78 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. chap. xxv. 



since the erection of Heatli Point lighthouse, seventeen 

 or eighteen years ago, it has been discontinued ; not a 

 single house now remains, although they appear to have 

 been numerous at one time. I mention this particularly, 

 as, on all the charts I have seen, Provision Post still 

 remams indicated there ; and in one instance, at least, a 

 vessel being wrecked within sight of Heath Point, the 

 crew, instead of going to the lighthouse, went straight to 

 Fox Bay, where they confidently expected to find sheUer. 

 Hence several of them perished with cold and hunger 

 (the time being the beginning of December) before 

 they could reach the lighthouse at Heath Point. The 

 indication cannot be erased from old charts that may 

 be in the hands of mariners, but I am not aware what 

 means have been taken to make navigators acquainted 

 with the change. 



' I do not know of any other sheltered harbours on the 

 island, and it appears to me that from every other 

 position on the coast any vessel near the shore, doAvn to 

 the size of a schooner, during any wind, would be im- 

 mediately obliged to put to sea. For small boats of from 

 three to ten tons burden, there are scarcely ten miles of 

 the coast where shelter could not be found by passing up 

 the small rivers at high water ; and there are many bays 

 that might perhaps be made safe by excavations hke 

 those which have been already mentioned. 



' Alons the lowlands of the south coast a continuous 

 peat plain extends for upwards of eighty miles, with an 

 average breadth of two miles, giving a superficies of 160 

 miles, with a thickness of peat (as observed on the coast) 

 of from three to ten feet. This extensive peat plain — the 



