144 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. chap. xxix. 



On removing the layer of moss (says Mr. Davies) that 

 everywhere covers the country, a pure bright siliceous sand is 

 met with in the woods, slightly blackened by decaying leaves 

 and other vegetable substances. It is in this soil, if soil it can 

 be called, that the red spruce or juniper pushes its roots. In 

 sheltered situations it attains to the, comparatively speaking, 

 large size of twelve to fifteen inches in diameter ; but its general 

 size, on the borders of rivers, is from four to six inches in dia- 

 meter, decreasing from that to a small scraggy bush, as the 

 plains are approached. 



Underneath the sand, at a depth varying from a foot 

 to a few inches, is invariably found the rock, and the 

 whole Ungava country may be described as a series of 

 marshes, separated by rocky ridges, rising into hills in 

 some places, and thinly clothed at intervals with small 

 red spruce. 



From Mr. McLean, the officer in charge of Fort Chimo, 

 who appears to have supplied Mr. Davies with mucli 

 of his information, we gather that the country drained by 

 the Nasquapee or North-west Paver, called also the 

 Eiviere des Esquimaux, which flows into Hamilton Inlet, 

 is equally rocky and destitute of trees, except a few 

 clumps of pine, spruce, and stunted birch. Some fifty 

 miles from Hamilton Inlet on the course of North-west 

 Eiver, Mr. McLean states that the surface is so undulating 

 as to resemble the ocean when agitated by a storm, sup- 

 posing its billows transformed into solid rock. Mr. 

 McLean describes the west coast of Ungava Bay as almost 

 inaccessible from the continual presence of ice and the 

 force of the currents which sweep violently along the 

 shore and among the small islands. The interior of the 



