CHAP. xvi. THEIR ALLEGED CAUSES. 255 



probably 200 miles in breadth, and producing at its utmost 

 longitudinal extremity, and at mid-day, the obscurity of 

 the darkest night. And as the whole of the cause of 

 this obscurity proceeded, apparently, from the Labrador 

 country, where forest trees are few in number, stunted in 

 size, and spread in isolated patches over a general surface 

 of rock, it is the more improbable.' 



. The Chief Justice inclines to the view, that the pheno- 

 mena of the ' Dark Days of Canada' are to be attributed 

 to an active volcano in the Labrador Peninsula, and he 

 draws attention to the coincidence in the facts stated in 

 the narratives of the different observers quoted, and those 

 which are mentioned by Charlevoix in his description of 

 the earthquake in 16G3 : 'A Tadousac 1 ,' says Charlevoix, 

 ' il pleut de la cendre pendant six heures' torn. i. p. 367 ; 

 also on page 336, he adds, ' Une poussiere qui s'eleva flit 

 prise pour une fumee, et fit craindre mi embrasement 

 universe!. ' 



Tadousac was situated at the mouth of the Saugenay 

 Eiver. The Chief Justice also states that amon; the 



o 



Indian tribes on the north shore of the St. Lawrence a 

 traditional belief of the existence of a volcano in the 

 Labrador country is said to prevail. 



In the journal of a voyage in the country of the 

 Papinachois, a Montagnais tribe on Lake Manicouagan in 

 1664, Henry Nouvel, a Jesuit missionary, states that on 

 May llth he arrived at a river which the Indians called 

 Kouakoueou, and saw the effects of the earthquake on 

 the rivers, the water which flowed in them being quite 

 yellow, and preserving this colour until they mingled with 

 the St. Lawrence. The same effect was noticed on the 



