262 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. xvi. 



burnt, and that they are even better adapted, when dry, 

 to burn with extraordinary rapidity and afford during their 

 combustion a greater cloud of smoke than forest trees, it 

 will be apparent that the precise element for producing 

 the phenomena of smoke and ashes existed in the 

 Labrador Peninsula to a remarkable degree. Dry 

 caribou moss burns with wonderful rapidity, as we found 

 to our cost ; it also emits dense volumes of smoke, and 

 leaves behind a great quantity of ash and charcoal. 

 There is no reason to suppose that the table-land of the 

 Labrador Peninsula was covered with forest centuries 

 ago, for the missionary before mentioned, Henri JSTouvel, 

 states that an Oumaniiois chief told him that in the 

 country north of Lake Manicouagan the trees were very 

 small, and there was no birch bark to make canoes. 

 The whole of the burnt country through which we 

 passed is still covered with charcoal and ashes, where 

 sand forms the substratum: from the rocks they have 

 been washed away by rains, but on the sandy flats 

 they form still a black cake. The occurrence of sulphur 

 in the ashes, as described by the writer in the ' Quebec 

 Gazette' of Oct. 27, 1785, is problematical. 



After having witnessed the combustion of caribou 

 moss on a large scale, and the appearance of the burnt 

 country on the borders of the great table-land of La- 

 brador, I am inclined to the opinion that the 'Dark 

 Days of Canada ' were the result of a vast conflagration 

 in the interior of the Labrador Peninsula, and that the 

 materials which assisted most in feeding the fires were 

 the lichens and mosses which grow in such rich and 

 extraordinary luxuriance and beauty in that desolate 



