forests, and they think that the existing forest growth owes its origin to an earlier, warmer period. 202 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. than Hopedale. Mr. Vollpracht told me that a large fresh-water snail (Zzmnc@a, near elodes) was abundant in a lake at Okkak. The collection of birds’ eggs was a good one, and they also had skulls of the polar and black bears and of seals, which they sold to us. I also purchased a valuable collection of insects, principally butterflies and moths, obtained at Okkak. We visited the rather large cemetery, well laid out and fenced in, situated in a level spot where the soil was deeper than elsewhere: at one end were the graves of the mission- aries, over which memorial slabs were laid; a large mound marked the last resting-place of Superintendent Kruth, while among the others was an infant’s grave; at the opposite end of the yard were the short graves of the Eskimos. There were six little gardens, each perhaps belonging to a separate family. They were laid out like those in the fatherland, with clumps of spruce and larches, em- — bracing a summer-house, a rustic seat, and a grass-plot. There were also rows of hot-beds, where they rear let- tuce from plants raised in the house, yielding them salad — in May. ‘Turnips were well forward, onions were in bud, currant bushes two feet high were in blossom, as well as potatoes, which were six inches high, and the rhubarb was quite luxuriant in its growth, its flowers having been open for some time. The Eskimos were ready enough to traffic, though slow at first to bring out their wares, which consisted of birds’ eggs, principally those of robins and murres, models of kayaks and oomiaks, as well as sleds in bone and seal-skin. From one of them, named Caspar, a lame boy who had lived ten years in Hamilton Inlet 5 ae a” EVENING PRAYERS. 203 and knew a little English, I was told that a narwhale was seen many years ago on this coast. It appears that this polar animal occurs now as far south as Hudson's Strait. Captain Handy told me that on the north side of Hudson’s Strait the narwhale commonly goes in herds of thirty. Malmgren, a Finnish author, says that the narwhale leaves Spitzbergen in summer for more northern and colder latitudes.* None of them, however, had ever seen a walrus, but the white bear was said to be not uncommon; and he mentioned the wolverine as occurring in the neighbor- hood. - Showing Caspar the picture of the lobster in my Gosse’s Zoology, he said it, with the shore crab, was not found here, but south of Grosswater Bay (Hamilton Inlet) ; the salmon (kavishilik) were taken in nets; he was also familiar with the starfish, which he called ougiak, At sunset the chapel bell rang for evening prayers, and all left their work or houses and made their way to the sanctuary. The men and women sat separately and at opposite ends of the room, even entering by a sepa- rate door; and the oldest members of the congregation sat back on the higher benches, probably to overawe the juveniles on the front seats ; although these must have been duly restrained by the presence of the seven mis- sionaries who sat against the opposite wall on the right side of the leader’s desk, their seven wives on the left. The service was brief, lasting twenty minutes, consisting of an invocation or address in Eskimo, and a few chants to German tunes, the congregation joining in the music * Wiegmann’s Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte, 1864, p. 96. 204. A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. of the organ, which was well played by an Eskimo boy. From the chapel all dispersed to their quarters, and the settlement long before dark was buried in profound silence. Sunday, the 31st July, was a warm, sunny day, unfor- tunately as much enjoyed by the mosquitoes and black- flies as by us. In the forenoon we went to the service, which was simple and brief, the natives not being wearied with a long discourse ; like the yesterday even- ing prayers it consisted simply of an invocation or ad- dress, congregational singing and the litany, Bn in half an hour the assembly dispersed. The day was observed by the natives and all others with more reverence than we have noticed in Lutheran countries. The evening by invitation was spent aboard the “ Harmony.” Captain Linklater, an unusually in- telligent man, was, as he told us, six weeks on his voy- age from London here; he generally first sights Cape Webuc, though steering for ‘“‘ The Beacon” below Hope- dale. In sailing from Eigpedale to Nain the “ Harmony” takes an inside course. Above this point the coast is still -more deeply indented by bays and fjords, their mouths checked with islands which extend fifty miles or more out to sea. The captain is ordered by the company or gov- ernor to take two Eskimo pilots from each port; he gen- erally leaves them to return when fifteen miles out from harbor, as they are unacquainted with the rocks and shoals. Navigation to Nain is represented to be difficult ; at one place the vessel has to double two points closing in one beyond the other. The captain while in harbor is gradually making charts of the coast, which at best can THE FLOE-ICE. 205. only be approximative ; the missionaries have also, by as- cending the highest points near their respective stations, taken the bearings of the islands about, Captain L. by a patent log taking the distance between them.* For ninety years a ‘“ Harmony’—the name being handed down to successive vessels—has made its annual voyage to Labrador, the missions having been established in Green- land in 1733 and first on this coast in 1771; during that time but two men have been lost from the vessel, one of them having been drowned by upsetting in a kayak. From the hills east of the station the ice-field could be seen about ten miles out to sea, but bergs were visible all along the coast. Captain Linklater on this voyage encountered more ice than in any previous year of his service. He found the field to be eighty-five miles wide ; and from careful observations during a number of years judged the rate of travel of the floe past the coast at this point to be at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day, or a little over a mile an hour. During this summer the ice had, as we had observed, been running down the coast from June 22d to-August 22d, though it actually began earlier and must have continued later than that. That the ice finally disappeared by melting rather than by sinking we believe, though the fishermen on the coast maintain that it finally sinks. The extent of the ice-fields. therefore off the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland must have been this season not much less than 80,000 square miles; the effect of such a wet blanket on the coast may well be imagined. * The results of these surveys were embodied in a MS. map by the Rev. S. Weiz, and it was this map which was kindly loaned me by the Secretary, Mr. Latrobe, of the London office, and used in compiling the map of Labrador in the present volume. oS 206 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. August Ist was spent in geologizing, as it was cold and cloudy, with an easterly wind. The island on which Hopedale is situated is of the ordinary Laurentian gneiss, which behind the mission house is curiously contorted ; it is fine-grained, distinctly banded, with veins of quartz and of granite; at one point it dipped about 60° W. with a N. W. and S. E. strike. There are a number of trap dykes, in places like slightly winding stairs or steps descending to the waters edge, justifying the term ¢rag applied to this rock, which is from the Swedish trappa, meaning a series of steps or stairs. The rocks are water-worn and terraced to the tops of the hills. Behind the mission house is a raised beach of large, loose, rounded sea-worn bowlders, generally two feet in diameter, and mostly concealed by the growth of Empetrum ; it is narrow and slopes down to a little bight east of the Eskimo village, and its shores are formed by what proved to be araised sea-bottom. To our great | surprise and delight this beach above and between tide- marks abounded in multitudes of deep-water shells with other fossils ; and I spent half the day in picking them up, renewing the search the next day. That it was an old sea-bottom which had been raised at least from 75 to 100 feet, if not more, was proved by the habits of the shells, now living at the depth of from 15 to 20 fathoms off shore, and also by the quantities of nullipores encrust- ing the shells and pebbles, showing that the beach had not been disturbed since its elevation. Indeed it struck me, though I have no essential proof, that the coast of Labrador is now slowly rising, and this is also the opinion of Campbell (Frost and Fire). Returning to the vessel towards night, an active trade CIN Mf cle AdOF] LY MATA 3} ( ( WMH. ANV OWDTS5] aTva ‘vg af Of, (“proj prsg Aq qydevasojoud Vv WO1]) “SUSNOF, WINTAA MIGH "906 aavd aon 0 ma i ie (eae ie : | g : G ; : | KAYAKING. |. 207 -_ was carried on with the Eskimos to our mutual satisfac- tion; we bartered our old clothes for sealskin boots, mittens, and miniature kayaks, etc. The two next days were warm and sunny, with westerly winds, and the time was mainly given to the entomology of the island, though the mosquitoes were excessively annoying. On the hills were the Chionobas butterfly, so wonderfully mimicking the colors of the lichens on the rocks. The little blue butterfly (Polyommatus Frank- finitz) was very abundant here, resembling some moths when in flight. We made long calls upon the missionaries, finding them very cordial and pleasant, with much love of natural history. They returned our visit, and their wards, the Eskimos, swarmed over our vessel like flies. Always good-natured, without exception rigidly honest and up- right, they were a continual source of interest and amuse- ment. They lent us their kayaks, which are framed of spruce wood and covered with sealskin, and rather wider and therefore safer to row in than Greenland kayaks, which are framed with bone. I found it easy enough to paddle in them, but difficult to keep the bows steady on the course, each stroke of the double-ended paddle caus- ing the bows to go too far one side; they are by no means so safe, however, as a birch canoe. Some of the passen- _ gers and our crew paddled for a distance of one or two miles, and after a little practice made good kayakers. One day while rambling over the hills near the station I came upon a fissure in the rock, marked by a pole, and loosely covered with a few flat stones. It contained two skeletons, presumably of an Eskimo man and woman. I hastily put the skull and bones into the bottom of 208 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. my butterfly-net and covered them with grass; on my way past the chapel I came plump upon a wedding party going away from the doors. The bride led the party, clad in her old-time costume, with the addition of a calico skirt; at the distance of a few paces followed the groom, while the friends straggled along behind. Without being asked too curious questions I carried my precious freight aboard, glad—to use a sepulchral simile—to kill two birds with one stone, z.e. to secure the last remains of an old-time Eskimo couple and to see a young and living couple so recently united. At Hopedale we understood the oldest person, the patriarch of the colony, to be a woman of seventy years: we saw her—a picture of ugliness which still haunts our memory. There were three Eskimos who were sixty years old. A man becomes prematurely old when forty- five years of age, as the hunters are by that time worn out by the hardships of the autumnal seal fishery. CHAP TERIX A SUMMER'S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. V. THE RETURN VOYAGE TO BOSTON. On August 4th we bade farewell to Moravians and Eskimos; and with deep regret that it was not possible for us to go farther north, at least to the 60th parallel of latitude, we weighed anchor and ran with a fresh west wind abeam to Thomas’s or Maggovik Bay, where the Norwegian Andersen lives in a well-wooded bight. Andersen told me he had seen only one sort of caribou, and did not know of a “ barren-ground” as distinguished from a “wood” caribou. He also said that the white and blue fox littered together, but that the blue variety was very rare. After dredging a while in fifteen fathoms on a muddy bottom, where the interesting JZyrzotrochus was common, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Brad- ford went with a boat’s crew on a trading trip to Thomas's house. The wind being dead ahead we had to row all the way up, nearly thirty miles, and back, reach- ing the vessel at one in the night. We took a late sup- per at Mr. Thomas's hospitable house, and enjoyed a cup of tea with goat’s milk and good bread. The house was comfortably situated near some quite sizable spruce-trees, with a flourishing garden near by. Mr. Thomas (for the site of his house see 17 on the map of Eskimo Bay) is 209 210 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. a trader in furs, of which he had two or three hundred dollars’ worth on hand, and he professed to have more than he wanted to live on. This little trip gave me some idea of the country inland,‘as Thomas’s Bay is thirty miles deep, forming a broad sound, with few is- lands except at the mouth. Both sides of the bay are thickly wooded, with mountain summits rising bare and gray through the covering of dark green coniferous trees, the birches or poplars not being abundant enough to en- liven the sombre hues of an evergreen Labrador forest. The contours of the ridges and hills were regular, the country was rather low, the scenery on the whole monot- onous; and such, I conceive, are the features of the in-: terior of the Labrador plateau, though diversified with lakes and deep river valleys. Both sides of the bay were terraced: on the north side were three long and regular terraces ; those on the south side were less regu- lar and much shorter ; one formed a point of land per- haps a hundred feet high and descending into the water by three terraces. Farther up, the slope of the hill was paved with large sea-worn bowlders, for the most part covered over and hidden by the vegetation. At the mouth of the bay are also three naked terraces, the longer one winding up; following the shore, a growth of trees partially concealing it from sight. The return row down the bay and the sunset effects were extremely fine. I cannot attempt to describe them. How the scenery at this point appeared to a better artist in words than myself may be realized by the following extract from one of Rev. Mr. Wasson’s papers in the Atlantic Monthly of May, 1865: “Tn the early afternoon a dense haze filled the sky. Sete Sah A LABRADOR LANDSCAPE. DET The sun, seen through this, became a globe of glowing ruby, and its glade on the sea looked as if the water had - beén strewn, almost enough to conceal it, with a crystal- line ruby dust, or with fine mineral sfzca/e of vermilion _ bordering upon crimson. The peculiarity of this ruddy dust was that it seemed to possess dody, and, while it glowed, did not in the smallest degree dazzle,—as if the brilliancy of each ruby particle came from the heart of it rather than from the surface. The effect was in truth indescribable, and I try to suggest it with more sense of helplessness than I have felt hitherto in preparing these papers. It was beautiful deyond expression,—any ex- pression, at least, which is at my command. ‘Such a spectacle, I suppose, one might chance to see anywhere, though the chance certainly never occurred tome before. It could scarcely have escaped me through want of attention, for I could well believe myself a child of the sun, so deep an appeal to my feeling is made by effects of light and color : light before all. ““ But the atmosphere of Labrador has its own secret of beauty, and charms the eye with aspects which one may be pardoned for believing incomparable in. their way. The blue of distant hills and mountains, when ob- served in clear sunshine, is subtile and luminous to a degree that surpassesadmiration. I have seen the Cam- den Heights across the waters of Penobscot Bay when their blue was equally profound ; for these hills, beheld over twenty miles or more of sea, do a wonderful thing in the way of color, lifting themselves up there through all the long summer days, a very marvel of solemn and glorious beauty. The Atgean Sea has a charm of at- -mosphere which is wanting to Penobscot Bay, but the 212 °A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. hue of its heights cannot compare with that of the Cam- den Hills. Those of Labrador, however, maintain their supremacy above even these—above all. They look frozen sky. Or one might fancy that a vast heart or core of amethyst was deeply overlaid with colorless crystal, and shone through with a softened, lucent ray. Such transparency, such zz¢femse delicacy, such refine- ment of hue! Sometimes, too, there is seen in the deep hollows between the lofty billows of blue, a purple that were fit to clothe the royalty of immortal kings, while the blue itself is flecked as it were with a spray of white light, which one might guess to be a precipitate of sun- shine. ‘This was wonderful; but more wonderful and most wonderful wastocome. It was given me once and once again to look on a vision, an enchantment, a miracle of all but impossible beauty, incredible until seen, and even when seen scarcely to be credited, save by an act of faith. We had sailed up a deep bay and cast anchor in a fine large harbor of the exactest horse-shoe shape. It . ‘was bordered immediately by a gentle ridge some three hundred feet high, which was densely wooded with ‘spruce, fir, and larch. Beyond this ridge to the west rose mountainous hills, while to the south, where was the head of the harbor, it was overlooked immediately by a broad, noble mountain. It had been one of those white-skied days when the heavens are covered bya uni- form filmy fleece, and the light comes as if-it had been filtered through milk. But just before sunset this fleece was rent, and a river of sunshine streamed across the ridge at the head of the harbor, leaving the mountain beyond, and the harbor itself with its wooded sides, still A LABRADOR LANDSCAPE. 213 in shadow. And where that shine fell, the foliage changed from-green to a glowing, luminous red-brown, expressed with astonishing force,—not a trace, not a hint of green remaining! Beyond it the mountain pre-— served its whited gray ; nearer, on either side, the woods stood out in clear green ; and, separated from these by the sharpest line, rose this ridge of enchanted forest. You will incline to think that one might have seen through this illusion by trying hard enough. But never were the colors in a paint-pot more definite and deter- mined. “This was but the beginning. I had turned away, and was debating with myself whether some such color, seen on the Scotch and English hills, had not given the hint for those uniform browns which Turner in his youth copied from his earlier masters. When I looked back, the sunshine had flooded the mountain, and was bathing it all in the purest rose-red. - Bathing it? No, the moun- tain was solidly converted, transformed to that hue! The power, the simplicity, the translucent, shining depth of the color were all that you can imagine, if you make no abatements and task your imagination to the utmost. This roseate hue no rose in the garden of Orient or Occident ever surpassed. Small spaces were seen where the color became a pure ruby, which could not have been more lustrous and intense had it proceeded from apolished ruby gem ten rods in dimension. Color could go no farther. Yet if the eye lost these for a mo- ment, it was compelled somewhat to search for them,— so powerful, so brilliant was the rose setting in which they were embosomed. “One must remember how near at hand all this was 214 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. ——not more than amile or two away. Rock, cavern, cliff, ail the details of rounded swell, rising peak, and long- descending slope could be seen with entire distinctness. The mountains rose close upon us, broad, massive, real —but all in this glorious, this truly ineffable transforma- tion. It was not distance that lent enchantment heres It was not /ezz,; it was real as. rock, as Nature; it con- fronted, outfaced, overwhelmed you; for enchantment so immediate and on such a scale of grandeur and gor- geousness—who could stand up before it ? “Tn sailing out of the bay next day, we saw this and the neighbor mountain under noon sunshine (lat. 55° 20’). They were the handsomest we saw, apparently composed in part of some fine mineral, perhaps pure labradorite. In the full light of day these spaces shone like polished silver. My first impression was that they must be patches of snow, but a glance at real spots of snow corrected me. These last, though more dis- tinctly white, had not the high, soft, silver shine of the mineral. Doubtless it was these mountain-gems which, under the magic touch of sunset light, had the evening before appeared like vast rubies, blazing amidst the rose which surrounded them. “And this evening the spectacle of the preceding one was repeated, though more distantly and on a larger scales oieh thought it the finer of the two. (Far away the mountain height towered, a marvel of aérial blue. while broad spurs reaching out on either side were clothed, the one in shiny rose-red, the other in ethereal roseate tints superimposed upon azure; and farther away, to the southeast, a mountain range lay all in solid carmine along the horizon, as if the earth blushed a << eo en «, AN ARCTIC PTEROPOD. 215 at the touch of. heaven. ... All the wildness and waste, all the sternest desolations of the whole earth, brought together to wed and enhance each other, and then relieved by splendor without equal, perhaps, in the world,—that is Labrador.” Nearly all the next day was spent in beating down the coast, finding ourselves at evening off our old haven, Strawberry Harbor, which we did not enter, but re- mained outside of it, holding on to the rocks in twenty- five fathoms with our kedge. We lay over the edge of a submarine precipice, or, as I supposed, a rock terrace or shelf like those ashore; for just before anchoring the lead reached a depth of forty fathoms, showing quite plainly that the terraced character of the rock, which extends up the shore for a distance of perhaps 300 or 400 feet, also extends beneath the ocean to a depth of at least fifty fathoms or three hundred feet, thus con- clusively proving that the coast had once been much higher than at present, and also showing how little the floe-ice had smoothed down the ocean-bottom near shore. The next day we reached, but did not double, Cape Webuc (Harrison), as it was called, in the afternoon, and Mr. Bradford spent every available moment in painting icebergs. In the calm water we met with great num- bers of that interesting and curious arctic pteropod, Limacina helicona; drawing up some in a bucket and placing them in a glass of sea-water, the beautiful move- ments of these delicate forms could be seen. They were like winged sweet-peas—the shape of the body and color suggesting theresemblance. It had not previously been recorded as occurring south of the Greenlandseas. The 216 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. fishermen, who had never seen them before this summer, said that the cod fed on them, and injured the fishery, but all this was the merest nonsense. We lay to among the icebergs all night, Bradford vigorously and indefat- igably at work every spare moment, up at three o'clock in the morning, and painting the next day until a fog closed down upon the scene early in the afternoon. The succeeding day (the 8th) we ran into Sloop Har- bor, where we dredged in ten fathoms and drew up an interesting arctic Isopod crustacean. ' On the oth we entered Indian Harbor, where lived a Mr. Norman, who was carrying on an extensive fishery here, though this year it was, as everywhere else, a failure, the men at Sloop Harbor having to go thirty miles for bait. The salmon fishery was also pronounced equally abortive, only two hundred tierces having been netted in all Hamilton Inlet, whereas that amount is usually taken at a single point. The scenery here—trap-hills and dykes giving some strange effects—was unusually picturesque, and Bradford was busy making studies and photographs. The gneiss is whitish in color, gradually sloping in rocky terraces to the shore, and extending under the fiord, the bowlder- laden, smooth bottom being perfectly visible at the depth of six or eight fathoms; and I have little doubt it could have been distinguished at the depth of ten or even fifteen fathoms. Here for the first time on this coast were to be seen undoubted glacial marks. They occurred on the smooth ice-worn rocks about twenty-five feet above the harbor, not far from Norman’s house, on the southern side of the tickle. They were lunate impressions varying in GLACIAL MARKS. 217 length from five to twelve inches, describing a curve from three to nine inches deep, and at the bottom of the * crescent sunk an inch deep in the rocks. The hollows of the crescents opposed the northwest, showing that the glacier which produced such marks must have moved from the land, filling the great bay of which the flord was an arm, and were sculptured in a smooth, highly polished whitish gneiss. The rocky shore was above the reach of the waves, but dampened by the surf and spray, so that the surface was entirely free of. lichens, which covered the rock.farther up from the water's edge. That these were genuine glacial marks was evident to me at the time, and afterward sufficiently proved in my own mind when standing on the summit of Bald- face Mountain near Gilead, Me., where the lunate or crescentiform marks are abundant. Ice marks nae also been noticed by Campbell in his Srost and Fire.” * « The coast is now rising between St. John’s in Newfoundland and Cape Harrison in Labrador. Rocks have been marked and the marks have risen; boats. now ground on solid rocks where they floated twenty years ago; rocks which were seldom seen now seldom disappear at high tides; harbors are shoaling; beds of common shells are found high above the sea; raised beaches are seen on hill-sides in sheltered corners; and blocks of foreign rock are perched upon the summits of islands and on the highest hills near the coast. The rocks are much weathered, and very few stria were found. Those which were found aimed up-stream. At Indian Island, lat. 53° 30’, near the lat. of Hull, they pointed into Davis’s Straits, at a height of 400 feet above the sea; at Red Bay, in the Straits of Belle Isle, they aimed N. 45° E. at the sea-level. In winter the sea is frozen near the coast to a thickness of eighteen inches or more; in spring the northern ice comes down in vast masses. In 1864 this spring drift was 150 miles wide, and it floated past Cape Race. Fromacareful examination of the water-line at many spots it appears that bay-ice grinds rock, but does not produce striation. The tops of conical rocks have been shorn off. The shape of the country isa result of denudation. No matter what the dip and fracture of the stone may be, the coast is generally worn into the shape known as ‘ roches moutonnées.’” (Vol. ii. p. 236.) 218 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. The afternoon of the roth we sighted the familiar out- lines of Tub Island. The wind was southeast, and the next day it was too stormy to allow us to run out; and* early in the succeeding day a dry northeast gale raged, but cleared off sufficiently in the afternoon to allow us to sail, in three hours, twenty-four miles to Dumplin Harbor, where dredging was profitable, though it was cold work hauling in the rope in the northeast wind. The next day we beat against a southeast wind about twenty miles down to Cateau Harbor, passing numerous headlands on+which .raged a fine surf. The dredging in this harbor, where the sea-bottom was sandy and prolific in worms, shells, and Echinoderms, was excellent ; among other rarities we hauled up specimens of the arctic holothurian JZyrzotrochus Reinke, and a smaller simpler sea-cucumber, the Eupyrgus scaber, more like a small faded Martynia than a cucumber. The 14th and 15th continued to be stormy, the wind northerly, with more or less fog, bergs and floating ice, making it dangerous sailing. We however got as far as Indian Tickle, where was the largest and best appointed fishing establishment we had yet visited, belonging to Mr. M. H. Warren, who lives in London during the winter, spending the summer here, where he employs two hun- ered and fifty men. Here the salmon fishery had been a failure, and the fishermen complained of the “‘ black stuff” in the water, the delicate and interesting Limacina— which they declared ‘ poisoned the fish.” At noon of the 16th, when the fog lifted, a northerly wind carried us into Domino Harbor. We found that there was some trouble at the ‘‘ rooms” here about paying duties on produce brought upon this coast by traders. — CURLEWS. 219 There being no representative from Labrador, which, however, is politically a part of Newfoundland, it was claimed that there should be no duties; they were there- fore paid under protest to the judge and collector, James Winter, Esq., who had published under date of Nov. 12th, 1863, a report entitled ‘‘ Impolicy and Objection- able Nature of Levying Duties upon Bread and Biscuit Imported from Hamburgh. By James Winter.” It appears that he had left Newfoundland (St. John’s) June 15th, and was prevented by the ice from reaching Blane Sablon before the 20th of July ; where he reported that there were forty vessels, of which thirty-five sailed from Nova Scotia, the remainder being vessels belonging to the ‘‘rooms,” and which brought out salt and manu- factured goods from England. This harbor (Blanc Sablon) is perhaps the most important port on the Labra- dor coast. According to Winter's report the trade at Blanc Sablon is very extensive, consisting of two large supplying and fishing establishments belonging to Jersey, Messrs. Boutellier and De Quetteville & Co., and two smaller houses, also from Jersey, engaged in the fishery. This is the chief place of resort of the large number of fishing-vessels from Nova Scotia and other colonies which annually arrive at Labrador. The 17th was spent in harbor at Domino, which to the geologist is oneof the most interesting points on the coast. While walking over the barren Domino gneiss worn down by the glaciers, a flock of twenty-five curlews flew overhead, but they were late, as was everything else this year. The 18th we sét sail from Domino Run for Henley Harbor in the face of a southerly storm, and beat to 220 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. windward all day in the fog and rain, making about thirty miles. We passed many fine icebergs, some of them of magnificent proportions, moving down the coast in a stately way, while others were left stranded close in- shore. . We remained outside in the fog through. the night and early part of the next day ; took a northerly storm in the afternoon, and lay to during the night for fear of encountering the bergs or pieces of floating ice. We here saw in a large’school of humpback and fin whales what’ Captain Handy pronounced to be a sperm- whale by its “spout,” which formed a single short stream of vapor curling over in front from the blow-hole, which is situated at the end of the nose. Mr. Pike (at Square Island) told us that a school of nine sperm-whales used to pass annually up and down the coast, but that now only five of them were remaining ; we may have seen one of the five. After a very uncomfortable night, having heaved to in the darkness in a heavy swell and calm to avoid col- liding with the ice, which in scattered bergs and floes surrounded us, we finally on the 20th ran before a fresh northeasterly gale into Henley Harbor. - Sunday the 21st was, after the fog had cleared away in the morning, a very pleasant day, though towards night the easterly wind again brought in the fog. Colonel Amory and myself went over to an island on the west side of the harbor, where a recent severe gale, in which three vessels had been driven ashore, had washed off the soil so as to disclose some graves supposed to be those of Eskimos. We dug into them, finding a few bones and pieces of flannel; the former were too much decayed ESKIMO GRAVES. 221 to be of any value. An under-jaw given me by a man who lived near by and who had taken it from the graves had double teeth (szc) all around, the front teeth being worn down to the gums, the two jaws not overlapping (this being an Eskimo characteristic) ; the jaw resembled those of the skulls from Hopedale. There were several graves formed by natural fissures in the rocks, covered over by a layer of stones, with soil heaped over them, each forming a sort of natural dolmen. No one knew about them, but it was supposed that they may have been the graves of those killed in a battle of the Eskimos with the Indians. Battle Point, a little way up the coast, commemorates a sanguinary fight between these two races of Labrador aboriginals. I now learned that the old fort situated on a bluff on the terrace previously described was built by an early settler named Greville, who held out one winter against the wiles of the Indians until, during a deep snow-storm which barred up the cannon of the fort and choked up the embrasures, the dusky assailants scaled the walls and gained entrance within. Our informant said that Greville wrote a history of Labrador. Near the fort was a circular area paved closely with cobble-stones, but nearly over- » grown with Empetrum, which was said to have been the foundation of a Nascopi wigwam, but was more probably of Eskimo origin. The 22d was a fine day but nearly calm, and the fore- noon was spent with the insect-net in hand. The cur- lews were quite abundant, perhaps a hundred being seen. After dinner we hauled up anchor, and Bradford went out in search of icebergs. Two small bergs were seen - near the southern end of Belle Isle and farther down the 222 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR, Strait ; one of them broke to pieces during the night, and we afterwards saw. the fragments floating upon the water some miles inshore. We lay all night becalmed six or seven miles from shore, drifting slowly down the Strait with the Labrador current ; before night I dredged in from forty to fifty fathoms on a hard, pebbly bottom, bringing up besides the common red seaweed (Pézlota) only a shrimp or two, | Towards noon of the following day a steady easterly breeze carried us down the Strait, and we lay to in the fog all night, until after breakfast of the 24th it lifted somewhat and we found ourselves near Whale Island, three miles west of Whiteley’s, and by eleven had for- tunately worked into the harbor of Salmon Bay off John Goddard’s house near Caribou Island. We went to Rev. Mr. Carpenter’s mission house for our letters, and were: glad enough to accept his hospitality that night, not only as a pleasant change from sleeping in a bunk, but to renew an agreeable acquaintance. I collected more Quaternary fossils from the beach, though it rained and blew hard all day. We learned that the weather here had been pleasanter than ‘‘to the norard,” and that though the cod fishery had been ‘‘ bad,” it was now beginning to ‘“‘look up.” The stormy season was now about to set in, and it was high time that such craft as ours should leave the coast. No sail-boats can be used here with safety after the middle of September, the autumn winds are so gusty, with calms and sudden flaws. Onlythesmall sails of the Newfoundland vessels and their large crews enable them to coast along this region after that date. On the 25th we fairly got under way for home, ie ee , or 5 THE MAGDALEN ISLANDS. 223 taking the tail end of yesterday’s storm, though before the anchor was weighed I did some good dredging, bringing up among other notable creatures 772¢tonofusus cretaceus. On the whole the Strait of Belle Isle pre- sented the most varied and rich dredging grounds I met with on the coast. We now had before us a run of 340 - miles from Salmon Bay to the Gut of Canso, it being 80 miles from Bird Rock tothe latter strait. At about five in the afternoon of the 27th the wind hauled into the southeast and freshened into a gale of wind during the night ; it was very thick, but there was no rain. We lost our reckoning and came near running ashore between Bird Rock and Byron Island, making seven fathoms’ sounding twice; moreover, the forecastle stove upset, and the floor got on fire, so that between the danger of shipwreck and of fire we had an anxious night. On Sunday morning, the 28th, we ran under jib and reefed mainsail past Bird Rock to the westward of the Magdalen Islands, just seeing land through the thick rain and mist and driving spray, and part of the time a cold sleet. The water came in over our rail; things above and below were knocked about a good deal, and some bilge-water leaked into the cabin. At 2 P.M, however, the gale broke, the rain abated, and after a while the sun broke through the clouds and lighted up, intensify- ing the rich red hues of the long, low shores of the Magdalen Islands. Here for the first time we saw the fish hawk, while the gannets, glorious birds while on the wing, were diving from far aloft for mackerel, or soaring up among the low rain-clouds. The 29th was warm and pleasant, and we passed many sails, some going to the Magdalen Islands, but most of them converg- 224 A SUMMER’S CRUISE TO NORTHERN LABRADOR. ing like a flock of sea-birds towards the Gut of Canso. About ten o'clock in the forenoon we lost sight of Deadman’s Island, the southernmost point of the Mag- dalens, and at two o'clock in the afternoon sighted the Prince Edward’s Islands, and soon after espied Cape Breton Island. We expected to reach Port Mulgrave early the next morning, but our hopes of letters, papers, fresh potatoes, and beef on the morrow were dashed to the ground, as soon after sunset we were becalmed and had to come to anchor within six miles of that delectable haven. We got into Port Mulgrave the next morning, when six of our passengers left to return home overland. We left Port Mulgrave on the morning of the 1st September, passed Halifax light at eight o’clock in the. next evening, and at half-past seven in the evening of the 3d sighted Thatcher Island Jight, and ran up to our pier at Boston the next morning. | A few words as to the scientific results. of our voyage. Although we failed to reach Cape Chidley and to see the higher Moravian mission stations and Eskimos, or to do much dredging in water over fifty fathoms in depth, yet every possible facility was afforded me by Mr. Bradford, and the results of the voyage were perhaps of some service to science. Our geological notes of the coast were fuller than any yet published; over seventy-five raised beaches were discovered ; glacial phenomena of interest were observed, and the fact of the recent glaciation of the northeastern part of the Labrador peninsula was for the first time proved. Dredgings were made among the islands from Mecatina to Hopedale, and a consider- able number of new species of marine invertebrates, as LABRADOR. (From the British Admiralty Map No. 863.) To face page 223 My hay oy ia phere : ; 5 fi v - le ve ¢ " i}. : ' tee ‘ ele e ok: ; z a al ‘ z, - ¢ a ‘ ne N Abs; ie yy tas. m i i ie ‘ \ ¢ RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE. 225 well as insects, secured, while it was made evident that the polar fauna and flora, both land and marine, extends southward into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, many inter- esting arctic forms occurring which had never before been dredged south of Baffin’s Bay; valuable data were also obtained showing that the life along the coast of Maine during the Leda epoch of the glacial period was nearly identical with that of the Labrador coast, and that the alpine fauna and flora of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire is a remnant of the Labrador assem- blage of plants and animals; notes of interest on the distribution of the fish and niammals were obtained, par- ticularly of the walrus, white bear, and narwhale, while the collections of insects were tolerably complete, en- abling us to compare the Labrador insect fauna with that of Norway, Sweden, and the Alps of Switzerland. A voyage to the Labrador coast is an exceedingly healthful one; its interest to the sportsman would be enhanced if, in a steam-yacht and launches, the salmon streams could be explored and the game reached. But for lovers of grand coast scenery, famous for its peculiar wildness and far-reaching desolation, and which is only inferior to that of Norway, we recommend a cruise to Northern Labrador. CEA PVE alr RECENT EXPLORATIONS. Or late years fresh attention has been paid to the ex- ploration of the Labrador Peninsula. Dr. Franz Boas. has published in “Science” for Feb. 17, 1888, “‘ Notese! on the Geography of Labrador,” which contains refer- ence to explorations in this country undertaken within a few years. Dr. Boas, it appears to us, erroneously states that the MS. map by Rev. S. Weiz, which we used in the compilation of the map in the present vol- ume (originally published in the Bulletin of the Ameri- can Geographical Society), ‘‘was published in January, 1869, in the MMesszonsblatt aus der Briidergemeinde.” The MS. map loaned us by the Rey. Dr. Latrobe must have been a later one, with corrections, as it differs in a number of essential points, as may be seen if any one will examine the copy of the Moravian map pub- lished in “ Science,” and also previously in the W/zsszons- blatt, with that in this book; for example, Weiz’s earlier published map represents Killinek, near Cape Chidley, as one large island, whereas in our map the Killinek of 1869 is represented by two large islands. Also, Nachvak Inlet, Saeglek Bay, and the inlet on which Hebron.is situated are very different in the two * This map is here reproduced, thanks to the publishers of ‘‘ Science.” 226 gi 3000, coir Zz ; | | Nordspitze ie LABRADOR. i S.Wetz.. 1868. | Racer 65, oe gk me OF THE NORTHERN EXTREMITY oF LABRADOR. (After Weiz. From ‘‘Science.”) To face page 220. Ee ae tna ae Rec Digton. THE INTERIOR OF LABRADOR. 227 maps; while no mountain ranges were inserted in the London MS. map of Mr. Weiz. | Our knowledge of the interior of Northern Labrador has been somewhat extended by Dr. R. Koch, who wintered in Nainin 1882-83, his brief but interesting account being published in the Deutsche Geographische latter (Band VII. Elett (2, 1884,.pp. 151-162). Lhe Eskimos in the spring go after reindeer in sledges from Nain to the plateau of the interior, which is reached after a journey of four or five days, at the rate of thirty English miles a day, through fiord-like valleys. After one or two days more the height of land is reached. This water-shed approaches the shore in the northern part of the peninsula, being only one day’s journey dis- tant from Rama, which is the northernmost Moravian Station, beino~ situated: im lat. Ni 58.52 54 . From this water-shed arise the rivers Koaksoak and Kangerd- lualuksoak (George River), which flow into Ungava Bay. This water-shed terminates in Killinek, and its outliers form the Button Islands. The narrower the mountainous district becomes, the higher it is. Near Hopedale the mountains, so far as Koch could see from looking inland, rise only a few hundred feet; while at Nain the mountains closé by the sea are from 800 to 1,200 feethigh. The Kiglapait, or Saw-teeth Mountains, between Nain and Okkak, have an elevation. of several thousand feet (2,000, according to the British Admi- ralty chart). Kaumajat (Shining Mountain), situated south of Hebron, reaches this height (see p. 9). Al- though Koch has added nothing materially new to the information given in the first chapter of this book, we may add that he states that north of Hebron the coun- 228 RECENT EXPLORATIONS. try is alpine in character, the mountains rising almost vertically from the sea; but although the peaks attain a great height, there are no ice-fields and shining snow- clad peaks; at the most, snow-fields and miniature glaciers. Deep, narrow fiords (Sorviluck, Nullatarkok, and Nachvak) cut into the coast, which is not along here sheltered by islands from the heavy swell of the ocean. While south of Hebron numerous islands lie scattered off the mouths of the bays, northerly from Komaktorvik there are numerous islands and very dan- gerous cliffs, the Naviarutsit and Nuvurutsit, which ex- tend up to Ikkerasak Torksuk, viz., the great thorough- fare, abounding in whirlpools, of the Eskimo to Un- gava Bay. Near Rama, Koch ascended a mountain 2,600 feet in height. He describes the scene as very grand: “ At my feet I saw the deep, bluish-green fiord surrounded by steep, wall-like cliffs. The mountains were covered with shrubs colored red by the first frost of the season. To the left spreads the dark-blue ocean, with its green- ish-white icebergs. On the opposite side of the fiord, and towards the west, extended steep and ragged moun- tains and narrow, gorge-like valleys, in one of them a dark lake, the water of which, black as ink, reflected the high peaks. In the interior I saw mountains rising to still greater heights, and covered with fresh snow, extending north and south as far as I could see. The highest points of this range are opposite the island of Aulatsivik, and reach elevations of from 8,000 to 9,000 feet. While mountains less than 1,500 or 2,0007feet in height are rounded, and bear evidence of having been LABRADOR MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS. 229 covered by glaciers, the ragged forms of the higher mountains show no such signs,” All the lower mountains have rounded, often smoothly polished, summits, and are covered with numberless frag- ments of other stones, differing greatly in size, and not arranged into moraines, but scattered over mountains and valleys, and often lying in the strangest positions. The summits of the highest mountains, on the contrary, are split by the frost into sharp, rugged, enormous teeth: Koch then describes a typical valley near Nain, one near the Kauk (the Cliff), into which flows the Kaubkonga (Kauk River). Passing out from the mouth of the winding valley, the stream, often broken into rapids, ends ina water-fall about forty feet high, which plunges into a lake, the Ekkalulik (viz., the place where there are trout), into which two streams open, the Kaubkonga and the Jordan. The two rivers flow by rapids out of different lakes, the Jordan out of the Tessialuk (Breeches Lake of the missionaries), the Kaubkonga out of the Tachardlek (Star Lake). Beyond these are four other lakes, connected by short streams broken into rapids and cataracts, and which lead up to the Kairtoksoaks, where the streams take their origin. The Kaubkonga is a relatively strong stream, but is a type of all the Labrador rivers, being a chain of lakes connected by rapids or cataracts. ‘All the streams, so far as I have observed, at least those which flow into the Atlantic Ocean, have this peculiarity : evidently the ‘corroding action of the water during the short summer has not not been sufficient during the short time which 230 RECENT EXPLORATIONS. has elapsed since the melting away of the glacial cover- ing to wear the river-valleys into continuous courses.” Koch also observed raised beaches from 10 to 30 metres in height above the sea, and from all his obser- vations he concludes that after the glaciation of the coast there was a depression of the land, as proved by the old beaches, followed in recent times by a slow upheaval. Some additional information regarding Northern Lab- rador, says Dr. Boas, is contained in the publications of the reports of the German polar stations of the interna- tional system. ‘‘ Since Koch’s visit to Labrador, meteor- ological observations are being made at all missionary stations of the Labrador coast, which are of particular value as filling the wide gap between the system of Can- ada and the Danish stations in Greenland.” We have already on page 7 given a brief account of Dr. Bell’s observations made in 1884 on the physical geography of the extreme northern coast of Labrador. More recently the commissioner of crown lands of Quebec has sent surveyors who have explored the nu- merous rivers emptying into the St. Lawrence, Mr. C. E. Forgues having surveyed the rivers St. John, Mingan, Natashquan, and Esquimaux. During the summer of 1887 the missionary Edmund James Peck succeeded in | crossing Labrador from Richmond Bay to Ungava Bay, but as yet no account of what must have been a very interesting journey has appeared. Dr. Boas adds that ‘Green Island, in Hudson Bay, as shown on Packard’s map, does not exist according to observations made by Gordon on his expeditions to Hudson Bay. The archives of the Department of Marines of France possess a number i) HOLME’S EXPLORATIONS. 231 of manuscript maps of Hudson Strait, which, however, have not been published.” Very full and detailed information regarding the re- gion of Fort Chimo is contained in the report of Mr. L. M. Turner to the U. S. Signal Bureau, which has not yet been published. But until some explorers cross the peninsula from Fort Chimo to Nain or Hopedale, and also ascend the Esquimaux River to its source, we shall be much in the dark regarding the nature of the interior of Labrador. An attempt to penetrate the interior from the head of Eskimo Bay (Lake Melville) was made in 1887 by Mr. Randle F. Holme, whose interesting ac- count, illustrated by an excellent map of the entire Lab- rador peninsula, appeared in the Proceedints of the Royal Geographical Society, April, 1888. We have found his map of great service in compiling that of Southern Lab- rador in the present book. Mr. Holme tells us that on one occasion Pére Lacasse, the Roman Catholic missionary to the Indians, journeyed from Mingan to Northwest River by the Mingan and KKenamou rivers, and from Northwest River to Ungava by the Nascopee and Waquash rivers. Mr. Holme ascended'the Grand River, which empties into Aivuktok Bay, as.far as Lake Waminikapou, his point of departure being:the Hudson Bay post of Rigolet. After exploring the mouths of Gudder’s Bight River, of the Kenamish, the Kenamou, and the Travespines River, Mr. Holme ascended the Grand River 150 miles, to a point within 50 miles of the Grand Falls, whose height is unknown, but which he regards as with little doubt “the most stupendous falls in the world.” The river is said by Maclean to be 500 yards broad above the falls, 232 RECENT EXPLORATIONS. contracting to 50 yards at the falls themselves. Weare not satisfied with Mr. Holme’s estimate of the probable height of these falls; their exploration would certainly reward any one who is sufficiently enterprising and has sufficient knowledge of geology and natural history to: make the journey profitable. In regard to the canoe route from the Strait of Belle Isle up the Esquimaux River to Lake Melville, we may add that the Rev. C. C. Carpenter kindly obtained dur- ing the winter of 1888-89 the following notes from Mr. W. H. Whiteley, who has spent many summers at Bonne’ Esperance, a little island at the mouth of this river, and can speak with authority, as he; is ‘the most intelligent and reliable man on the whole coast,” and is the magis- trate of this section of the Labrador coast. ‘About Esquimaux River, from all I have been able to gather from the Indians, I think that there is a large plateau in the interior about five days’ walk, for an In- dian, from our place, probably about 250 miles. They can walk from Bonne Esperance to Rigolet in ten days, so they say. They tell usthat St. Augustine River rises from the same lake as Esquimaux _ River, but I think they mean the same level plateau. ’The interior of Lab- rador is wholly water ; certainly, four fifths of the surface is cut up into small conee and Jakes, which makes trav-. elling except by water impossible unless in winter ; when on the ice one can make a straight course, and I suppose this accounts for the intense cold for such enor- mous bodies of ice, for the lakes are mostly shoal and freeze to the bottom, making a huge ice-house of Labra- dor all the at ae months, and, aS you know, welll up into the summer.’ eT PY WETS ey “4 pete Geescee 4y AS Packard ~~ _ Ship routes . ‘ Tuwtsot or RB Bulton 15 hae er aksomt torsoak 1 ap Compiled by AS Packard ] Nelletaitok ae Ship routes Sledge HEC. Hudson Bay Compt ' Fyter~Doarth Ca Engravers Prax, Rl, \ | By LH ex dor "| pt Of forod He eserucurrod 3 Oodaihina Aniupuscaw 4. Saddle i ont. Hilt STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH LABRADOR. 233, The means of communication with Labrador from England is by steamer to Newfoundland, whence mail steamers make at least two trips each summer from St. John’s along the Labrador coast as far north as Nain, while the steamer goes as far west as Bonne Espérance ie ene) Strait. of Belle disle. | Ma. Ilolime: (states «that “new and superior steamers are being built for the coastal service from St. John’s, and will begin to run this summer” (1888). Steamers also ran during the summer of 1890 once a fortnight from Halifax through Cape Breton Island along the western coast of New- foundland, touching at Blanc Sablon. There is also communication by sailing-vessels from Quebec, and oc- casionally a pleasure-party from Boston or some other port in the United States visits the Labrador coast. i CEEAEPACE Raex 1? A GLANCE AT THE CIVIL HISTORY OF LABRADOR, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF ITS FISHERIES. Tue history of Labrador can be told in few words. The permanent residents dwell exclusively on the coast, and, as a rule, in the more sheltered harbors and _ fiords. The principal settlements on the shore south of the Strait of Belle Isle are Bonne Espérance, Forteau Point, Blanc Sablon, Belles Amours, and Henley Har- bor, a few families being scattered along the shore be- tween these points. On the Atlantic or eastern coast the most important settlement is at Battle Harbor, “a sheltered roadstead between Battle Island and Great Caribou Island, about half a mile in length and quite narrow.” Farther north are St. Francis Harbor, Batteau Harbor, Occasional Harbor, Square Island Harbor, Domino Run. At Cartwright Bay is the southernmost Hudson Bay Company’s post, and these are scattered along at rare intervals as far north as the fiord or inlet of Nachvak, the most important post being situated at Rigolet in Melville Bay, while at Fort Chimo in Un- gava Bay is another post belonging to this company. he population of the St. Lawrence coast of Labra- dor from Port Neuf to Blanc Sablon numbers about 4,400, comprising English, and French of Canadian or 234 THE POPULATION OF LABRADOR. 235 Acadian origin, who subsist chiefly by fishing and hunt- ing. Of the whole number 3,800 are Roman Catholics and 570 are Protestants. In the scattered settlements north of the Strait of Belle Isle one meets with English, Scotch, and Jersey sailors or their descendants, who make a very precarious livelihood by fishing in the summer and fur-hunting in the winter. The map at the end of this chapter will serve as a directory of the coast from Sandwich Bay northward. The summer or floating population of Lab- rador is estimated at about 30,000, mostly Newfound- landers. “The last census taken by the government of New- foundland, in 1874, gives the resident population from Blanc Sablon to Cape Harrison as 2,416. Of these 1,489 belong to the Church of England; 476 to the Church of Rome; 285 are Wesleyans; 30 are Presby- terians, and 126 belong to other denominations. There are nine places of worship: four of the Church of Eng- land, three of the Church of Rome, and two of the Wes- leyan Church.* ~ According to Hatton and Harvey the total population of Labrador was in 1874 about 12,527, distributed as follows :— On the St. Lawrence coast, from Port Neuf to Blanc Sablon 4,411 On the Atlantic coast, white population...............-. 2,416 IBSIRT in Oi dls ae eae es a a 1,700 Indiansiof the, Interior... 36). e + 4,000 12,527 By a more recent estimate the number of Eskimos is placed at 1,500 or less. It isalso probable, judging from * Hatton and Harvey’s Newfoundland ; Boston, 1883, p. 297. 236 A GLANCE AT THE CIVIL HISTORY OF LABRADOR. newspaper statements of famines in Labrador due to the failure of the fisheries in late years, that the white population of the coast has been somewhat diminished, and we doubt if the total population exceeds 12,000, For the following brief history of Labrador we are in- debted to the chapter on Labrador in Hatton and Har- vey’s excellent work on Newfoundland. The boundaries between Newfoundland and Canadian Labrador are thus defined in the ‘‘ Letters-Patent Consti- tuting the Office of Governor and Commander-in-chief of the Island of Newfoundland”: ‘“‘We have thought fit to constitute order and declare that there shall be a Gov- ernor and Commander-in-chief (hereinafter called our said Governor) in and over our Island of Newfoundland, and the islands adjacent, and all the coast of Labrador, from the entrance of Hudson’s Straits to a line to be drawn due north and south from Anse Sablon on the said coast to the fifty-second degree of north latitude, and all the islands adjacent to that part of the said coast of Labrador, as also of all fortsand garrisons erected and. established, or which shall be erected and established, within or on the islands and coasts aforesaid (which said islands and coast, together with the Island of Newfound- land, are hereinafter referred to as our said colony), and that the person who shall fill the said office of Governor shall be from time to time appointed by commission under our sign-manual and signet.” In 1864 the boundaries of the Newfoundland portion of Labrador were thus defined :* “The western limit of the government of Newfoundland is lat. 51° 25° N., * Appendix to the ‘‘ Journal of the House of Assembly,”’ 1864, p. 613. THE BOUNDARY LINE. Pie Wy ie song. 57. 9’ W., and includes Blanc Sablon and the Woody Islands. The northern boundary is Cape Chud- eich,’ in lat» 60° 37° Ni lone. 65> We) Hatton and Harvey then add: “ Thus a line drawn due north and south, from Blane Sablon to Cape Chudleigh, constitutes the boundary between the two jurisdictions.” Ifthe read- er will draw the line on the map, he will see that it would include only athin strip of the coast from Blanc Sablon to Davis’s Inlet; that it would not include the western part of Melville Bay, and north of Davis's Inlet or the Moravian settlement of Zoar, would pass almost to the westward of the mainland, including only some of the promontories and the outer islands from Zoar to Cape Chidley. This was evidently not the intention of the British Government, The natural boundary line between Newfoundland and. Canadian Labrador would be, it seems to us, the Eskimo and Kenamou rivers, the western shores of Melville Bay and of Grand Lake, and north of this point the chain of lakes lying on the height of land extending along near the 65th parallel of longitude, the natural boundary line on Ungava Bay being Whale River. Hatton and Harvey’s history then states: ‘‘This por- tion of Labrador was not always attached to Newfound- land. The first annexation took place after the Treaty of Paris, 1763. While the flag of France waved over Canada, the French carried on extensive fisheries on the Labrador coast, near the Straits of Belle Isle, to which they attach the greatest importance. After the conquest of Canada by Britain, a company established in Quebec obtained a monopoly of these fisheries which lasted for sixty years, but was brought to an 238 A GLANCE AT THE CIVIL HISTORY OF LABRADOR. end in 1820. Until 1763 the fisheries of the whole southern and eastern shores of Labrador were placed under the government of Quebec. Increased impor- tance was given to the governorship of Newfoundland at that date by annexing to it the Atlantic coast of Labrador. Ten years after, in 1773, it was considered. advisable to restore this portion of Labrador to Canada, owing to difficulties arising out of grants made to a number of persons under the rule of the French. In 1809 it was again transferred to the jurisdiction of Newfoundland, under which it has remained ever since. A Court of Civil Jurisdiction, on the coast of Labra- dor, was instituted in 1824. A special court of civil and criminal jurisdiction, called ‘The Court of Labrador,’ and presided over by one judge, appointed by the Gov- ernor in Council, secured the administration of justice. The customs’ duties levied on goods landed on Labra- dor are the same as in Newfoundland. The Hudson Bay Company had formerly the exclusive right of trad- ing with the Indians of that part of Labrador which had rivers flowing into the inlet from which the company took its name, and which is designated East Maine. In 1870, however, the company surrendered all their rights of government, property, etc., in the whole of British North America; and these having been trans- ferred to the Dominion of Canada, the company being still at liberty to carry on their trade without hindrance, or any exceptional tax, Canada has thus jurisdiction over all the region of Labrador which does not belong to Newfoundland.” The two most notable and romantic events lighting up the usually prosaic course of Labrador history were CHATEAU. 2393 the founding by the Breton fishermen and traders of the town of Brest, in Bradore Bay, about 1520, and the battles at Chateau. It will be remembered that this town is estimated to have had upwards of 1,000 resi- dents ; its ruins and terraces being still visible. The ' other event, or rather series of events, occurred farther up the Strait of Belle Isle, and the scenes were less peaceful. Chateau, or what is now called Henley Har- bor, was originally colonized by the Acadian refugees, who either built a fort here or more strongly fortified Greville’s Fort, originally built to resist Eskimo attacks. The remains of these fortifications are still extant. “Tn 1763 a British garrison was located at Chateau, in order to protect the fisheries ; but the place was cap- tured in 1778 by the American privateer ‘ Minerva,’ and three vessels and £70,000 worth of property were carried away as prizes. In 1796 the post was again attacked by a French fleet. A long bombardment en- sued between the frigates and the shore batteries, and it was not until their ammunition was exhausted that the British troops retreated into the back country, after having burned the village. In 1535 the French explor- ing fleet, under the command of Jacques Cartier, as- sembled here.” : We have already spoken of the Eskimo inhabitants of the coast. The Indians inhabit the interior, and, as has, been remarked, they are perhaps now the only truly wild, untamed red-men of North America. They are of the Mountaineer (or Montagnais) and Nasquapee (or Nascopi) tribes, and though they are roughly esti- mated to number 4,000, they are supposed to be slowly disappearing. ‘‘Game,” say Hatton and Harvey, “on 240 A GLANCE AT THE CIVIL HISTORY OF LABRADOR. which they depend, is becoming scarcer every year, owing largely to destructive fires which have swept over vast areas, destroying forests, berry-bearing shrubs, mosses and lichens, and converting whole districts into hopeless deserts strewed with naked bowlders, where no animal life can exist. Some of the Nasquapee tribe are still heathen, but the Montagnais are nearly all nom- inally Roman Catholics. The zealous Jesuit missiona- ries of early times extended their labors from Canada to Labrador, and these have been specially successful among the Montagnais. Of late years they have been resumed, and are now systematically carried on. The Indians hunt over the interior, and at certain seasons visit the coast in order to exchange the products of the chase for clothing, ammunition, and other necessaries. Labrador, both politically and commercially, is the great dependency of Newfoundland, more than a fourth of the entire export of the fishery product of that colony being taken on the coast of Labrador. The average annual catch of Newfoundland fishermen on the Labra- dor coast is from 350,000 to 400,000 quintals of codfish, 50,000 to 70,000 barrels of herring, and from 300 to 500 tierces of salmon. The number of Newfound- landers who frequent the Atlantic coast of Labrador during the summer, from the end of June till the first or second week of October, is estimated at 30,000, from 1,000 to 1,200 fishing vessels being employed each year. It has been already stated that the fishermen have only in recent years gone up the coast for their fares beyond Hopedale. When we visited the coast in 1864 scarcely any fishermen went beyond Hamilton Inlet. THE LABRADOR FISHERIES. 241 The numerous fishing banks and shoals lying off the Atlantic coast on the edge of the continental shelf, and probably forming the ‘winter feeding grounds, from which early in July the codfish migrate inshore, form an area of 7,100 square miles. It is thought by Hind that the great cod fishery of the future will probably be along Northern Labrador and over the adjacent banks. The American fishermen have abandoned the Labra- dor coast, preferring the Newfoundland banks, which are nearer to their homes. Ass late as 1880 about one hun- dred Canadian and Nova Scotia vessels were annually engaged in the Labrador fisheries. Formerly a good many jersey fishermen frequented the coast, where there were several of their fishing establishments ; but of these only three remained up to 1880, while all the English mercantile houses have been withdrawn. It is estimated that the aggregate value of the fisheries from all sources on the entire coast “will not fall short of a million pounds sterling per annum.” The present value of these fisheries is shown by the following extracts from Hatton and Harvey’s ‘‘ New- foundland”’: “Exports from Labrador for the year ending July 31, 1880: NEWFOUNDLAND HOUSES. PICO COMMS ERS ih 70g. tN RUA SNC Bs vig oie 393,436 qtls. SRE en 10S, ana Re a ts Sarees Ae BAAS ‘Sia SST TSE ee Ge 1,096 Boel CaN et cares ca wi 2 SEEMS o as oye hat oinse 50 tuns. Wa On. es ee ate Sg Senos Hie ener OW cae ed oo. Pe ae Fee been esi UNO DCT 17 Steen, 5 «Siete cole Se ds coele sates Glas et 242 A GLANCE AT THE CIVIL HISTORY OF LABRADOR. Fiekled salons. .00 Gee hee ite haath eee 592 tierces. . Pickled Necriingcs. 1/2 cinta deG eee hepa ke Ge ee 16,970 bbls, Packhed trout: s. alicia breton ees Sea lantnus eases LA ein Pickled mackerel ys. 2 eects oct ecient ASO) vas Dried sCaplan.s fais vise eee vas alate aes eretais a eee BO sees EXPORTS BY LABRADOR HOUSES NOT CONNECTED WITH NEW- FOUNDLAND, FOR YEAR ENDING JULY 1, 1880. Diriedeod fish 50. iso's 5 assis os wie wens Garou eee ee 14,000 qtls. SEA LSHMNS 520% vere rene sen ate toe te eee Ne ene et aie cen Rn 110 Bea Oi sare erevane ce eis se nee ae ase ee as 14 tuns. Codroi ey Lee RG a ae, TE ae ene 5 Go Mae TRGHUSE Eo cist ANG ehh tee Nee Pee pitas oct tchehe SEO Me ta SINR oyeieee AE GA Anco ach OMG cs GOsnae ss oc 4 o04 ESs Vues ickied: Sallam Om... 2hcss ctorcaie dieysesie as eters, see aeons 4oo tierces. SM OMEN GOIMS Pees. 5. erase aint oto Wyo ietciene (otc tio) Meemetslone 30,000 Ibs. MICS IMR ENN ods Sod ob Sho bbs Woo A oo to's 700 bbls. Pickled: trow thsi a Nee ORY oe Nee Aer Pickled mackerel: s\jgeriieo shied eta ard Eames ZO0/Mien WDiried (caplimg ire ones lec tiices tists 4 Cicushelweas y- Aeaure ee LOOM EXPORTS BY TRADERS ON LABRADOR COAST FOR YEAR ENDING JULY 1, 1880 (ESTIMATED QUANTITIES). (aFeGt COMMS HW ANH. te. IS ELEN iyo teeter cy atetneiats 526 qtls. KC OGtonl eae vlna ee ore Gas caer ee me Ne 14 tuns. Pickled (Salamone ede cyciha “While the marriages of the Eskimos are often child- less and the greater number of the children die young, the families of the white settlers are usually very robust, and the children strong and healthy, while the mortality is low. The number of the settlers increases therefore SUMMER AND WINTER LIFE OF THE ESKIMO. 275 from year to year, and by this means they advance far- ther and farther towards the north. Besides this normal diminution of the Eskimo population, epidemics appear which are mainly introduced through the traffic with the fishing-vessels, and as the result an extraordinarily great percentage die ; for example, when the measles broke out about three years ago | 1879 ?] about twenty per cent died. “The yearly life of the Eskimosis as follows: During the summer, and especially in the hunting season, that is, from May to December, the Eskimos with their families are scattered along the shore at their different fishing- places. After the men return in May from the reindeer hunting, they take their whole families with them to the islands lying near the seashore, to hunt seals. On their return to the northern seas the seals follow the outside edges of the drift ice, and the hunters are often obliged to drive far out in their dog-sledges to reach the seals’ course. Hence they wait with their wives and children upon the outer islands until the coast ice has left the bays and straits between the islands. This takes place about the last of June. Then they hasten back in their kayaks to the stations where they have passed the winter months, in order to prepare their large sail-boats, which are generally purchased of the Newfoundland fishermen.* With these they fetch their families, which have in the meanwhile remained at the spring fishing-grounds, and go trout-fishing in the inlets on the rivercourses. Then * In 1864 the Eskimos had no sail-boats except one large schooner they built themselves, at Hopedale, and at that date there was little if any communication with the Newfoundland fishermen. 276 THE LABRADOR ESKIMOS AND THEIR FORMER RANGE. follows for from three to four weeks the season of the cod fishery. . ‘As already stated, the codfish appear in such vast quantities that it would be easy for the Eskimos to gather enough provision for the winter for themselves and their dogs, were it not for the innate thriftlessness of the Eskimo, which leads him as soon as, with the fish he has caught, he has paid to the mercantile house the remainder of the debt contracted in the foregoing win- ter, to again renew his credit, and to forthwith abstain from further fishing, which he might very well carry on until the end of September. In autumn the season of reindeer-hunting again returns, whereupon from Novem- ber till Christmas-time the Eskimos set out upon the autumnal seal fishery, when they seek to kill them in their kayaks through the thin ice, or to catch them in nets. This mode of hunting is extremely toilsome and dangerous. The temperature of the air is usually at this time far below the freezing point, sinking to from —10° to —2o C.andin December seldom rises above —20° C. In this temperature the Eskimo sits for hours at a time, bound fast in his kayak, paddling back and forth in the bays and straits, wet through by the icy spray of the waves, which at once freezes on his skiff and his clothes. If overtaken by a storm or the darkness of the night he must seek shelter in any station on the coast and there remain through the night watches or await the cessation of the tempest. In like manner must those work who have set their nets. Often on taking up the nets the seals fall out through the meshes, and must, with great pains, be fished out again. Even hauling the net out from the water is in the extreme cold very disagreeable ~ SUMMER AND WINTER LIFE OF THE ESKIMO. 277 work. They take the seals out morning and evening, and in the mean time they either sit concealed on the bank in order to shoot at the creature, or they paddle in their kayaks over the bay with the same object, for all seals killed with guns belong by contract to those who shoot them. ‘‘ As soon as the bays and straits are covered with ice, the seal fishery, so far as it is carried on with nets, natu- rally ceases, and the Eskimos go to hunt those seals which have been shut into the bays by the ice. They often have to go over very unsafe places upon the still thin ice, and hence this mode of hunting is often accompanied by involuntary cold baths. “About Christmas-time all the Eskimos with their families again assemble in their winter houses at the mis- sionary stations where they are settled. _Nowcomes the time of schooling for the children, and the season of rest and religious duties for the older persons. For more than a hundred years have the missionaries of the United Brethren been active on these shores, and it is owing to their zeal that nearly all the Eskimos (except a few fam- ies which live quite far north of Killinek) have been converted. But they have not sought alone to Chris- tianize them, but also to civilize them. I believe that upon the whole coast there is not an Eskimo who can- not read, write, and cipher, although singularly enough they are not, to be sure, particularly given to this last ; on the other hand they have an extraordinary memory, and I believe they know well by heart the usual church tunes. Through close personal contact with the mission- aries they try to gain information regarding European customs. Every Sunday afternoon they are allowed to 278 THE LABRADOR ESKIMOS AND THEIR FORMER RANGE. come to the missionary house, where illustrated papers which have been sent as presents are shown to them. They are especially attracted by music, and whoever plays to them always finds a grateful public; and they are not listeners alone but also play themselves. Thus the organ or harmonicum used in the church service is played by Eskimos in the winter in the presence of the entire brotherhood, and the organ is accompanied by a small orchestra likewise composed of Eskimos.” CHAPT HR XTV: THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. In its general features the peninsula of Labrador is an oblong mass of Laurentian rocks lying between the 5oth and 6oth parallels of latitude. It rises abruptly from the ocean as an elevated plateau, forming the ter- mination of the Laurentian chain, which here spreads out into a vast waste of hills and low mountains. Thus, there is, except near Cape Chidley, no well-marked, single chain of mountains rising above spurs of smaller eleva- tions, but simply an interior height of land with isolated peaks, irregular in its course, from which streams take their rise and flow by various directions into the ocean. This plateau of hills and low mountains rises abruptly on the coast from the ocean to a height of from 500 to 1,000 feet, and inland continues to rise in peaks toa height of from 1,500 to about 6,000 feet until it reaches the water-shed at a distance of 100 to 200 miles from the coast. On the western slope this plateau falls gradually away by an easy descent towards the shores of Hudson’s Bay. Dr. Bell states that the northern coast increases gradually northward, “ until within seventy statute miles of Cape Chudleigh, where it has attained a height of about six thousand feet above the sea.” Thence the elevations or peaks decrease in height to Cape Chidley 279 280 THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. or Chudleigh, where they are fifteen hundred feet in elevation. He adds that the highest land of the Lab- rador peninsula forms a regular range of mountains parallel to the Atlantic seaboard, this range becoming progressively narrower from Hamilton Inlet to Cape Chidley. (Report for 1884, 10, DD.) On the south, the coast has a northeasterly trend, fol- lowing the coast-line of the southern Atlantic border of the continent. From Belle Isle, situated at the mouth of the Strait of Belle Isle, the eastern coast trends in a northwesterly direction to Cape Chidley, thus follow- ing the northwesterly trend of the northern Atlantic — coast-line of the continent from Cape Race in New- foundland to the head of Baffin’s Bay, near latitude 80°. It thus lies parallel to the western coast of Greenland. The northeasterly trend of the southern coast of Labra- dor is determined by the same course of the Laurentian range of syenites and gneiss rocks which forms the northern shore of the St. Lawrence Gulf and River. Its northwesterly course beyond the Strait of Belle Isle is likewise determined by a range of syenites and trap- rocks, upheaved in a general N. W. and S. E. direction. Thus the interior plateau of Laurentian gneiss seems surrounded by a framework of igneous rocks, which has apparently preserved to this day the original form and proportions of the Atlantic slope of the azoic nucleus of our continent. Laurentian Gunetwss and Syentte.—Between Little Mecatina Island and Henley Harbor there is a great uniformity in the rocks, which are either wholly gneiss, or more commonly a syenitic gneiss, forming bold head- lands. At Bradore are two lofty hills of gneiss, esti- THE LAURENTIAN ROCKS. 281 mated by Bayfield to be twelve hundred feet high. Be- tween Belles Amours and Anse-au-Sablon, on the north- ern side of the Strait of Belle Isle, occur the lower Silurian or Taconic rocks, which have been already fully described in the “ Geology of Canada,” published by the Canadian Geological Survey. In coasting within a mile or two of this interesting region we see the red sand- stones running out as a low point of land resting on the lofty, precipitous Laurentian rocks. Between Bradore Bay and Anse-au-Loup these sandstones and grits rise up to a height of five to six hundred feet, forming the coast-line ; and looking up through the bays and harbors we can see the low conical hills of Laurentian gneiss in the interior. At the eastern termination of this forma- tion the Laurentian rocks rise into high, rugged, and broken syenitic hummocks, in marked contrast with the regular terraces and smooth slopes of the fossiliferous sandstones and limestones. Approaching Henley Har- bor, there is a visible change in the scenic features of the coast; the hills grow more regular in outline, and slope gradually to the water, giving us the peculiar physiognomy of the Laurentian gneiss. Upon entering Henley Harbor the dark gneiss is seen resting upon syenite, and at the point of contact inter- penetrated by irregular intrusive masses of the latter rock. On Henley Island, where these rocks crop out under the trap capping this island, there appears a true syenitic gneiss, very hard, distinctly stratified, and of the usual flesh color of the syenite. | At this point I broke off some pieces of nearly un- stratified syenite which showed very distinctly the sedi- mentary origin of the rock, for the cavities were often 282 THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. partly rounded and contained rolled quartz pebbles, one being ovate and nearly two inches long. This syenitic gneiss was evidently an altered conglomerate. The syenite is the same as occurs on the coast of the St. Lawrence River, and while of the same color as that of the Maine and Nahant syenite, differs in its greater hard- ness and in the absence of black hornblende. It is com- posed of a flesh-red orthoclase or potash feldspar and a smoky and glassy quartz with minute particles of horn- blende disseminated sparsely through the mass. It is exceedingly tough and durable, as evidenced by the lofty capes and islands standing far up above the gneiss rocks spreading around the base of the overflows. At the northern end of the island the syenitic gneiss dips under the trap in a southeasterly direction at an angle of 50°. On an island a few rods farther to the north the gneiss assumes its usual character, being banded with light and dark strata, and has the general N. N. E. strike and dip indicated above. | At Square Island, which lies at the mouth of a deep bay just north of Cape St. Michael occurs in large, conical hills what I judge to be the great anorthosite for- mation of Logan and Hunt, composed of large, crystal- line masses of labradorite, with a little vitreous quartz, and coarse, crystalline masses of hornblende. The lab- radorite is of a smoky color, very lustrous, translucent and opalescent, with cleavage surfaces often two inches in diameter, and on some of the faces presents a greenish reflection. This is but a slight approach to the rich blue reflections of the precious labradorite which I have seen only at Hopedale, where we obtained specimens brought from the interior by the Eskimos which THE LAURENTIAN ROCKS. 283 compared favorably with specimens from the Ural Mountains. As the rock weathers, the greenish hornblende crystals project in masses sometimes two inchesin diameter. This rock easily weathers, and large masses are detached by frosts and readily crumble to pieces. The gneiss rests on the south side of the hill. From the top of the hills here can be seen huge gneiss mountains at least two thousand feet high, rising in vast swells at a distance of fifteen to twenty miles in the interior, while the bay is filled with innumerable szers and islets of gneiss. At Cape Webuc or Harrison the gneiss again appears upon the coast as a lofty headland faced with steep preci- pices of syenite. From off this cape are seen in the interior lofty mountains, of which the central and high- est peak is called Mount Misery, which in this clear climate can be plainly seen in pleasant weather by fisher- men at a distance of seventy-five miles in an air line. At Strawberry Harbor on the south side of Thomas Bay are lofty syenite hills. This point is fifty-five miles north of Cape Webuc. It is a small, deep hole in the coast, like a “purgatory,” and an amphitheatre of rock rises around it in huge steps, affording a striking illustra- tion of the power of the frost and waves on this exposed coast. Therock is a hard, tough, flesh-colored syenite, with deep vertical and horizontal fissures resulting from the decomposition of thin trap dykes, thus causing huge blocks of syenite to be detached and fall down. In sail- ing twenty-five miles up this bay, the gneiss rises on each side from the ocean into hills eight hundred to one thousand feet in height. About Hopedale, which is in latitude 55° 30, the rocks are gneiss. Behind the Mis- 284 THE GEOLOGY OF. THE LABRADOR COAST. sion House the strata are much disturbed locally ; at one locality the gneiss with veins of quartz and syenite trends northwesterly and dips 60° west. Trap dykes, prismatic in places, cross the island in a northeasterly direction. Northward of Hopedale the ‘“ Aulezavic gneiss” of Lieber forms the coast range of mountains, which, ac- cording to Lieut. Curtis (Trans. Geol. Soc., London, vol. ii. 1773), rise to a-height. of 2,733 feet at Mount Thoresby, on an island south of Kiglapeit. This observer states that Kiglapeit is evidently higher than, but inferior to, Kaumajet, which ‘has been seen thirty | leagues from land,” and is lower than Nachvak, which must be three thousand feet high. At Aulezavik Island near Cape Chidley, according to Mr, Lieber,; ‘‘syenitic oneiss is the true rock on wtme region, the normal one, although so many modifications occur that entirely new rocks are produced, having no direct connection with the basic syenitic gneiss. In consequence of this we have beds in which quartz alone occurs, or beds entirely occupied by the red feldspar of the region, as is seen with very beautiful distinctness in some of the dangerous Pikkintit Islands. Again, some beds are composed of white quartz and tourmaline as in Norway, others contain scarcely anything but black hornblende, or tourmaline and garnets. Some are com- posed of green hornblende, approximating to actinolite. From this there seems to be a passage into a coarse diorite rather porphyroid in its character, but occurring in regular intercalated beds, not in dykes, and evincing no sign of an eruptive origin. Again, some beds are composed of quartz and garnet, while others are studded LAURENTIAN TRAP-ROCKS. 285 with a beautiful golden-colored mica. A rock which ap- pears identical with aphanite, although not at all igneous, I also found, yet, with all this apparent variety, the transi- tions are too gradual to permit the differences to leave any effect on the landscape.” _ For some notes on the geology of Hamilton Inlet we are indebted to Mr. Davies: ‘‘ In some places mica slate was found—it issaid that the Mealy Mountains are com- posed of this rock. I had no opportunity of verifying this fact, as I did not visit them. Granite was only seen in one place, viz., on Lake Keith, an expansion of the Grand River, about one hundred and thirty miles from its mouth. Specimens of chlorite schist were also pro- cured on this lake, as was also a specimen of sandstone, with disseminated grains of iron pyrites. At some dis- tance below the lake, primary marble, of a beautiful whiteness, was seen cropping out at the edge of the water ; it was found in contact with a quartz rock pass- ing into mica slate, having crystals of common garnet imbedded in it ; this was the only place where limestone of any sort was seen. ‘The shores of the bay where they are not of rock are generally composed of rolled fragments of syenite, mica- slate, quartz, hornblende, sometimes in large masses, feldspar, etc. Magnetic iron in the form of sand was also met with in some of the small coves.” Laurentian Trap-rocks.—At Henley Harbor is a system of trap-rocks which have been upheaved in a N.N. E. and S. S. W. direction, in a course much more northerly than the direction which the Straits of Belle Isle assume. These rocks consist of three masses of co- lumnar basalt, capping the syenitic gneiss. It is a hard, 286 THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. fine, compact dolerite, breaking with a conchoidal frac- ture and metallic ring, and contains much iron. The mass is two hundred and fifty-five ‘feet high on Henley and Castle Islands, and consists of two layers of vertical columns. West of these basaltic rocks, on the opposite side of the harbor, is a large trap overflow forming a hill over three hundred feet high, and apparently of the same age. It should be remarked that the two layers of basalt representing successive overflows incline at a very slight angle towards the S. W. The third mass of ba- salt is seen rising out of the oceana few miles northerly, nearly in a line with the basalt of Henley Harbor. Dykes of this age were likewise seen at Strawberry Harbor, Cape Webuc, and at Hopedale, intersecting the Laurentian gneiss and syenite. heir age is plainly an- terior to the deposition of the undisturbed Cambrian, “primordial ” strata at Anse-au-Loup, and on the New- foundland coast opposite. Domino Gneiss.—A system of light-colored gneiss and trap rocks which lie in a depression of the Laurentian rocks, about one hundred and twenty-five miles long and probably twenty-five miles broad, stretching along the coast between Domino Harbor and Cape Webuc, agrees with the ‘‘ Domino Gneiss” of Mr. Lieber. At Domino Harbor in lat. 53° 30”, these rocks attain their greatest development, occurring as a slightly schis- tose, light-colored gneiss, the base of which is a white granular vitreous quartz, with speckles of black horn- blende, with a few particles of a lilac-colored mica. There are also minute rude crystals of yellow garnet, or cinnamon stone, disseminated through the mass. No feldspar was detected in this rock. In some places the THE DOMINO GNEISS. 287 rock was exceedingly fine, in others it assumed almost a conglomeritic aspect, from the presence of small masses of quartz. The quartz is often colored green. This rock weathers easily, leaving masses of quartz projecting on the surface; it 1s comparatively soft, and has been greatly denuded. It thus forms at this locality a broad, low, flat plain about ten miles broad and fifteen to twenty miles long, through which rise bosses of trap. Its sur- face is but a few feet above the level of the sea, and to one just coming from the high coast to the southward this broad, naked flat, almost wholly destitute of vegeta- tion, with no valleys to shelter even a growth of spruce trees, and but slightly furrowed by glacial action, with patches of white rock glistening in the sun from between the dull green morasses and ponds that are everywhere scattered over its surface,—presents a strange and foreign feature of the coast scenery, startling from its very tame- ness. When in contact with the trap hills the rock is much harder, rising into higher elevatrons. Nowhere was I able to see the juncture of this rock with the Lower Laurentian gneiss, which rises from the edge of this formation into high hills and mountains. So smooth had this plain been levelled and worn by gla- cial and aqueous agents, that it was difficult to observe the dip and strike of the beds, which, when undisturbed by eruptive rocks, I am inclined to believe, dip easterly at a slight angle. At Dumplin Harbor, which 1s a bight in an island lying just S. E. of Huntington Island, the gneiss, when lying next to trap, dips at an angle of 35° S. E., the strike of the beds being northeasterly. At Tub Harbor these rocks come in contact with the Lau- rentian syenite. Between the lighter-colored gneiss 288 THE GEOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. were beds of a dark fine-grained hornblendic quartzose gneiss, capped by thesyenite. At Indian Harbor, about thirty miles north of Tub Harbor, and on the opposite side of Hamilton Inlet, these same rocks appear. These Gg Saddle Is. | pa 7 eas wet = MAP of « PORTION | eS A ar fe aa Oe thE C0 AS aan Ole SSS Ny ele hutch Bay 2 Sis. Powe: Boy , ae C° Sbawperry DOF. a agin Tekle TaD Wsquinaix Is Y Tub Ts. et o4* SEE ED Oe =p ee O29 9 * x, a (ENS) BY Sandwich Bay ST oe RN eye Hover —— it NR 0 FO PSS, Spotted Ts. é oy Wsle of Fonds Ne6 08 x Wome Forbor SS oot ps SSS SE Laurentzan Gress ostoney Ls { e4uo ! Staak: Dorritt0 | Gneiss oa o00n e900 nao yao KZ + ay) sysqgume Ls SS. Anorthosele Syente — Bs AS Warren, Esq., who owns one of the largest fishing estab- lishments on the coast of Labrador, some observations on the herring as observed in Labrador and Newfound- land, which are here quoted, as the article is not likely to fall into the hands of American naturalists. “The female herring in Newfoundland come near the shore in moderate weather, and deposit their spawn, generally at night, in from 3 to 5 fathoms of water. The males follow and shed their milt over 16.” - |=) lpgais impossible, without seeing it, to form any idea of the prodigious abundance of the ova of the herring yearly deposited in Fortune Bay, and other of the favorite spawning-beds of the herring. The water will at times be seen white with milt for many acres.” ... “From personal observation, and from all the information I can obtain, I believe there are several schules of herring that. come in on different portions of our coast to spawn. It BATRACHIANS. t 4035 4s certain there are several varieties of the common her- ring differing in size, shape, and solidity of flesh. In Fortune Bay the spawn is deposited in the months of March and April; in St. George’s Bay, in the month of May, and a fortnight later on St. Barbe’s. My impres- sion is that on the southern shore of the Labrador coast the spawn is deposited in June, or early in July. During the months of August and September the Labrador coast from Mecatina to Bear Island is visited by vast shoals of large fat herring, which have in them neither roe nor milt. I consider these herring, by their size and appearance, to be of the same species or the same shoal as those which spawned in St. George’s Bay, in May or im ume, On ‘the Labrador coast, and which pass on in September and October to the Arctic waters, or more probably to the depth of the ocean. ‘ “ Of late years herring-seines have been much used on the Labrador coast, almost entirely superseding the use of nets, to the manifest injury of the fshing population. These immense seines, most of them more than one hundred and twenty fathoms long, often enclose over three thousand barrels of herring. During the first two to three years over one hundred and fifty seines were used on the coast by Nova Scotia fishermen.” BATRACHIA. Rana septentrionalis Baird. Okkak. Frogs wete heard and seen at Stag Bay, Domino Harbor, Lewis Bay, Henley Harbor, and on the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Bufo americana Lec. Salmon Bay. 406 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. Plethodon glutinosa Baird? A salamander of a dark slate color, with a paler dorsal stripe was observed at Belles Amours. BIRDS. LIST OF THE BIRDS OF LABRADOR, INCLUDING UNGAVA, EAST MAIN, MOOSE, AND GULF DISTRICTS OF THE HUD- SON BAY COMPANY, TOGETHER WITH THE ISLAND OF ANTICOSTI.* The scope of country intended to be embraced with- in the above heading is bounded on the north by Hud- son Strait, extending from east to west; on the east by the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the Gulf of St. Lawrence to where the parallel of 50 degrees north lati- tude strikes the land, then west to the intersection of the 82d degree of east longitude. The western boundary is the 82d degree of west longitude north to Hudson Strait. The period during which my own observations were made extends from June 15, 1882, to October 3, 1884. The principal scene of my investigations was in the vicinity of Fort Chimo, situated about 27 miles up the Koksoak River, flowing into Ungava Bay, which is an immense pocket towards the eastern portion of the south side of Hudson Strait. At this place I remained from August 6, 1882, to September 4, 1884. The southern portions of the country are entirely sub- arctic in character, while the northern portions are strictly arctic. The topography of the region is so diversified that * By Lucien M. Turner. Reprinted by the author’s permission from the Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum, 1885, pp. 233-254. Revised and brought down to 1891, by J. A. Allen. BIRDS. 407 even a scanty description is impracticable in this connec- tion. The climate is scarcely less diverse, the range of the thermometer at Fort Chimo being, for the period men- tioned above, 864 degrees for the maximum, and just 50 degrees below zero for the minimum, giving a range of 136.5 degrees for that period. Winter begins (zero of temperature) about the rst of November and continues to the last of April. Snow falls every month in the year, and the lowest temperature of each month in the year is never above the freezing point. The warmest night showed only 54 degrees. Snow remains from the last of September to the end of May ; snow-shoes have been used as late as the roth of May. Rain seldom falls before the 11th of May, and rarely after the middle of October. The bird-life is abundant in individuals if not in species.. Some of the birds which most certainly occur within the territory, yet of which no satisfactory evidence of actual occurrence has been recorded, are with one or two exceptions omitted for obvious reasons. 7yznga mart- tzma, for instance, certainly occurs somewhere along the coast, but has not been detected and recorded; the same with species of Fulix. Reference is made to the following authorities, and extracts made without comment or responsibility for their assertions : Audubon, J. J. Birds of America; seven volumes, published from 1840 to 1844. Nuttall. Manual of Ornithology, ed edition, 1840. Verrill, A. E. Notes on the Natural History of Anticosti, summer of 1861. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. ix., pp. 132 to 150, inclusive. 408 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. Coues, E. Notes on the Ornithology of Labrador, summer of 1860. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phil- adelphia, August, 1861, pp. 215 to 257, inclusive. Stearns, W. A. Notes on the Natural History of Labrador (with few additions on authority of Coues), 1880-’81-’82, pp. 111 to 138. inclusive, of the Proceedings of the United States Na- tional Museum, 1883. Brewster, William. Notes on the Birds observed during a summer cruise in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xxil., pp. 364 to 412, inclusive, October 3, 1883. Richardson’s Fauna Boreali-Americana, vol. ii. Kumlien, L. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, No. 15. Contributions to the Natural History of Arctic Amer- ica, made in connection with the Howgate Polar Expedition, 1877-78. Washington, 1879, pp. 69 to 105. [The following, mostly issued since the publication of © Mr. Turner’s paper, are of interest as bearing upon the bird-fauna of Labrador : Stearns, W. A. Bird-life in Labrador, American Field, April 26-Oct. 11, 1890. A series of twenty-five articles, giving at length the author's observations on the birds of Labrador. Merriam, Dr. C. Hart. List of birds ascertained to occur within ten miles of Point de Monts, Province of Quebec, Canada, based chiefly upon the notes of Napoleon A. Comeau, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, vol. vii., 1882, pp. 233-242; vol. viil., 1383, p. 244; The Auk, voli 1., 1884, px 205 5 11,1885, p. 113) Palmer, William. Notes on the birds observed during the cruise of the United States Fish Commission Schooner “ Gram- pus” in the summer of 1887. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. xiii, ~ 1890, pp. 249-265. See also a review of Mr. Turner’s List in ‘‘ The Auk,” vol. ii., p. 368, and Mr. Turner’s reply thereto (““ Auk,” iii., p- 140). BIRDS. 409 The nomenclature here adopted is that of the American Ornithologists’ Union Check-list of North American Birds. In Mr. Turner’s list, as originally published, the names adopted, were, in the main, those of Ridgway’s “Nomenclature of North American Birds,” forming | bulletin 21 of the U. S. National Museum, In the present reprint, aside from the revision of the nomen- clature to bring it into conformity with the system now almost universally adopted, the only changes are the addition of a few titles to the list of authorities cited, the numbering of the species consecutively instead of in conformity with the Ridgway ‘‘ Nomenclature,” and the addition of critical remarks on a few species attributed to Labrador on doubtful evidence. An asterisk (*) prefixed toa name indicates that the species is resident throughout the year. A dagger (f) similarly placed indicates breeding. Joa, AMICON 1. ZLurdus mustelinus (Gmel.). Wood Thrush. Stearns, p. 116, asserts that he heard this species in Southern Labrador. [Labrador is quite beyond the normal range of this species, which is found only spar- ingly in Northern New England. Mr. Stearns omits the species from his later ‘‘ Bird Life in Labrador,” cited above. | 2. Turdus fuscescens (Steph.). Wilson’s Thrush. Audubon, vol. ii., p. 27, saw young July 20, 1833. Brewster, p. 368, saw a pair July 24, 1881, on Anti- costi. [This species can reach Labrador only as a strageler, being of rare occurrence even in- Northern New England. | — ne AIO THE ZOOLOGY OF THE: LABRADOR COAST, + 3. Zurdus alicze Baird. Gray-cheeked Thrush. Rare in Ungava. Common in southeastern and southern portions. Breeds wherever found in summer, | Nest and eggs procured at Fort Chimo, June 28, 1884. 4. Turdus ustulatus swatnsone (Caban.). Olive- backed Thrush. Brewster, p. 369, obtained an adult female at Fox Bay, Anticosti, July 11, 1881. Verrill reports it very common (p. 137) on Anticosti. Specimens were obtained June 13 and in July, 1860, at Rupert House, by Drexler. 5. Lurdus aonalaschke pallastc (Caban.). Hermit Thrush. Brewster, p. 369, found it an abundant species at Anticosti and on the south shore of Labrador. Vernill, p. 137, found it common at the same place. + 6. Merula migratorza (Linn.). American Robin. Abundant throughout the country. Breeding plenti- fully at Fort Chine Ungava. 7. Saxicola enanthe (Linn, )) Stone Chat. Coues, p. 218, obtained, August 25, 1860, at Henley Harbor, Labrador, a single individual of this bird. + 8. Regulus calendula(Linn.). .Ruby-crowned King- let: Common in southern portions. Audubon, vol. ii, p.’ 168, found them June 27, 1833, and saw the young of the year a month later. Coues obtained a specimen August 6, at Rigolet, wzde Pyete: Stearns shot a single specimen at Old Fort Island, October 11, 1881, vzde p. 116. 2 + 9. Regulus satrapa Licht. Golden-crowned Kinglet- ———. os BIRDS. AIT Audubon, vol. ii., p. 165, found them feeding their young in August. 10. Parus atricapillus Linn. Black-capped Chickadee. I am informed by credible persons, long resident in. the country, that two species of chickadees occur at- Northwest River, at the head of Hamilton Inlet. Verrill, p. 138, reports it very common on Anticosti. *+ 11. Parus hudsonicus Forst. Wudsonian Chick-: adee. Abundant everywhere in the wooded tracts. Young of the year were obtained July 19, 1882, at Davis Inlet, and in early August at Fort Chimo. Audubon, vol. ii., p. 155, states that they found a nest in Labrador. 12. Sztta canadensts Linn. Red-bellied Nuthatch. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 179, states that he saw one in Labrador which had probably been driven there by a. storm. : Verrill, p. 138, reports it as common on Anticosti. 13. Lroglodytes hyemalzs Vieill. Winter Wren. Audubon, vol. i., p. 129, found this species in South- ern Labrador, July 20, 1833. Verrill, p. 138, states that he observed a small wren at Southwest Point, Anticosti, in July, which he thought was this species. + 14. MWotacella alba Linn. White Wagtail. Four individuals of this species were seen by Alex. Brown and James Lyall (of the Hudson Bay Company), August 29, 1883, at Hunting Bay, 4 miles south of Fort Chimo. These persons described the bird accurately, and declared they were the two parents and two young ae AI2 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. of the year. I must add that I place the fullest reliance in their assertion. +15. Anthus penselvantcus (Lath.). American Lat lark. Abundant throughout the territory. Nests and eggs ‘obtained at Fort Chimo, where it breeds plentifully. 16. Mnzotelta vare~a (Linn.). Black-and-white ‘Creeper. | A specimen was obtained at Moose Factory, May 13, 1860, and also on the 31st of that month, by C. Drexler. Brewster, p. 369, obtained a specimen at Fox Bay, Amticosi, uly re 138 r. 17. Flelminthophila peregrina (Wils.). Tennessee ‘Warbler. Obtained by Drexler,.at Fort George, in June and July, 1860. Brewster, p. 370, obtained a specimen near Fox Bay, Anticosti, July 11, 1881. 18. Compsothlypis americana (Linn.). Blue Yellow- backed Warbler. Brewster, p. 370, saw a male at Fox Bay, Anticosti, July wisrasir 19. Dendrorca tigrina (Gmal)) Cape May Warbler. - Specimen obtained by Drexler, May 28, 1860, at Moose Factory. 20. Dendroica e@stiva (Gmel.). Summer Yellow Bird. Specimen obtained by Drexler, July 12, 1860, at Fort George. Brewster, p. 370, reports it as abundant on Anti- Costi. BIRDS. ALS + 21. Dendroica coronata (Linn.). Yellow-rump War- bler. Audubon, vol. ii., p. 24, found them plentiful in Lab- ' rador, with young scarcely able to fly. Drexler obtained specimens, July 21, 1860, at Moose Factory. +22. Dendrorca maculosa (Gmel.). Black-and-yellow Warbler. . Drexler obtained a specimen at Moose Factory, May 28, 1860. Audubon, vol. ii., p. 66, reports it common, with eggs and nest in beginning of July, 1833. Brewster, p. 371, found it abundant on Anticosti. 23. Dendrowa cerulescens (Gmel.). Black-throated Blue Warbler. Audubon, vol. ii., p. 63, states he found a dead one in Labrador. [This species is erroneously entered in Mr. Turner's list as “| Dendrotca cerulea (Wils.). Cerulean Warbler.” | 24. Dendrowa castanea (Wils.). Bay-breasted War- bler. Drexler obtained a specimen at Moose Factory, June 2, 1860. Three individuals were seen at Black Island, Hamil- ton Inlet, by me July 9, 1882. Two were shot, but lost +n the thick undergrowth ; one of the birds was actually in my hand, but escaped. +25. Dendroica striata (Forst.). Black-poll War- bler. Abundant throughout the wooded portions of the region. Breeds plentifully at Fort Chimo, where seven nests and eggs were obtained in 1884 by me. 414 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 26. Dendrowca blackburnie (Gmel.). Blackburnian “Warbler. Audubon, vol. ii, p. 48, saw several in Labrador. 27. Dendrotca virens (Gmel. ). Black-throated Green ‘Warbler. Brewster, p. 371, saw two or three on Anticosti. + 28. Dendroica palmarum hypochrysea (Ridew.). -Red-poll Warbler. A. specimen was obtained by Drexler at Moose Fac- tory in July, 1860. Audubon, vol. i1., p.55, found them plentiful in Labra- dor. Young seen in August. e2e Sid aurocapillus (Linn.). Golden- crowned Thrush. Stearns, p. 116, records this species as breeding in Southern Labrador. Brewster, p. 371, saw a pair at Ellis Bay, Anticosti, Pulycor Verrill, p. 137, obtained specimens at Auticases July Ls Oo One +30. Sezurus noveboracensts (Gmel.). Small-billed ‘Water Thrush. Several individuals, young of the year among them, ‘were procured by me at Davis Inlet in August, 1884. A specimen was procured at Moose Factory, May 26, 1860, by Drexler. 31. Geothlypis trichas (Linn.). Maryland Yellow- throat. Common in southern portions of Labrador. Stearns, p. 116, reports it from Natashquan. Brewster, p. 371, found it at Fox Bay, Anticosti July 11. BIRDS. 415 + 32. Sylvanta pusilla (Wils.). Black-capped Yel- low Warbler. Audubon, vol. ii., p. 21, records it as breeding in Lab- tador, and a nest obtained. Brewster, p. 371, records it from Anticosti. (33. Sylvania canadenszs (Linn.). Canadian Warb- ler. Audubon, vol. ii, p. 15, reports it as breeding in Lab- rador. + 34. Setophaga ruticilla (Linn.). American Red- ‘Start. Verrill, p. 137, records it as breeding on Anticosti, with young ones just able to fly, July 18, 186r. A specimen was obtained by James McKenzie at Rupert House, September 3, 1860. Brewster, p. 372, records it from Ellis and Fox Bays, Anticosti, and from Mingan, on the south shore of Lab- rador. 35. Vereo oltvaceus (Linn.). Red-eyed Vireo. Verrill, p. 138, reports it as common on Anticosti. 36. Vereo philadelphicus (Cass.). Philadelphia Vireo. Individual obtained from Moose Factory, June 2, 1860, by Drexler. 37. Vireo noveboracensts (Gmel.). White-eyed Vireo. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 148, states that a few were seen in Labrador. [Audubon was probably mistaken, Labrador being beyond the known range of this species. | * + 38. Lanzus borealzs Vieill. Great Northern Shrike. Not common at Fort Chimo. Breeds there. Young, -unable to fly more than a few rods, were taken by the hand at that place, June 30, 1884. Said to be common ee ine 416 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. in the more southern portions, and there known as the “Silky Jay.” 39. Ampelts cedrorum (Vieill.). Cedar Wax-wing. Specimen obtained August 26, 1860, by Drexler, at Moose Factory. + 40. Petrochelidon luntfrons (Say). Cliff Swallow. Verrill, p. 137, reports it breeding in large numbers, July 15, 1861, on Anticosti. | + 41. Chelidon erythrogaster (Bodd.). Barn Swal- low. Breeds at Northwest River, at the head of Hamilton Inlet. + 42. Tachycineta bicolor (Vieill.). |White-bellied Swallow. Common at ‘‘ Big” Island, in the Koksoak River, near Fort Chimo, where it breeds abundantly. Abundant throughout the northern portions. Brewster, p. 372, saw two at Anticosti, June 9. + 43. Chrvicola riparzva (Linn.). Bank Swallow. - Audubon, vol. i., p. 189, states that it rarely begins to breed before June, and lays only once. Said to be plen- tiful on south shore of Labrador, Verrill, p. 138, reports it plentiful on Anticosti. * + 44. Pintcola enucleator (Linn.). Pine Grosbeak. Abundant in summer only, at Fort Chimo; breeds there; nest and eggs obtained. Plentiful in southern districts among the timbered tracts. Resident south of the “‘Height of Land™ This bird is known asthe ‘* Mupe.” 45. Carpodacus purpureus (Gm.). Purple Finch. Kumlien, p. 75, obtained one on shipboard off Resolu- tion Island. BIRDS. AL7 Drexler obtained it at Moose Factory, May 28, 1860. Occurs plentifully in southern portions. * +46. Loxia leucuplera Gmel. White-winged Cross- bill. Abundant at Fort Chimo in winter, rare during other winters. None observed in summer. Birds of the year are taken in early winter. Breeds in central portions and resident there. 47. Acanthis hornemannt (Holb.). Mealy Redpoll. Very abundant in winter. Not occurring in summer from May 15 to September 1 of each year. * +48. Acanthis hornemannt exilipes (Coues). White-rumped Redpoll. Abundant and resident. Breeds plentifully at Fort Chimo, where nests and eggs were obtained. * +49. Acanthis linarza (Linn.). Common Redpoll. Abundant and resident. Breeds plentifully at Fort Chimo, where nests and eggs were obtained. 50. Acanthzs linarza rostrata (Coues). Greater Red- poll. Rather common in winter. None to be seen from May 15 to September 1 of each year. 51. Spznus trestzs (Linn.). American Goldfinch, Kumlien, p. 76, caught an adult male on shipboard off Cape Mugford, August 22, 1877. Occurs in southern portions of Labrador. A bird called “Goldfinch” was described accurately, and asserted to occur occasionally at Fort Chimo, but I - did not succeed in finding it. 52. Spznus penus (Wils.). Pine Goldfinch. Recorded by Audubon, vol. ii, p.. 126, as common. Brewster, p. 373, saw a flock, July 24, on Anticosti. 418 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST, / * +53. Plectrophenax nival’s (Linn.). Snow Bunting. Abundant at Fort Chimo. Breeds on the islands in Ungava Bay and occasionally on the mainland. Resident in the southern portions of Labrador. +54 Calcarius lapponicus (Linn.). Lapland Long- spur. Abundant at Fort Chimo. Breeds near the mouth of the Koksoak River and on the larger islands in Ungava Bay. +55. Ammodramus sandwichenses savanna (Wils.). Savannah Sparrow. Common throughout the region. Breeds at the mouth of the Koksoak River and at Davis inlet. : +56. Zonotrichia leucophrys (Forst.). White- crowned Sparrow. Very plentiful throughout the country. Breeds abundantly at Fort Chimo. +57. Zonotrichia albicollis (Gmel.). White-throated Sparrow. Reported by Stearns, p. 117,as common and breed- ing in Southern Labrador. Audubon, vol. iii., p. 154, states that this species is common, and that he saw young late in July. Drexler obtained this species at Moose Factory, May 31, 1860. Verrill, p. 138, reports this species as by far the most common singing bird at Anticosti. +58. Spzzella monticola (Gmel.). Tree Sparrow. Common throughout the entire country. Breeds plen- tifully at Fort Chimo, where eggs and nests were taken. ~ + 59. Funco hyemalis (Linn.). Black Snowbird. Not observed in the Ungava district. Common in the eastern and southern portions of Labrador. Breeds BIRDS. AIQ at Davis Inlet and Rigolet. Known as the “Stone Chat” on the east coast. + 60. Melosprza lencolnt (Aud.). Lincoln’s Finch. Rare at Fort Chimo ; a male obtained June 10, 1883. ‘Common in southern portions. Audubon, vol. iii., p. 117, found young July 4, 1833. -Drexler procured specimens at Moose Factory, May 23, 1860. 61. Melospiza georgiana (Lath.). Swamp Sparrow. Audubon, vol. iii., p. 111, states it to be abundant in Labrador. Brewster, p. 375, found it plentiful on Anticosti. + 62. Passerella tliaca (Merrem). Fox-colored Spar- row. Common in southern portions. Young obtained at Rigolet late in June and early July, 1882. 63. Prpilo erythrophthalmus (Linn.). Chewink; ‘Towhee. Audubon, vol. iii., p. 168, states that. it occurs north- ward to Labrador. [Doubtless an error. | t 64. Scolecophagus carolinus (Miill.). Rusty Black- bird. Common. Breeds at Fort Chimo, where young just from the nest were obtained, July 10, 1884. *+ 65. Corvus corax principalis Ridgw. American Raven. Abundant throughout the region. Breeds at Fort Chimo ; nearly fledged young seen in nest May 18. 66. Corvus americanus Aud. Common Crow. Rare and only found in southern portions. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 89, states few were to be seen in Labrador. 420 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. Coues, p. 226, saw one flying. Stearns, p. 117, reports it from Eskimo River. Verrill, p. 138, records it as very common on Antti- costi. Not known to breed in Labrador. * + 67. Pertsoreus canadensts (Linn.). Canada Jay. Plentiful in interior of southern and westen portions. Breeds and resident wherever found. * + 68. Perisoreus canadensis nigricapillus (Ridgw. ). Coastwise and interior especially abundant. Resident and breeds at Fort Chimo. + 69. Otocorzs alpestris (Linn.). Shore Lark. Common. Breeds at the mouth of the Koksoak River and at Rigolet. + 70. Tyrannus tyrannus (Linn.). Kingbird; Bee Martin. Audubon, vol.1., p. 207, found it breeding in Labrador. 71. Contopus borealis (Swains.). Olive-sided Fly- catcher. Audubon, vol.i., 215, records it from the coast of Labrador. + 72. Contopus richardsonz (Swains.). Western Wood Pewee. | Audubon, vol. i., p. 220, states that he found it breed- ing in Labrador. [This was erroneously entered in Mr. Turner’s list as “Sayornzs phoebe (Lath.). Phoebe Bird.” | 73. Contopus virens (Linn.). Wood Pewee. Audubon, vol. 1, p. 233, records it [probably erro- neously | from Labrador. 74. Emprdonax flaviventrzs Baird. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. | Brewster, p. 380, reports it common at Ellis Bay, Anticosti, | BIRDS. A421 + 75. Emprdonax minimus Baird. Least Flycatcher. - Audubon, vol. 1., p. 237, found it nesting in Labrador. Obtained by Drexler at Moose Factory, May 30, 1860. 76. Lvochtlus colubrzs Linn. Ruby-throated Hum- ming-bird. A single individual, male, was seen within 4 feet of me July 17, 1882, on the hill-top (825 feet elevation) back of the station at Davis Inlet. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 195, states that few were seen in Labrador. 77. Chorderles virgentanus (Gmel.). Nighthawk. Stearns, p. 117, records it from Natashquan. Obtained by Drexler in August, 1860, at Moose Factory. * + 78. Dryobates vellosus leucomelas (Bodd.). Hairy Woodpecker. Resident in southern portions of Labrador; probably does not occur north of the “ Heignt of Land.” *+ 79. Dryobates pubescens (Linn.).. Downy Wood- pecker. Common and resident in southern portions ; probably does not range north of 56°. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 249, reports it from Texas to Labrador. Brewster, p. 381, found it breeding at Fox Bay, Anti- costi, July rr. | *+ 80. Pucordes arctecus (Swains.). Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker. . Common and resident throughout the wooded por- tions. * + 81. Prcordes americanus Brehm. Banded-backed Three-toed Woodpecker. 422 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. Common and resident throughout the wooded por- tions. + 82. Colaptes auratus (Linn.). Yellow-shafted Flicker. An accidental straggler was procured from the main- land near Akpatok Island, Hudson Strait, in October, 1882. Reported to be a common summer visitor to Northwest River. . + 83. Ceryle alcyon (Linn.). Belted Kingfisher. A summer visitor to Northwest River, where it breeds. Drexler obtained a specimen, May 26, 1860, at Moose Factory. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 208, records that he has met with it from Texas to Labrador. 84. Coccyzus amertcanus (Linn.). Y ellow-billed Cuckoo. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 296, states that even in Labrador he has met with a few of them [— a statement req ae confirmation ]. 85. Coccyzus erythrophthalmus (Wils.). Black-billed Cuckoo. Audubon, vol. iv., p. 301, states that they saw a few in clumps of low trees a few miles from the shore of the gulf. (The text evidently refers to Labrador.) *?+ 86. Aszo accepitrinus (Pall.). Short-eared Owl. Common insummer only at Fort Chimo. Specimens obtained there and at Davis Inlet. A very light-colored individual was seen, July 18, 1882, at Davis Inlet. Downy young individual was obtained at Fort Chimo. Plentiful on the east shore of Hudson Bay. Not known to winter in the Ungava district. 87. Scotiaptex cinerea (Gmel.). Great Gray Owl. BIRDS. ABS Specimen (No. 32306 2) in the Smithsonian Institu- tion colJection was obtained by James McKenzie at Moose Factory. No record from other parts of the country. 88. Nyctala acadica (Gmel.). Saw-whet Owl. Specimen (No. 32301) in Smithsonian Institution was obtained at Moose Factory by James McKenzie. * + 89. Bubo virginianus saturatus Ridgw., Dusky Horned Owl. | Not rare at Fort Chimo. Resident. Downy young obtained June 20, 1884. * + 90. Vyctea nyctea (Linn.). Snowy Owl. Common throughout the country. Breeds at Fort Chimo. ' *+o1. Surnza ulula caparoch (Miill.). American Hawk Owl. Rare at Fort Chimo. Eggs obtained June 8, 1884, and downy young nearly ready to leave the nest were talcen June 20; _ *+ 92. Falco wslandus Briinn. White Gyrfalcon. Common at Fort Chimo and east coast of Labrador. Resident-in northern portions, breeds at Fort Chimo. t+ 93. Falco rusticolus Linn. Iceland Gyrfalcon. Winter specimens only obtained at Fort Chimo. Not known to breed in the Ungava district. * + 94. Falco rusticolus obsoletus (Gmel.). Labrador Gyrfalcon. - Abundant at Fort Chimo. Eggs obtained May 24. Young and adult specimens of this bird procured. Very rare in winter at Fort Chimo. +95. alco peregrinus anatum (Bon.). American Peregrine Falcon; Duck Hawk. Abundant at Fort Chimo. Eggs, downy young, and 424 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. adults taken there. Does not pass the winter in the Ungava district. + 96. falco columbarius Linn. Pigeon Hawk. Audubon, vol. i., p. 89, states that eggs and nest were found about June 1. Coues, p. 216, met with it on two occasions; one at Groswater Bay on August 5, and on the 25th of August ot Erenley: iagbor 97. falco sparvertus Linn. Sparrow Hawk. Coues, p. 216, saw a single individual in Labrador. - + 98. Pandion halraetus carolinensis (Gm.). American Osprey ; Fish Hawk. | Mr. John Ford assured me that the Fish Hawk breeds, four or five pairs of them, about 4 miles above the station of the Hudson Bay Company on Northwest River. Nuttall, page 81, reports it from Labrador. Brewster, p. 382, records that few were seen at Anti- costi. . 99. Czrcus hudsontus (Linn.). Marsh Hawk. Audubon, vol. i., p. 105, saw it in Labrador. 100. Acczpiter velox (Wils.). . Sharp-shinned Hawk. Richardson, vol. i., p. 44, states that one was killed near Moose Factory and deposited by the Hudson Bay Company in the museum of London. Verrill, p. 137, reports having seen this species near Salmon River July 3; 1367. *+ 101. Aceipeter atricapillus (Wils.). American Goshawk. Resident in Ungava district. Winter specimen ob- tained inearly December, 1882. Breeds at the “Chapel” BIRDS. A425 near Fort Chimo. Specimen obtained from Rigolet. Known as “ Partridge Hawk.” 102. Buteo latesstmus (Wils.). Broad-winged Hawk. Specimen (No. 33209 ¢) in Smithsonian Institution collected by James McKenzie in 1862 at Moose Factory. ¢ 103. Archibuteo lagopus sancte-johannts (Gmel.). American Rough-legged Hawk. Both light and dark phases, with their eggs, young, and adults, collected at Fort Chimo. Apparently more abundant on eastern and northern shores than on the . _ southern portions of Labrador. Downy young were also obtained, of the black phase, July 17, 1882, at Davis Inlet. Termed ‘ Squalling Hawk” by the planters. + 104. Aguzla chrysaetos (Linn.). Golden Eagle. Specimens procured in Ungava district. Breeds in the northeastern portions among the hills. A pair also byeed, at the “Forks” in the -Uneava district. The Eagles are termed ‘“‘Grepe” by the planters, and is a word derived from some of the earlier Scandinavian settlers on the coast who apply the term Grefe to a Vulture. + 105. Halectus leucocephalus (Linn.). Bald Eagle ; Gray Eagle. Nuttall, p. 75, records it as breeding and rearing its young in all the intermediate space from Nova Scotia or Labrador to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 106. Lclopistes migratortus (Linn.). Passenger Pigeon. Specimen obtained August 16, 1860, by C. Drexler, at Moose Factory. Verrill, p. 138, saw a single individual at Heath ‘ 426 THE ZOOLOGY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. Point, Anticosti, and was informed that they are very rare there. * + 107. Dendragapus canadenses (Linn.). Canada. Grouse; Spruce Partridge. Abundant throughout the wooded tracts, Resident.. Eggs, downy young, and adults procured at Fort Chimo. *+ 108. Lonasa umbellus togata (Linn.). Ruffed Grouse.. Occurs rarely at the head of Hamilton Inlet, but only on the south side; rather common at Paradise River, flowing into Sandwich Bay, and abundantly in the val-- leys to the southward, where birch grows plentifully. These birds are known as “ French Hens.” . Audubon, vol. iv., p. 80, reports it as common from Maryland to fearon * + 109. Lagopus lagopus (Linn.). Willow Ptarmi- gan. | Exceedingly abundant throughout the country. Breeds by thousands at Fort Chimo, where eggs, adults, and young in all stages were procured. * + 110. Lagopus rupestris(Gm.). Rock Ptarmigan- Plentiful everywhere on the treeless areas. Eggs, young in all stages, and adults were procured from vari- ous places. 111. Ardea herodias Linn. Great Blue Hee An individual was seen by Mr. John Saunders (of the Hudson Bay Company) to fly from the creek which is: the outlet of Whitefish Lake, near Fort Chimo, in the summer of 1880. A specimen was obtained at Moose | Factory by James McKenzie, August 29, 1860. Verrill, p. 138, states that a large Heron, which ap- ; BIRDS. 427 peared to be of this species, was seen at Ellis Bay, Anti~ ~costi. f+ 112. Botaurus lentiginosus (Montag.). American Bittern. According to Coues, p. 227, a wing of a Bittern was: seen in the possession of a native at Rigolet (?). Drexler found it breeding at Moose Factory, and ob- tained specimens August 29, 186-. Verrill, p. 138, records it as common at Anticosti. A. young one, just able to fly, was caught August 4. ¢ 113. Hematopus patliatus Temm. American: Oystercatcher. Audubon, vol. v., p. 237, found several breeding in Labrador. | ¢ 114. Arenarza tnterpres (Linn.). Turnstone. Occasional at Ungava Bay. A young bird of the year was obtained there in the middle of September, 1882,. and an adult at Davis Inlet. Not rare on the east coast.. 115. Charadrius sguatarola (Linn.). Black-bellied. Plover. Stearns, p. 118, reports it plentiful in South Labrador.. Not observed in the Ungava district. Not breeding. 116. Charadrius dominicus Mill. American Golden Plover. Occurs, in fall only, at the mouth of the Koksoak. Common in the southern and western portions near the coast. Not known to breed there. { 117. . R. Butler. ) 559. Lathyrus paluster Linn. Caribou Island and Forteau Bay, (S. R. Butler.) ROSACEA. ? 571. Prunus FPennsylvanica Linn. Cerasus Butler’s List. Caribou Island. (S. R. Butler.) 588. Rubus Chamemorus Linn. Ford's Harbor (R. mello: Straits, Of. Belle. isle .(St.Cyr.); Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 589. Rubus arcticus Linn. Peat bogs, coast of Lab- rador (Abbé Brunot) ; Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Is- land: (5. R. Butler). Var. grandifiorus Ledeb. Coast of Labrador (Hooker) ; Nain and Nachvak (R. Bell). 592. Rubus trzflorus, Rich. Forteau Bay (S. R. Butler). 456 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 605. Dryas octopetala Linn. D. tenella, Pursh ; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz); Nachvak and Cape Chudley CR. Bell) ; Hill tops, Point Amour (S. R. Butler), 612. Geum revale Linn. In_ springy places along the coast (W. E. Stearns). 613. Geum triflorum Pursh. Dry rocky ground (Judge Morrison). 618. Szbbaldia procumbens Linn. Coast of Labrador (M’Gill Coll. Herb.); Hopedale (Weiz). 625. Potentilla Norvegica Linn. Forteau Bay and Caribou Island (S. R. Butler) ; Nain (R. Bell). 637. Fotentilla nivea Linn. Hopedale (Weiz). 641. Fotentidlla maculata Poir. P, Salisburyensts Henke; Weiz’ List. P. aurea Oeder; Weiz’ List. £. crocea Waller; Weiz' List. TElopedale (Wem Nain and Nachvak (R. Bell); on hills at Amour (S R. Butler). : 643. Potentella emarginata Pursh, Coast of Labrador (Colmaster ). 645. Potentilla palustrzs Scop. Comarum palustrzes Linn.; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island. (S. R. Butler). 647. FPotentilla frutizcosa Linn. Coast of Labrador (Hooker). 648. Fotentilla tridentata Solander. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 649. Potentilla Anserena Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). | 653. Alchemilla vulgarzs Linn. South coast of Lab- rador near Amour (S. E. Butler); collected in several PLANTS. 457 localities along the coast (W. E. Stearns); ete (Weiz). 656. Potertum Canadense Beath. & Hook. Sanguz- sorba Canadensis, Linn.; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz); common on dry sloping flats along the coast (W. E.. Stearns); Caribou Island (Butler). 674. Pirus Americana DC. Var. microcarpa, Torr. & Gr. Caribou Island, (S. R. Butler). Not rare on the coast (W. E. Stearns); Hopedale (Weiz). 685. Amelanchier Canadenszs Var. (2) oligocarpa, T. & Gr. South coast of Labrador at Amourand Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). SAXIFRAGACE. 686. Saxzfraga oppositzfolia Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; on rocks at Amour (S. R. Butler). 688. Saxzfraga Azzoon Jacq. Coast of Labrador (Judge Morrison) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 690. Saxtfraga cespitosa Linn. Var. Groenlandica, Wahl; S. Groenlandica, Linn.; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz); Forteau Bay (S. R. Butler); Nachvak (R. Bell). 693. Saxzfraga rivularzs Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Coast of Labrador, (M’Gill Coll. Herb.) ; Nachvak (R. Bell). 695. Saxzfraga cernua Linn. Hopedale (Weiz); Coast of Labrador (Pursh). — 608. Saxzfraga nivalis Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Nachvak (R. Bell) ; Coast of Labrador (Pursh) ; Cari- bou Island, (S. R. Butler). 702. oe hieractfolca Waldst. and Kit. Hope- dale (Weiz). 458 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 713. Saxifraga tricuspridata Retz. Coast of Labra- dor (McGill Coll. Herb.) ; Nachvak (R. Bell). 714. Saxtfraga azzordes Linn. Southeast coast of Labrador (S. R. Butler) ; Hopedale (Weiz); Nach- vak (R. Bell). 724. Mitella nuda Linn. Cool damp places (Hooker). 737. Parnassta palustrzs Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Coast of Labrador (Hooker). 740. Parnassta Kotzebuer Cham. and Schlecht. Hope- dale (Weiz) ; Coast of Labrador (M’Gill Coll. Herb.). 753. Ribes prostratum LiHer. R.glandulosum, Ait.; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). CRASSU LACE, 769. Sedum RhodiolaDC. Nain, Nachvak, and Ford's Harbor (R. Bell) ; Hopedale (Weiz). DROSERACE, 771. Drosera rotundifolia Linn. Coast of Labrador (Hooker); Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). HALORAGE, 781. Hippurus vulgaris Linn. Coast of Labrador (Hooker); Hopedale (Weiz). ONAGRACEA. 786. LEpilobium angustifolium Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Coast of Labrador (Hooker) ; Caribou Island, (S. R. Butier) ; Nain and Nachvak (R. Bell). 787. Epilobium latifolium Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; PLANTS. A5Q> Amour Bay, on the south coast, and Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 789. Epilobium alpinum Linn. B. onutans;, Lebm.; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz) ; South coast of Labra- dor (Abbé Brunot). 794. Epilobcum palustre Linn. Var. lineare, Gray. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Coast of Labrador (Judge Morri- son ). UMBELLIFERA. 871. Archangelica atropurpurea Hofim. Angelica. Archangelica, Schrank; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz); On the south coast at Amour Bay and Caribou Island. (sak. Butler )- 872. Archangelica Gmelini DC. Coast of Labrador, (McGill Coll. Herb.) ; Strait of Belle Isle (St. Cyr). 864. Ligusticum Scoticum Linn. Caribou Island (S. i Butler). 883. Heracleum lanatum Michx. -Caribou Island, (S. R. Butler) ; Coast of Labrador (Hooker). CORNACE. 885. Cornus Canadensts Linn. Caribou Island, and Forteau Bay (S. R. Butler); Nain (R. Bell); Hope- dale (Weiz). 806. Cornus Suecica Linn. Coast of Labrador (Abbé Brunot) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler); Ford's. Harbor (R. Bell). CAPRIFOLIACE. 916. Viburnum pauciflorum Pylaie. Caribou Island. (sR. Butler). 459 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 919. Linnea borealis Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Cari bou Island (S. R. Butler). 929. Lonicera caerulea Linn. In _ bogs, frequent (Hooker) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). RUBIACEA, 941. Galium trifidum Linn. (G. Claytont Hook. ; ‘Weiz’ List.) Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). COMPOSITE. 984. Solzdago macrophylla Pursh. (.S. thyrsotdea E. Meyer; Weiz’ List.) Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Is- land (S. R. Butler) ; Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 986. Solidago Virgaured, var. alpina Bigel. Hope- dale (Weiz) ; Ford’s Harbor and Nachvak (R. Bell). 987. Solidago multiradiata Ait. Along the coast of Labrador (Judge Morrison), 1019. Aster Radula Ait., var. strzctus Gray. Cari- bou Island (S. R. Butler); Hopedale (Weiz) ; coast of Labrador (Pursh). 1079. Erigeron uniflorus Linn. Hopedale (Weiz); coast of Labrador (Colmaster); Nachvak (R. Bell). 1092. Lrzgeron acrts Linn, Coast of Labrador (Torr. and Gray); Hopedale (Weiz). 1098. Axntennarza diorca Geertn. Coast of Labrador (Hooker) ; Hopedaie (Weiz). 1099. Axntennarza alpina Gertn. Coast of Labrador (Colmaster) ; Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island(S. R. Butler). : 1100. Antennarta Carpathica R. Br. Coast of La- ‘brador (Dr. Gray). PLANTS. 461 - 1106. Guaphalium Norvegicum Gunner. (G. sylvate- ea enon. VWeiz) Waist.) Elopedale: (Weiz).; coast of Labrador (Torr. and Gray ). 1110. Guaphalium supinum Vill. (G. puszllum Hzenke ; Weiz’ List.) Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morri- son) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 1173. Achillea Millefolitum Linn., var. negrescens bey Meyer. Hopedale (Weiz); Nain (R. Bell) ;. Cari- bou Island (S. R. Butler). 1193. Artemisza borealis Pall., var. spzethamea Torr. and Gray. Coast of Labrador (Colmaster) ; Hopedale Islands (Weiz). | 1214. Petasztes palmata Gray. Swamps, Labrador coast (Hooker) ; Hopedale Islands (Weiz). 1122. Arnzca alpina Murr. Coast of Labrador (Torr. and Gray); Hopedale Islands (Weiz); Nachvak and Cape Chidley (R. Bell). 1242, Seneczo Pseudo-Arnica Less. Hopedale Islands (Weiz); coast of Labrador (Hooker)- 1244. Senecio frigtdus Less. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Gray ). 1237. Seneczo aureus Linn,, var. .dorealis, Torr. and Gray. Nachvak (R. Bell); Hopedale Islands (Weiz). _ 1286. Azeractum vulgatum Fries. Coast of Labrador (Colmaster) ; Hopedale Islands (Weiz). 1308. Taraxicum officinale Weber, var. alpinum, Koch. Not uncommon along the coast of Labrador (W. E. Stearns) ; rocky soil, Nachvak and Nain (R. Bell) ; Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 462 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. CAMPANULACEA, 1341. Campanula uniflora Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; -Nachvak and Cape Chidley (R. Bell). 1344. Campanula rotundifolia L., var. arctica Lange. Hopedale (Weiz); Middle Bay, Belles Amours, and L’Anse Amour (S. R. Butler); common at Forteau Bay (W. E. Stearns). ERICACEA, 1352. Vaccintum Pennsylvanicum, var. angustefolium Gray. Nain (Lundberg) ; Hopedale (Weiz) ; Ce Island (Martin, S. R. Butler). 1356. Vacctnium uliginosum Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; common on the coast at Nain, Ford's Harbor, and Nachvak (R. Bell); Caribou Island (S. R. But- ler). 1358. Vaccentum cespitosum Michx. Hopedale (Weiz); on hill-sides at Belles Amours and on Caribou ‘Island (S. R. Butler). 1364. Vaccintum Vetes-Idea Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 1365. Vaccintum Oxycoccus Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Islands (S. R. Butler). 1366. Vacctnium macrocarpfon Ait. By lakelets along the coast. (Abbé Brunot). 1367. Chiogenes hispidula Torr. and Gray. On moss, along the coast (Hooker). 1369. Arctostaphylos alpina Spreng. (Arbutus alpina Linn.; Weiz’ List.) Hopedale (Weiz) ; Ford’s Harbor and Cape Chidley (R. Bell). 1383. Andromeda polifolia Linn. Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). | PLANTS. Ags 1376. Cassandra calyculata Don. Borders of lakelets and swamps along the coast (Hooker); Square Island Harbor (B. P. Mann). 1378. Casszope hypnordes Don. Andromeda hyp- nowdes Linn.; Weiz List. Hopedale (Weiz); Nain and Cape Chidley (R. Bell); coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison). 1381. Casszope tetragona Don. Andromeda tetragona Linn.; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz); coast of Lab- rador (Colmaster); abundant along the coast at Nain and Nachvak (R. Bell); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 1389. Bryanthus taxtfolius Gray. Andromeda ceru- lea Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz); coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Nain, ee and Ford’s Harbor Gx: Bell), 1393. Aalmzaangustzfolia Linn. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison). 1394. Kalmza glauca Ait. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Cari- bou Island (S. R. Butler); coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison). 1395. Ledum palustre Linn. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Hopedale (Weiz); Ford’s Harbor and Nachvak (R. Bell). : 1396. Ledum latefolium Ait. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler), 1386. Lozseleuria procumbens Desv. Azalea procum- dens Linn.; Weiz’ List. Hopedale (Weiz); coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison) ; Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 1402. Rhododendron Rhodora Don. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). | 1405. Rhododendron Lapponicum Wahl. (Azalea 464 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. Lapponica, Weiz’ List.) Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morri- son); Hopedale (Weiz) ; ona hill-top at Belles Amours (S. R. Butler); Nachvak (R. Bell). 1409. Pyrola minor Linn. Cold woods, Labrador (Dr. Morrison) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 1410. Pyrola secunda, var. pumila Gray. Cool boggy ground, Labrador (Storer) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 1411. Pyrola chlorantha Swartz. Coast of Labraree (Dr. Morrison). 1413. Pyrola rotundifolia L., var. pumtla Hook. Hopedale (Weiz) ; quite common along the northern coast (R. Bell). 1416. Moneses untflora Gray. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island CS: 4s; Butler): : DIAPENSIACE. 1424. Duapenstea procumbens Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison) ; common on hill-tops, Caribou Island (S. R. Butler); Nain and Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). | PLUMBAGINACEA, 1426. Armerza vulgaris Willd. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Hopedale (Weiz); Nain and Nach- vak (R. Bell). 3 PRIMULACE&. 1427. Primula farinosa Linn. Hopedale Islands (Weiz); Caribou Island and L’Anse Amour (S. R Butler). 1428. Primula Moastasstnzca Michx. Bonne Espér- ance and neighboring islands, and at Forteau (S. R. Butler) ; Hopedale (Weiz). PLANTS. | 465 2192. Primula Egaliksensts Wornem. Northern Labrador (Turner). 1213. Zyrzentalis Americana Pursh. Coast of Labra- dor (Hooker); Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). GENTIANACE. 1480. Gentzana Amarella L., var. acuta Hook. Coast of Labrador (Hooker); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 1482. Gentiana propingua Richards. On hillsides at Amour and lowlands at Bonne .Espérance (W. A. Stearns) ; more likely the preceding species (Macoun). 2194. Gentzana nivalis Linn. Labrador, collected by Moravian missionaries (Gray) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 1500. Pleurogyne rotata Griseb. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Gray); on the flats at Caribou, and shores of Esquimaux River, and at Bonne Espérance (S. R. Butler). 1501. Pleurogyne Carinthzaca Griseb., var. puszlla Gray. Coast of Labrador (Pursh). 1504. Hlalenza deflexa Griseb. Forteau Bay (Miss Brodie) ; on the hillsides at L’ Anse Amour and the low- jands at Bonne Espérance (W. E. Stearns) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 1506. Menyanthes trzfoliata Linn. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S: R.Butler): BORRAGINACEZ&. 1570. Mertensta maritima Don. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 406 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. SCROPHULARIACE, 1674. Veronica alpina Linn. Nain (Lundberg; Hopedale (Weiz). 1689. Casizlleca pallida Kunth, var. septentrzonales Gray. (Lartsza pallida Linn.; Weiz’ List.) Hopedale (Weiz) ; Ford’s Harbor and Nachvak (R. Bell). 1696. Euphrasia officinal’s Linn. Coast of Labrador (Hooker); Hopedale (Weiz). Var. Zatarzca Benth. Coast of Labrador (Pursh) ; Caribou Island (S. R.. Butler). 1697. Bartsza alpina Linn. Coast of Labrador (Colmaster); Ungava Bay (McGill Coll. Herb.) ; Nach- vale (CR. Bell); | 1702. Pedicularts Grenlandica Retz. Coast of Lab- rador (Dr. Morrison); Nachvak (R. Bell); Hopedale (Weiz). 1704. Pedicularis Lapponica Linn. Coast of Labra- dor (Colmaster) ; Nachvak (R. Bell) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 1706. Pedecularzs euphrasiordes Stephan. Coast of Labrador (Colmaster); Hopedale (Weiz); Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). : 1714. Pedicularis hirsuta Linn. Ford’s Harbor and Cape Chidley (R. Bell). 1715. Pedicularis flammea Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; coast of Labrador (Colmaster); Ford’s Harbor and Nachvak (R. Bell). 1718. Rhinanthus Cristagalii Linn. Common along the whole Labrador coast (W. E. Stearns) ; Caribou Isl- and (S. R. Butler); Hopedale (Weiz). | PLANTS, 467 LENTIBULARIACE, 1737. Pinguicula vulgaris Linn, Ungava Bay (Mrs. Lizzie Crawford); L’Anse Amour Bay (S. R. Butler) ; Hopedale (Weiz); Nachvak (R. Bell). 1738. Pengurcula villosa Linn. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Gray) ; Hopedale (Weiz). ° 1739. Pinguicula alpina Linn. Coast of Labrador (Steinhauer ). PLANTAGINACEA. 1808. Plantago maritima Linn. Crevices of rocks, coast of Labrador (Pursh) ; Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler) ; Nachvak (R. Bell). POLYGONACE. 1869. Polygonum aviculare Linn. Hopedale (Weiz). 1892. Polygonum viviparum Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Ford’s Harbor and Cape Chidley (R. Bell). 1902. Oxyrza digyna Campdera (Rumex dadigyna Pursh.; Weiz’ List). Hopedale (Weiz) ; coast of Lab- rador (Dr. Morrison) ; Nachvak and Cape Chidley (R. Bell) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 1904. Rumex occedentalis Watson. Coast of Labra- dor (Storer) ; Bonne Espérance (J. A. Allen). 1867. Kenzgia [slandica Linn. Hopedale (Weiz). SANTALACEA, 1930. Comandra fivida Rich. Coast’ of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Hopedale (Weiz). BETULACEA. 1977. Betula papyrifera Michx. Coast of Labra dor (Prof Sargent). 468 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 1979. Betula pumila Linn. Coast of Labrador (Hooker). 1981. Betula glandulosa Michx. Coast of Labrador (Hooker); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 1982. Betula nana Linn. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison). ; , 1986. Alnus virtdis DC. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). SALICACE. | 2004. Salix adenophylla Hook. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison and Bebb). 2007. Salzx arctica R. Br. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison); Nachvak and ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 2008. Salix argyrocarpa Anders. Ungava Bay (G. Barnston); Forteau Bay and Carrall Cove (Allen). 2010. Salix balsamzfera Barratt. Chateau and Square Island (Allen). : 2012, Salix candida Willd. Forteau Bay (Allen). 2013, Salix chlorophylla Anders. Nain and Ford's Harbor (R. Bell). " 2021. Salix plauca Linn. Damp places at Nachvak and Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 2022. Salzx herbacea Linn. Coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison) ; Nain and Cape Chidley (R. Bell). | 2042. Salix reticulata Linn. Nachvak and Cape Chidley (R. Bell) ; coast of Labrador (Dr. Morrison). 2050. Salex vestzta Pursh. Coast of Labrador (Col- master) ; Nachvak (R. Bell). 2051. Salix Uva-ursz Pursh. . Coast of Wateadon (Colmaster); Dead Islands (Allen). 2053. Populus tremulordes Michx. On dry slopes in the interior (Hooker). PLANTS. 469 EMPETRACE/, 2059. Empetrum nigrum Linn. (Curlew-berry). Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell) ; Hopedale (Weiz). CONIFER. 2068. Funiperus communus, var. alpina Linn. Coast of Labrador (Hooker). 2082. Picea nigra Link. Not uncommon (Hooker). 2083. Picea alba Link. Not uncommon (Hooker). 2094. Larix Americana Michx. Swampy soil (Hooker). | ORCHIDACEA. 2221. Listera cordata R. Br. Coast of Labrador (Morrison) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 2243. Habenaria hyperborea R. Br. Caribou Island (SR. Butler). 2248. Habenarza obtusata Rich. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 2246. Habenaria dilatata Gray. Hopedale Islands (Weiz). IRIDACE&. 2270. Iris Hookert Penny. (L. sebertca Weiz’ List.) Hopedale Island (Weiz). LILIACEZ. 2287. Streptopus amplextfolius Dc. Caribou Island (S R. Butler). 2288, Streptopus roseus Michx. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 22809. Smelicina stellata Desf. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 470 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 2203. Smlicina trifolia Desf. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 2294. Matanthemum Canadense Desf. Caribou Isl- and (S. R. Butler). 2329. Tofieldia borealis Wahl. Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell) ; coast of Labrador (Hooker) ; Hopedale (Weiz). 2341. Clintonta borealis Raf. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). JUNCACEA, 2367. Funcus triglumzs Linn. Ungava Bay (G. Barn- ston). 2369. Funcus castaneus Smith. Ungava Bay (G. Barnston). 23809. Luzula spadicea, var. parviflora Meyer. Nain and Nachvak (R. Bell). 2394. Luzula spicata Desv. Ungava Bay (G. Barn- ston); Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 2396. Luzula arcuata Meyer. Ungava Bay (G. Barnston) ; Nachvak (R. Bell). ; TY PHACEA, 2401. Sparganium simplex Huds. Caribou Island (Giri pute): 2403. Sparganium hyperboreum Laest., var. Amerz- canum Beeby. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). NAIADACEA. 2424. Triglochin palustre Linn. Caribou Island (SR pBatler), PLANTS. 471 2425. Trzglochin maritimum Linn. Coast of Lab- rador (Dr. Morrison). CYPERACEA. 2489. Erzophorum vaginatum Linn. Hopedale (Weiz); Caribou Island (S. R. Butler); Bonne Espér- ance (Allen); Dumpling Harbor (Mann). 2490. Lrzophorum russeolum Fries. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler, Martin); Hopedale (Weiz); Forteau (Allen); Nain (Lundberg). 2491. Eriophorum polystachyon, var. angustifolium Gray. Hopedale (Weiz). Eriophorum Scheuchzert Woppe. Coast of Labra- dor (Martin); Nain (Lundberg). 2476. Scirpus cespitosus Linn. Hopedale (Weiz). 2556. Carex canescens Linn. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 2564. Carex lagopina Wahl. Maritime rocks, Labra- dor (Allen). : 2566. Carex pratenses Drejer. Middle Bay, Labra- dor (Allen). 2598. Carex vulgaris, var. hyperborea Boott. Nain and Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 2604. Carex lenticularis Michx. Coast of Labrador, Bat. 51° 30 (Allen). 2608. Carex salina Wahl. Coast of Labrador( Bailey). 2609. Carex ambusta Booth. Ungava Bay, North Labrador (Bailey). 2617. Carex Magelanica Lamarck. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). 2618. Carex rarzflora Smith. Coast of Labrador (Miss Brodie and Allen). 472, THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. 2627. Carex vaginata Tausch. Northern Labrador (Turner). | 2672. Carex oltgosperma Michx. Swamps on the coast of Labrador (Allen). 2674. Carex miliaris Michx. Ungava Bay (Turner). 2678. Carex rotundata Wahl. Ungava Bay (Turner). GRAMINE. 2726. Hrerochloa alfina Roem. and Schultes. Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell); Ungava Bay (G. Barnston), 2807. Deschanpsia ae Roem. and Schultes, Uneaa Bay (G. Barnston); Nain (R. Bell). 2812. Tresetum subspicatum, var. molle Gray. Nain (R. Bell). 2848. Poa alpina Linn.. Nain and Cape Chidley (R. Beil). 2854. Poa cenesza All. Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 2905. Festuca ovina, var. brevifolia Watson. Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). 2949. Elymus mollis Trin. Nain and Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell). EQUISETACH A: Equesetum sylvaticum Linn. Hopedale (Weiz) ; Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). Equisetum arvense Linn. . Hopedale (Weiz). BILICEKS? Botrychtum Lunarza Swartz. Caribou Island (S. Lee Butler) ; Hopedale (Weiz). Cystopteris fragilis Bernh. Nain (R. Bell). PLANTS. A73 Polypodium Dryopterts Linn. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). LYCOPODIACE. Lycopodium Selago Linn. Nain and Ford’s Harbor (R. Bell), | _ Lycopodium luctdulum Michx. Caribou Island (S. R. Butler). APPENDIX. The following notes and corrections to this chapter have-been made by Mr. Sereno Watson, who kindly read the proof in the absence of Prof. Macoun. Proof of pp. 448-459 was read after the pages had been printed. Mr. Watson writes me that the earliest paper on the Labrador flora was one by Schrank in the first volume. of the Regensburg ‘ Flora” (1818), on some plants sent to Schreber by the Danish missionary Kohlmeister*. It was not completed, however. Meyer’s list includes 198 species. P. 448, line 5, for planées read plants. P. 448, line 14, for Ance read Anse. P. 451, line 15, for cornutz, Linn. read folyganum, Muhl. P. 451, line 23, dele See R. Amerzcanus (J. M.). P. 452, line 20, for Draba alpina Var. (?) corymbosa, Durand, read Draba Fladnitzenszs, Wulf. P. 452, line 21, add Dead Islands (J. A. Allen). P. 452, line 24, after Labrador (Pursh), add from the | next line, Nachvak, coast of Labrador (R. Bell). * Spelt Colmaster in the foregoing list. A74 THE BOTANY OF THE LABRADOR COAST. P. 452, line 25; dele Var, confusa Pou. P. 452, line 26, dele Hopedale (Weiz). P. 452, line 27, for Draba read Var.; and for Michx.. read Watson. P. 453, line 10, dele sy/vestrzs Regd. V. P. 453, line 11, for Weiz’ List read Gray. P. 454, line 27, for Spergularta salina Presb. read. Buda borealis Watson. P. 454, line 28, add Bonne Espérance (J. A. Allen). P. 455, lines 5, 6, for and the arctic regions (Dr.) read Schweinitz in Herb. Gray. P. 455, line 10, add Ungava Bay (L. M. Turner) ;. Square Island (J. A. Allen). P. 455, line 11, for Mott read Nutt. P. 455, line 13, for marztzemum read marztzmus, and dele Prsum marztzmum Linn. Weiz’ List. P. 455, line 20, after Caribou Island insert (S. R. Butler). P. 457, line 10, dele Canadenszs Var.(?) ; and for I & Gr. read Roem. Ps AG ine 20; robb ite read Kit. P. 459, line 6, dele Jalustre Linn. Var.; and for Gray read Muhl. P. 459, line 10, for Hoffm. read Linn. P. 459, line 14, for Archangelica read Celopleurum ; and for Db. read Lecheb. CHAPTER XVII: BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND’ ARTICLES RELATING TO THE GEOGRAPHY AND CIVIL AND NATURAL HISTORY OF LABRADOR. Tus list is merely a tentative one, and will doubtless. — be found quite imperfect, especially in titles relating to early discovery, and early maps and charts. The au- thor is indebted for certain titles, also for advice, to Dr. Franz Boas, who has kindly lent him Chavanne’s ‘“ The Literature on the Polar Regions of the Earth,” from which a number of titles have been copied. Acknowl- edgment of aid should also be made to Mr. W. F. Ganong for titles of the North American Pilot. The titles of the works of Ramusio, Eden, Gilbert, Frobisher, and Hakluyt have not been included. A. EXPLORATIONS, GEOGRAPHY, AND HIsTorvy. Anon. A brief account established among the Esqui- maux, on the coast of Labrador. London, 1774, 8vo. The Grand Falls of Labrador. (Goldthwaite’s Geographical Magazine, Feb. 1891, vol. 1. No. 2; pp. 117-119.) Anspach (C, A.). Geschichte und Beschreibung von Neufundland und der Kuste Labrador. Aus dem 475 476 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Engl. 30. Bd. der Bibliothek der neuesten Reisebeschrei- bungen von Bertuch. Weimar. —— —— History of the island of New Foundland and the coast of Labrador. London, 1819. ‘Ashe (Lieut. E. D.). Journal of a voyage from Quebec to Labrador. (Nautical Magazine, 1861, Janu- ary; pp. I-13.) Journal of a voyage from New York to Labrador. (Trans. Lit. and Historical Society of Quebec ; iv; April, 1861.. Appendix. 8vo, pp. 1-16.) Aufzetchnungen (Aus den) eines Kabeljanfischers in - Labrador. (Globus, Hyldburghausen, 11; 1862; pp. 2ST wile) Baddeley (Lieut. F. .). Geology of a portion’of the coast of Labrador. Trans. Lit. and Hist. Soc. Quebec, 1. art. vi. pp. 72-79, 1829. (His account and measure- ments of Castle Island are based on Capt. Campbell's — explorations made in the autumn of 1827.) Ballantyne (R. M.). Ungava: a tale of Esquimaux Land. London, Nelson, 1857; 1860. Bancroft (George). History of the United States, vol. 111; 1840. (‘‘ Scandinavians may have reached the shores of Labrador.” J. Winsor’s Narr. and Crit. Hist. America I. p. 93.) Barrow (Sir Fohn). Noyages to the arctic regions. London, 1818. Places Vinland in Labrador or New- foundland. (J. Winsor’s Narr. and Crit. Hist. America, Te AIO.) ' Bayfield (Rear-Admiral Henry Woolsey). Sailing directions for the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence. 2 vols. London, 1837-43. Beschreibung der Kiiste von Labrador vom Cap St. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 477 Charles bis zur Sandwich-Bucht. [Aus Hydrographic. Notice, No. 3, London, 1873.] (Hydrogr. Mittheil., Berlin, 1. 1873 ; pp. 175-177.) Beschreibung einiger Hafen, Sudren, und Anker- platze an den Kiisten von Neufundland und Labrador. (Annalen der Hydrographie, Berlin, Iv. 1876; pp. 21-26. ) Biddle (k.). Memoirs of Sebastian Cabot, with a re- view of the history of maritime discovery. Illustrated by documents from the rolls, now first published. Phila- delphia, 1831 ; 2d ed.. London, .1332.. Boas .(Franz). Notes on the Geography of .Labra- dor. (Science, New York, Feb. 17, 1888; x1. 77-79. , Bouchette. British Dominions in North America. (With a topographical map of Lower Canada, 1832.) Bowen (Noel H.). The. social condition of the coast of Labrador. Trans. Lit. and Hist. Soc. Quebec,-tv. art. 19g; Feb. 1856, pp.- 329-341. British North America. Comprising Canada, British y Central North America, British Columbia, Vancouver's Island, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, New Brunswick, Prince Edward’s Island, Newfoundland and Labrador. 378 pp., with maps. London, Religious Tract. Society, 1864, 8vo. Cabot, (F. Elliot). Massachusetts Quarterly Review, ir. (Places the localities on American coast visited by the Northmen about Labrador and Newfoundland. Winsor’s Narr. and Crit. Hist. America, 1. 96.) Campbell (F. F.). Frost and Fire. Edinburgh, 1865 ;” 2 vols. 8vo. (The author visited the Labrador coast in 1864, and noticed the ice-marks at Indian Island and Red Bay.) 478 ' BIBLIOGRAPHY. Carpenter (C. C.). Report on the Labrador mission at Caribou Island, Straits of Belle Isle. (Annual report 1-6 of the Canada Foreign Missionary Society, 1858— 1863.) Cartier (Facgues). Discours du voyage aux Terres neuves, les Canadas, Labrador, etc. 2d ed. Rouen, Bapt. du Petit-Val, 1585; 1598, 12mo. Bref récit et succincte narration de la navi- gation faite en 1535 et 1536 au Canada, Hochelaga, Sa- guenay. Réimpression figurée de l’édition de 1545, pré- cédée d’une introduction, par d’Avezac. fares, Tyvoss, 1863. — Voyage de Jaques Cartier au Canada en 1534 ; nouvelle édition publiée d’apres l’édition de 1598 et d’aprés Ramusio par Michelant. Documents inédits sur Jaques Cartier et le Canada communiqués par A, Ramé. Farts, Tross, 1865, cartes. — Relation originale du voy- age de J. Cartier au Canada en 1534. Documents iné- dits sur J. Cartier et le Canada (nouvelle série), publiés par Michelant et A. Ramé. Vfarzs, Tross, 1867, por- trait, fig. Ens. 3 vol. petit in-8 br., n. c., (papzer de Hol- lande) (144). Les cartes sont tres curieuses, elles sont reproduites en fac-simile d’apres celles de Ramusio, 1556. | —— Discours du voyage fait en (1534), par le capitaine Jacques Cartier aux terres neuves de Canada, Norembergue, Hochelage, Labrador et pays adiacens, dite Nouvelle France. Publié par H. Michelant.— Documents inédits sur Jacques Cartier et le Canada, communiqués par A. Ramé. ards, 1865, pet. in-8 br. _ ( papier vélin Whatman, publié au prix de 20 fr.)(29). Avec 2 grandes cartes tirées du Ramusio de 1556, et reproduites en fac-simile. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 479 Cartier (Facgues) (and others). Voyage to New France. Pinkerton, vol. x11; Hakluyt, vol. 111; Ra- musio, vol. I11. Cartwright (George). A journal of transactions and events during a residence of nearly sixteen years on the coast of Labrador containing many interesting particu- lars, both of the country and its inhabitants, not hitherto known. 3 vols. with charts. Newark, 1792, 4to. Sixteen years on the coast of Labrador. Newark, 1792; 2 vols. 4to, maps. Labrador: a poetical epistle; 1783. Re- printed for W. H. Whiteley, 1882; 8vo, pp. 18. Cayley (Edward). Up the River Moisie. Trans. Lit. and) bist. Soc. Quebec, n.s. 1.73. Chabert (M. de.) Voyage fait par ordre it rol en 1750 et 1751, dans l’Amérique septentrionale, pour recti- fier les cartes de l’Arcadie de I’'Isle Royale et de I’Isle de Terre Neuve ; et pour en fixer les principaux points par des observations astronomiques. Paris, 1753, 4to. Chappell (Lieut. Edward). Narrative of a voyage to Hudson’s Bay in his majesty’s ship Rosamond, contain- ing some account of the northeastern coast of America and of the tribes inhabiting that remote region. Lon- don, 1817; pp. 1-279, map, 8vo. - Reise nach Neufundland und der siid- lichen Kiiste von Labrador. A. d. Engl. Jena, 1819, 8vo. Charlevotx (P. de.). Histoire et description genérale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d’un voyage fait par ordre du Roi dans |’Amérique Septen- trionale. T. I-III. M.DcC.xLiv. 4to. (Onsthe site of Brest, Fort Ponchartrain is indicated in the map facing p. 418, tom. 1. The Carte de l’Amérique Septentrio- 480 BIBLIOGRAPHY. nale dressée par N. B. Ing. du Roy, et Hydrog. de la Marine, 1743, in tom. 1, will serve to fill up the gap in our knowledge of the coast between the time of Henry Hudson and of the British Admiralty surveys.) Journal of a voyage to North America. Undertaken by order of the French king, containing the geographical description and natural history of that country, particularly Canada. Together with an account of the customs, characters, religion, manners, — and traditions of the original inhabitants. In a series of letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguieres. Translated fromthe French. In two volumes,1i, 11. London, 1761; 8VO, pp. 382. Chavanne (F#.). The literature on the polar regions of the earth. . By Dr. J. Chavanne, Dr. A: Karpniieanad F. Chevalier de la Monnier. Edited by the Imp. Roy. Geographical Society of Vienna. Vienna, 1878. Chimmo (W.). Avisit to the northeast coast of -Labrador during the autumn of 1867, by (ayites Gannet. Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc. London, 1868. Vol. XXXVIIL pp. 258-281. (With a map of the coast, espe- cially detailed as regards Hamilton Inlet. ) —— (Commander). seme of Stupart _ Bay. (Can. Institute, new ser. Iv. pp. 95-114. Toronto, 1886. 8vo.) | Turner (Lucien M.). List of the birds of Labrador, including Ungava, East Main, Moose and Gulf districts BIBLIOGRAPHY. 497 of the Hudson Bay Company, together with the island of Anticosti. Proc. U. S. National Museum, vi, July 13, 1885. 3 On the Indians and Eskimos of the Un- og district, Labrador (Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, sect. ; 1887. 99-119.) Physical and zoological character of the Ungava District, Labrador. (Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, sect. Iv, 1887. pp. 79-83.) Thorell (Tamerlane). Notice of some spiders from Labrador. (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. xvi, Boston, 1875. 8vo. pp. 490-504. ) Vogelsang (H1.). Sur le Labradorite coloré de la cote de Labrador. (Verhandl. d. Geolog. Reichsanst., Wien., 1868; p. 107.) Cie CEVARas: Besides the ancient maps and charts illustrating the discoveries of the early voyagers, and referred to or copied on pp. 33-59, Winsor (Narr. and Crit. History of America, 1, 120) states: ‘‘ What was apparently a work- ing Portuguese chart of 1503, grasps pretty clearly the relations of Greenland to Labrador.” Northern Labrador, Greenland with Baffin’s Bay, Straits Davis's and Hudson. Amsterdam, P. Mortier, 1700. 7 Canada et pays voisin, Par Guillaume Delisle, Pre- mier Géographe du Roi. Paris, 1703. A Collection of charts of the coasts of New Found- land and Labrador, with the particular plans of the prin- cipal harbors. Drawn from original surveys taken by 498 BIBLIOGRAPHY. James Cook and M. Lane, and J. Gilbert. ... chiefly engraved by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to the king. London, J. Jefferys, 1766-1770. Arrowsmith (A.). Northern seas between Europe and America, including the American coast (New Foundland, Labrador, and Greenland). London, 1808. (Name of Hamilton Inlet applied to Invuctoke Bay.) The North American pilot | for Newfoundland, Lab- rador, | the Gulf and River St. Lawrence : | being a col- lection of | sixty accurate charts and plans, | drawn from original surveys: | taken by | James Cook and Michael Lane, surveyors, | and Joseph Gilbert, and other officers in the king’s service. | Published by permission of the | Right Hon. the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty : | chiefly engraved by | the late Thomas Jefferys, geog- rapher to the king. | On thirty-six large copper-plates. | London : | Printed according to Act of Parliament and sold by R. Sayer and J. Bennett, No. 53, in Fleet Street. | MpccLxxix. | n.B. Of whom may be had Sailing Direc- tions to the above charts. | A new and enlarged edition of this work was published in 1799, containing 61 charts on 37 copper-plates. Printed and published by Robert Laurie and James Whittle. . ; (The edition of which the title is quoted above seems to be simply a reprint of the 1st edition, which appeared in 1775. I have not been able to see a copy of the latter, but from its title on Harvard College Library Catalogue cards, think the title is exactly as given below. Sailing directions | for this | North American Pilot: | containing the | Gulf and River St. Lawrence, | the whole island of Newfoundland, | including | the Strait BIBLIOGRAPHY. 499 of Belle Isle, | and the coast of Labrador..| Giving a particular account, etc. | London. | Printed for R. Sayer and J. Bennett. | mpccLxxv. | (Small 4to. Divided into sections, each paged sepa- rately. 148 pp. inall.) Partie de Amérique Sept., qui,comprend le Canada, la Louisiane, le Labrador, le Groenland, la Nouv. Angle- terre, la Floride, etc. p. Bonne. Carte color. 2 feuilles. Paris, 1771. Chaque 30 x 44 cm. Labrador and Greenland, including the north-west passage of Hudson, Frobisher, and Davis, with Plan of Manvers Port, 1808-1863. Chart of part of the coast of Labrador, from Cape Charles to Sandwich Bay, surveyed by order of Hon. Commodore Byron. By Michael Lane, surveyor. 2 ed. London, W. Faden, 1800. Morse (Fedideah). The American Gazetteer, etc. (Map.) Third edit. Boston, July, 1810. Art. Labra- dor. (The map gives some names of places on the Labrador coast which we have not seen on other maps. ) = — The American Universal, Geography ; etc. (Map). Seventh edition. Vol. 1, 1819. 8vo. Rezwchel (Levin Th.). Missionatlas der Briider-Unitat. 15 Karten in Qu. Folio, Farbendruck mit Text, Herrn~ hut, Expedition der Missions-Verwaltung, 1861. Labrador. Spear Point to Camp Islands, including Se lewis Sound and Inlet, surv. by .Bayfield, 1335. n72,000, Wondon, \Flydrogr. Office, 1862,,No. 133. Labrador Coast, Hamilton Inlet. Capt..Sir F. Mc.- Clintock, 1860. London, Hydrogr. Office, 1864. Labrador Coast, Indian Harbor, Commander Chim- 500 BIBLIOGRAPHY. mo, 1867, -1:12,172. London, Hydroor. Office, 1am No. 222. ; Labrador Coast, Webeck and Hopedale Harbors and Allik Bay. Commander Chimmo, 1867, 1:24,344. Lon- don, Hydrogr. Office, 1868, No. 223. Labrador Coast, Indian Tickle and Occasional Har- bors. Commander Chimmo, 1867, 1:24,344. London, Hydroer. Office, 1868, No. 225. Labrador -Coast, Domino Run. Lieut. J. J. A. Gravener, 1867, 1:18,255. London, Hydrogr. Office. Labrador Coast, Cape Charles to Sandwich Bay, vari- ous authorities, corrected to 1867. 1:243,440. London, Hydrogr. Office, 1869, No. 263. Labrador, with plans of Port Manvers and Eclipse Harbor. London, Hydrogr. Office, 1871, No. 1422. Labrador, Commander Maxwell’s Chart. London, 1O7l? Reichel (L.Th.). Labrador. Aivekték oder Eskimo Bay, 1873. Lith. 1:2,300,000. Missionsblateyedes Briidergemeinde. Labrador, compiled from various documents in the Hydrographic Office, London, 1881. (Large corrections, June, 1881. Small corrections 1x, 1884, with plans of Port Manvers and Eclipse Harbor.) Wetz and Packard. Map of Labrador, compiled by J. Leuthner, from British Admiralty maps, and an un- published Moravian map (prepared by Rev. Samuel Weiz). Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, No. 4, 1887. a: Cape Cod to Belle Isle. Imray & Son, London, 1886. (‘‘ By far the best map we have of this coast.” Ganong, p. 126.) BIBLIOGRAPHY. 501 Winsor ( Fusten). Bibliography of Ptolemy’s Geog- raphy. Harvard University Bulletin. Bibliographical Contributions, No. 18, 1884. Ganong (W. F.). Cartography of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from Cartier to Champlain. Proc. and Trans. Royal Soc. of Canada, vol. vii. for 1889. 1890. ERRATA. Pp. 120 and 140, for Cape St. Michael’s read Cape St. Michael. P. 396. The remainder of the list of insects will be found on pp. 446 and 447.. P. 484. Add to Bibliography, Humboldt (Alexander von). Examen critique. See p. 29, foot-note. INDEX. _ Abbot, C. C., 245 Acadian fauna, 337 Ailik Head, 318 Alca impennis, 342, 360 Allagaigai, Mount, 6, 182 Allen, J. A., 406 Alpine fauna, 176, 356 flora, 66, 341 American Island, 166 Anorthosite formation, 282 Anse-au-Loup, 118 Anse-au-Sablon, 236, 281 Aphanite, 285 Arachnida, 385 Arctic fauna, 63, 356, 365 Arenaria groenlandica, 63, 340, 345 Ascidians, 396 Auk, great, 256, 342, 360 Aulatsivik gneiss, 284 ; Island, 228 Auroras, 78 Bache, Mount, 7, 294 Banks, Labrador, 241, 318 Basalt, doleritic, 134 Battle Island, 136 Point, 221 Bayfield’s charts, 58 Beaches, raised, 130, 162, 170, 178, 195, 206, 210, 230, 315, 353, 305, 307, 309, 310, 31T Beacon, 197 Bear, black, 34 white, 35, 149, 160, 165, 357 Beetles, 387 Bell, Robert, 8, 9, 301, 322 Belle Isle, 119, 129, 134, 280 Belles Amours, 110, 112, 234, 281, 316 Bethuks, 257 Biarne’s Voyage, 21 Birch, dwarf, 177 paper, I51 Bird rocks, 96 Birds, list of, 406 Birds, sea, 91, 126, 167 Black and White Island, 168, 289 Blanc Sablon, 43, 116, 219, 234, 237, 307 Boas, Franz, 226 Bonne Espérance, 232 Bowlders, 150, 303 Brachiopods, 373 Bradford, William, 93 Bradore, 116, 262, 280 Bay, 281 Hills, 6 Brest, 108, 239, 265 Butterflies, 395 Button’s voyage, 56 Cabot, Mount, 165 Cabot’s voyages, 33 Cambrian rocks, 117, 281 Caniapuscaw, Lake, 15 Canso, Gut of, 94 Capelin, 154, 4o1 Carabus groenlandicus, 160 Caribou, 209 Caribou Island, 65, 85 upper, 137 Carpenter, C. C., 64, 245, 266 Cartier, J., Voyages of, 41 Mount, 108, tog Cartwright, George, 256 Cartwright’s Tickle, 290 Castle Island, 286, 307 Cephalopods, 379 593 . 504 INDEX. Chadbourne, Paul A., 60 Charles, Cape, 136 Charlevoix, 258 Chateau Bay, 130, 239, 247, 250, 311, Chert, 290 Chidley, Cape, 8,279 Chimo, Fort, 16, 231, 406. Chionobas, 167 semidea, 341 Chudleigh, Cape, 8, 279 Clays, Leda, 323, 339, 351 Clione limacina, 112 Cloudberry, 69 Coast, elevation of, 322, 324 Coats, W., 249 Cod, bull-dog, 179 fishery, 124, 126, 146, 154, 156, 240 , 398 Coelenterates, 368 Coleoptera, 387 Cormorant, 103 Cortereal’s voyage, 37 Crantz, 250 Crustaceans, 381 Curlewberry, 63, 107 Curlews, 78, 91 Cusk, 399 Davis Inlet, 53 Davis’ voyage, 52 Despair Harbor, 19 Devil’s Dining Table, 120, 128, 134 Dewitz, A., von, 273 Diptera, 390 Domino gneiss, 159, 286 Harbor, 159, 218, 286, 310 Run, 159, 219 Dredging, 76, 110, 113, 125, 127, 145, 153, 160, 218, 223 Duck, eider, 101, 105 Duffy, 179, 399 Dumplin Harbor, 161, 164, 218, 287 Echinoderms, 370 Eggers, 104 Elevation of coast, 322, 324 Entry Island, 96 Eskimo, 67 camp, 193 dress, 200 game, 254 graves, 207, 263 in New Foundland, 246, 252 house, 270 longevity of, 208, 269 mean height, I99 numbers of, 235, 261, 272 population, 235 Eskimo, ruins, 262 their former range, 245 yearly life, 275 Esquimaux Island, 265,267 River, 1, 2) 1.73; 74s5oe 232 Falco candicans, 181 Fauna, circumpolar, 337, 356 Fiords, 18, 228 Fisheries, 124, 126, 132, 146, 154, 156, 240, 243 herring, 132, 240 Fishes, 397 Fishing Ship Harbor, 138 Flies, 390 Fly, black, 74, 86, 89 Flora, Labrador, 63, 69, 143, 201, 344 Flounder, 398 Ford’s Bight, 191 Forests, dwarf, 86 Forteau, 117 Fossils, quaternary, 75, 79, 107, 124 Fox, 133, 187, 209 blue, 180, 209 Frobisher’s voyage, 48 Frog, 126, 405 Game, 72, IOI, 133, 167, 194 Gasteropods, 376 Geology, 279 George, River, 15 Gibbons’ voyage, 56 Glacial beds, 336 marks, 150, 216, 293 Glaciers, 172, 219 Gneiss, Domino, 159, 286 Laurentian, 280 Gore Island Harbor, 316 Grand Falls, 231 River, 121, 231 Granite, 285 Grasshopper, 150 Greely Islands, 163 Greville’s Fort, 129, 239 Groswater Bay, 166 Grouse, 73 Gull Island, 319 Hake, 399 . Hamilton Inlet, 53, 166, 288, 208 geology of, 285, 288 River, 12 — Handy, Ichabod, 93 Harrison, Cape, 181, 215, 285) 286 Hebron, 199, 311 Helluland, 29, 32 Hemiptera, 386 Henley Island, 129, 310 INDEX. 505 Henley Harbor, 120, 132, 220, 280, 281, 285, 307 Herring fishery, 132, 240, 243, 318, _ 403 Hind, H. Y., ro, 13, 318 History of Labrador, 234 Holme, Randle F., 235 Hopedale, 197, 199, 253, 283, 286 - 310, 323 Horsford, E. N., 30 Horsechops Island, 165, 301 House, winter, 124 Hudson Bay Co. posts, 234 Hudson’s voyage, 56 Huntington Island, 163, 287, 280. Hydroids, 368 Icebergs, 135, 157 Ice, floe, 110, 173, 205, 317, 357 foot, 173, 313 Tickle, 170, 218 Indian Harbor, 170, 216, 288, 299 ‘Harbor Islands, 321 Indians, red, 188, 256, 359 Insects, 63, 102, 141, 150, 176, 207, 225, 386 Iron, magnetic, 285 Isle of Demons, 119 Ponds, 158, 289 Ivuctoke Inlet, 53, 166 Jasper, 290 Kaubkonga River, 229 Kauk River, 229 Kaumajet, Mount, 9, 227, 284 Kayak, 207 Keith, Lake, 285 Kenamou River, 13 Kiglapeit, Mount, 9, 227, 284 Killer, 152 Kippokok Bay, 195, 255, 318 Koch, R., 227, 274 Koni jeGs, 21 Kohlmeister, 2, 15 Koksoak River, 15, 406 Knoch, 2, 15 Kypocock Bay, 318 Labradorite, 282 Labrador current, 320, 357 Maps of, 3 Lamellibranchs, 373 Latrobe, B., 273 Laurentian rocks, 117, 279 Leda arctica, 347, 350 portlandica, 347, 350 __ clays, 292, 323, 339, 351 Leif’s voyage, 27, 30 Lepidoptera, 391 Lieber, O. M., 284 Limacina helicina, 215 Lobster, 71, 203, 384 Long Island, 163 Lunoid glacial marks, 216, 298 Mackerel, 397 _ Magdalen Islands, 96, 223 Maggovik Bay, 209 Magnetite, 285, 290 Mammals, 442 Mealy mountains, 6, 13, 159, 164 Mecatina, Cape, 100 Little, Island, 99, 280, 300 Mercator’s map, 46 Meshikumau River, 2, II 73, 74, 80 Minerva, 239 Mirage, 99, 136, 138 Misery, Mount, 6,182. Moisie River, 10 Molluscs, 373 quarternary, 326 Montaignais, 14, 67, 189, 239, 264 Moravian settlements, 199 Mosquito, 86, 191 Moths, 391 Mount Allagaigai, 6,182 Cabot, 165 Cartier, 109 Misery, 6, 182 Mountaineers, 14, 67, 189, 239, 256, 264 Mountains of Labrador, 6, 7, 8 Mugford, Cape, 9, 319 Murre, 101, 170, 180 Muskrat, 155 Myriopoda, 286 Nain, 199, 327, 229, 253, 311 Nachvak Inlet, 9, 284, 315 Nascopi Indians, 239, 256, 264 Nasquapee Indians, 239, 256, 264 Nautilus, voyage of, 60 Newfoundland, 61 Newfoundlanders, 240 Nisbet’s Harbor, 191 Norsemen, 21 North, Cape, 163, 289 Nucula expansa, 108 Occasional Harbor, 139 Odonata, 386 Okkak, 199, 201, 202, 227, 253 Orthoptera, 386 Otter, 68 Pandorina.arenosa, 108 Parroqueet Island, 43 4 Penguin, 256 Pike’s Harbor, 164 506 INDEX. Pikkintit Islands, 284 Pitt’s Arm, 124, 308, 323 Plants, list of, 447 Platyptera, 387 Plectoptera, 387 Polyommatus franklinii, 177, 207 Polyps, 368 Polyzoans, 371 Porcupine, Cape, 321 Port Burwell, 9 Manvers, 9 Neuf, 234 Potentilla tridentata, 69, 340, 345 Ptarmigan, 72 Puffin, 83, 90, 341 Pussel, 64, 75 Rama, 228 Reichel; Li 274 -Rigolet, 167 Riseiof land, 322 River terrace, 322 Robin, I51, 410 Roger’s Harbor, 184 St. Francis, Cape, 138 Harbor, 138 Lewis Bay, 137 i Sound, 319 Michael, Cape, 140 Bay, 40 Modeste, 118 Paul’s Bay, 265 Salamander, 106, 112 Salmon Bay, 71, 87, 222 Fishery, 133, 154, 186, 187, 193, 216, 399 Sand, magnetic iron, 285 Sealer, 121 Seal fishery, 122, 145 Island, 158 Seal’s flippers, 81 Semed , 18 Shallop Island, 117 Shag’s nest, 103 Shells, quarternary, 326 Silurian fossils, 325 Sister Islands, 163} Skralings, 246 Sloop Harbor, 168, 179, 288, 310, 313 Snails, 194, 202 South River, 15 Spear Harbor, 138 Spear Point, 138 Spotted Island, 158, 162. 319 Spruce, 188 cat, IgI skunk, 192 white, Io1 Square Island, 138, 140, 282 Stag Bay, 182, 185 Strawberry Harbor, 190, 215, 283, - 286, 308, 313 Stony Island, 163, 319 Syenite, Laurentian, 280 Syrtensian fauna, 334, 338 Taconic rocks, 281 Terraces, river, 322 rock, 144, 197, 315 Thomas Bay, 209, 210, 283, 310 Thoresby, Mount, 284 Tickle, 140, 183 Ahi, Oi. Tala Tinker, 180 Island, 179 Toad, 160, 405 Trap dykes, 168, 285, 286, 289 Trees, northern limits of, 201 Trichoptera, 387 Trout, 68 salmon, 193, 400 Tub Island, 165, 218, 287, 288, 289, 299, Tuckermel bush, 86 Tucking bush, 86 Tunicates, 396 Turner, L. M., 231, 406 Tylor, E. B., 246 Ungava Bay, 406 Vetromile, Father, 258 Walrus, 104, 147, 162, 366 Wasp, 87, 103 Watson, Sereno, 473 Weasel, 68,114 Webuc, Cape, I81, 215, 283, 286. Range, 185 Weiz, Samuel, 5, 226 Whale, humpback, 137 _ sperm, 220 Whiteley, W. H., 232 Wolf, 194 Wolverene, 203 Worms, 380 Zoar, 199 Zoology of Labrador, 355 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI. Recent ExpLORATIONS.—REDISCOVERY OF THE GRAND ; FALLS. On page 231 we referred to Mr. Randle Holme’s ascent of the Grand River, to a point within fifty miles of the Grand Falls, which he claimed to be “the most stupen- dous falls in the world,” giving a greatly exaggerated. estimate of their height. During the summer of 1891, the Bowdoin College expedition to Labrador, in charge of Professor Leslie A. Lee, sent a party up the Grand River, which happily solved the mystery which has hung over the subject, and thus achieved the most important geographical discovery which has been made in the interior of Labrador since the first discovery of this cata- ract by white men. The following account has been prepared from dispatches, sent to the daily press, and has | been kindly revised by Professor Lee and Mr. Cary. The expedition left Rockland, Me., early in July in the Julia Decker, a schooner of ninety tons, the party consisting of nineteen members. The party left Rigolet for Grand River, July 27, equipped with two Rushton boats, a kodak, surveying instruments, fire-arms, and provisions for a month. E. 507 508 REDISCOVERY OF GRAND FALLS. B. Young and D. M. Cole were in one boat; W. R. Smith and Austin Cary, who was chief of the exploring party, in the other. Twenty-five miles from the mouth of the river the first falls were reached. They make a descent of 70 feet in two leaps, and necessitate a portage up a steep ascent of 210 feet, then half a mile through woods, and finally a descent to the river of 140 feet. With much labor this portage was accomplished in four hours. A cache of | provisions was made below the falls. Then the struggle began. Up to this point the current had been easy and the river about a mile wide; but above the falls the river narrowed somewhat and the current became swifter, so that tracking was rendered necessary at times. This was no small labor, as the banks are rugged and jagged - rocks, bowlders and fallen timber obstructed the way of the trackers. After a struggle of forty miles of this sort the Gull Island Rapids presented a still more serious difficulty in the way of tracking. Here the boats had to be lightened and guided through a short but extremely difficult rapid—a slow and laborious task. For a dis- tance of fifteen miles above, the river flowed very swiftly between high wooded banks, rendering rowing very often impossible and tracking difficult. After this the next hard work was in the Horseshoe Rapids. In these a most unfortunate accident happened to one of the boats. While tracking around a turn the boat in charge of Cary and Smith was over-turned, the keel and sharp prow ill adapting it to such rapid water. A large part of the provisions, cooking utensils, the shot- gun, the barometer, and a revolver were lost. But though crippled the party were undismayed and pushed on up APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI. 509 to the Mininipi Rapids, the most ‘formidable of all except the Gull Island Rapids. The route here laid’ through a burnt district. Precipitous banks lined the river and the current was very fierce. After a stretch of smooth water and then alternate rowing and tracking, next in succession came the Mouni Rapids, which were comparatively easy. Between the Mininipi and the Mouni another cache was made. After passing the Mouni Rapids the voyagers glided into Lake Wami- nikapou, a most beautiful sheet of water 40 miles in length and 150 miles from the mouth of the river. The scenery here was simply grand. High precipitous shores studded with high groves, towered six or eight hundred feet above the placid bosom of the lake. - Holme in 1887 had succeeded in reaching the middle of the lake when he was obliged to relinquish his under- taking, estimating his distance from the falls at 50 miles, 20 of which would have been in the dead water of the lake. The Bowdoin party had a comparatively easy time rowing across, and had pushed five miles beyond when a halt was called because of the disablement of one of the party. For some days Young had been suffering from a severe sore on his hand, which, irritated by row- ing and- aggravated by exposure, was beginning to develop serious symptoms and was very painful. Owing to this and the loss of provisions in the Horseshoe Rapids it was decided to divide the party—Cole to con- tinue with Cary, and Young and Smith to return. Up to this time the party had been’ eleven days on the river. Young and Smith made the return to the mouth in five days without incident. They were well received by Mr. 510 REDISCOVERY OF GRAND FALLS. McLaren, Hudson Bay Co.’s factor at Northwest River, and thence were conveyed across Lake Melville in a yawl, with their Rushton boat intow. During the night a severe storm arose and filled the Rushton, making it necessary to cut it loose. Parties going up the lake some days later found the boat dashed to pieces on the rocks. Young and Smith reached Rigolet August 18, and found very comfortable quarters with Mr. Bell, factor of the Hudson Bay Co., who showed them every kind- ness. Meanwhile Cary and Cole pushed on for sixty-five miles, finding the distance much farther than it had been estimated. Most of this was made in easy rowing water, but tracking was necessary for the last eight or ten miles. _ At this point a short reconnoitre satisfied the men that it would be impossible to proceed farther with the boat because of the extremely heavy water above. Conse- quently a cache was made of the boat, and all unneces- sary luggage and provisions, and the two men struck out through the woods to gain the plateau, which was a very arduous task. Upon reaching the table-land a mountain, rising from five to eight hundred feet from the surface, was sighted about six miles away ; and as it was the highest land anywhere around they ascended to get a view of their surroundings. . The whole country was spread out beneath them, but there was as yet no sign of the falls. They called this mountain Mt. Hyde in honor of the president of Bowdoin College. Bear- ings were taken from the summit and an attempt made of surveying, but the black-flies became intolerable and compelled them to beat a retreat to the river valley, where they camped for the night. Next day the journey APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI. 511 was continued for seven miles along the river to a point where the river issues from a remarkable gorge, worn out of the solid Archzean rock five hundred feet or more in depth and from 150 feet to a quarter of a mile in width. Once more they were obliged to take to the high ground, and for the rest of that day and part of the next skirted the gorge. They were proceeding in this man- ner when a distant rumbling led them to approach the river. It was flowing at their own level. Below them were the long-sought-for falls, and three cheers for Bow- doin immediately mingled with their roar. As was expected, reports concerning them were greatly exaggerated. The falls themselves are 150 feet wide and do not exceed 150 feet in height. For five or six miles above was a series of heavy rapids with several smaller falls varying from 10 to 25 feet in height and making about roo feet more fall. The water, as it ap- proached the brink of the Grand Falls, makes a long, graceful bend downward and then shoots straight down- ward into the canon. The river above the falls flows almost due south by compass (really S. E.) while im- mediately upon striking the bottom of the gorge it makes a sharp turn to the east and continues in that direction for several hundred yards when it again resumes its general southeasterly course, and goes roaring down the canon in heavy rapids. Although reports concern- ing them were greatly exaggerated, the falls were found to be truly grand. But probably the most remarkable feature of all is the great gorge, worn.as it is in the solid granite. It is probably one of the oldest drainage lines in the world. This was named the Bowdoin Canon. 512 REDISCOVERY OF GRAND FALLS. Several hours were spent at the falls measuring and photographing, but the results are as yet not available. The Labrador Plateau has been estimated by other parties to be 2,000 feet above the sea-level, but owing to the loss of the barometer our men were unable to deter- mine the accuracy of this estimate. The plateau is for the most part level with occasional prominences. It is well wooded with spruce timber, the largest of which are perhaps eight inches through. A heavy carpet of moss lies underfoot and there is very little underbrush to make travelling difficult. Innumerable lakes dot the surface in all directions, a large chain of which are undoubtedly drained by the Grand River. The black-flies on the high ground were terrible. The falls were reached on the morning of the 13th of August. On the next day the successful explorers started to retrace their course of 300 miles. They had reached the end of their provisions and were worn out and hungry. On the afternoon of the 15th, with no - little joy, they sighted the location of their cache of boat, luggage, and provisions. But their joy was soon turned to dismay, for, instead of the pleasant sight they had ex- pected, nothing but smoking and charred remains greeted their eyes. Rifle, ammunition, instruments, boat, pro- visions—everything that had been left behind was burned, and there they were nearly 300 miles from the mouth of the river. It is supposed that the camp-fire still hung in the moss and peat soil after it was thought to be com- pletely extinguished, and later revived and spread to the cache. About three pints of parched flour and as much rice, together with one can each of burned baked beans and Vand Oe ae ee a = APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI. 513 tongue, a 32-calibre revolver, a small axe, fish-line, and a few matches were all they had to rely upon for a safe voyage back, nor did the resources of the country war- rant them in expecting much from that quarter. For eight days the two men built rafts, tramped and floated down the river, travelling a distance of 150 miles with no other food than the above-mentioned provisions, an oc- casional squirrel, and berries. Black-flies harried them terribly, and made their condition almost unbearable. At last the cache between the Mininipi and Mouni Rapids was reached. From this they obtained five pounds of buckwheat and a can of tongue to last them for the next seventy-five miles to the cache below the first falls. By continual rafting and tramping they reached the cabin of an old trapper, near the mouth of the river, August 29th, ragged and shoeless and much worn with hardships and privations. Thence they were conveyed to Northwest River, where they received kind treatment at the hands of Mr. McLaren, and from there went across Lake Melville to Rigolet in a yawl, arriving on the afternoon of September 1st. The main expedition had been waiting for them in that vicinity for six days, and was beginning to get anxious, for they were due August 25th, and according to the report brought back by Young and Smith were likely to be on time. When at last they did arrive they were welcomed on board with every demonstration of joy. ie ae fates Koel bras i D i i 0