228 Notes upon the Dark Days of Canada. 



quantity of salts which tobacco contains, tobacco ashes will pro- 

 bably be found heavier, or at least as heavy as an equal quantity 

 of common wood ashes. He mentions also, that the powder 

 which was collected from the surface of the sea, when dried, re- 

 sembled a cake of blacking ; and from this circumstance, I am 

 led to believe, that what was so collected might be of a bitumi- 

 nous character, or possibly the powder of volcanic matter. If 

 it had been wood-coal in powder, I do not apprehend that it 

 would have caked when dried ; and I may add, that there was 

 no appearance of fire in the wood, and that this fact was parti- 

 cularly noticed by the inhabitants, during their intercourse with 

 the officers on board the Sir William Heathcote, and the third 

 narrative expressly states, that " on the 2d, no symptoms of 

 burnt wood were felt." 



But there are among the facts which are detailed, some 

 which cannot be reconciled to the supposition that the pheno- 

 mena in question were occasioned by the burning of a forest. 

 I allude particularly to the presence of sulphur among the 

 black pulverised matter which fell on the 16th of October 1785, 

 and to the precipitation of the latter in water, from which cir- 

 cumstance it may be presumed to have been of mineral origin, 

 and similar to that which was ejected from the Souffrier moun- 

 tain of St Vincent's on the 30th of April 1812;— to the extra- 

 ordinary swell of the sea which preceded the appearances which 

 took place on the 2d of July 1814 ; — to the bluish-white flame 

 of the lights and fires mentioned by Captain Payne ; — to the 

 strong smell which was perceived in the air, and which, without 

 affecting the eye&, produc ed violent headach ; — and to the 

 shower of sand mentioned by tlie officers who were on board 

 the Sir William Heathcote. 



These facts appear to me to render it necessary to impute the 

 phenomena of the dark days of Canada to volcanic action, and to 

 indicate strongly the existence of a volcano (not yet extinct) in 

 the Labrador territory ; an inference which is strengthened 

 by these considerations, viz. : That on the second of July, the 

 Bay of Seven Islands and Cape Chat were enveloped in the 

 darkness of that day by a northerly wind, and that on the 3d 

 July, while the weather was clear at Cape Chat, the Bay of 

 Seven Islands, and that part of the Atlantic Ocean which lies 

 in latitude 45' 50" north, and longitude 53' 12" west, (the posi- 



