1S5.0.J QUIT LIEVELY. 39 



end of Disco, and therefore determined to seek this 

 coal. Our dogs were procured here ; but we did wrong 

 in trusting solely to the Governor : he had some which 

 he wished to get rid of. We were informed that all the 

 best bred were absent hunting. 



Light airs delaying us, I quitted the ship in my gig, 

 near the entrance of the Waigat a sound which divides 

 Disco Island from Greenland; and keeping along the 

 shore, at length reached a spot where the banks exhibited 

 unmistakable signs of a coal-bearing district. The coal 

 was found in detached pieces on the beach, but not in 

 sufficient quantity to reward delay. I therefore moved 

 easterly, to the mouth of a great valley barred by sand, 

 and which appeared during the summer season to be the 

 bed of some great river. Within, it being low water, it 

 was cut up by streams in all directions, the sea-beach 

 forming a kind of barrier. Strewed along this sandy 

 beach, about three bags of loose pieces were picked up ; 

 but. no cliffs, banks, or rocks near, which exhibited the 

 slightest chance of coal in situ. The surrounding hills 

 appeared, at two or three miles inland, to be formed 

 of some very dark stone, constantly disintegrating and 

 tumbling down into the valleys ; but neither time nor 

 labour could be afforded to examine them. The Go- 

 vernor's explanation, that " it would not repay the labour 

 of collection," was but too apparent. That this was one 

 of the spots alluded to, as " near a house forty miles 

 east," I was fully satisfied, as he had informed me that 

 it was at a sandy beach not far beyond where they had 

 a house; and this house I visited, and similar coal to 

 that picked up on the beach easterly had there been 



