18S THE LABEADOR PENINSULA. chap, xxxii. 



nearly parallel to the coast. Having skirted the Salt- 

 water Lake for about twenty-five miles, they gradually 

 leave the shore, and after some distance, meeting with an- 

 other range coming in an opposite direction, they lose a 

 part of their height, till they are lost amidst the confused 

 mass of hills that fill the interior of the country. The 

 only level ground of any extent near the bay reaches 

 from the head of it to the foot of these mountains. It is 

 difficult to conceive anything more beautiful than the 

 tints that their summits assume when touched by the 

 rays of the setting sun, long after he has disappeared 

 from the eye, while every httle ravine and inequality in 

 their surface is chiselled out against the clear cold sky 

 with wonderful vividness and precision.* 



Ungava Bay and the surrounding country has been 

 described by Mr. Daviesf and Mr. John McLean, J both 

 officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, who resided for 

 some years at Fort Chimo m that remote and desolate 

 part of the Labrador Peninsula. Mr. Davies thus describes 

 Ungava Bay : — 



The navigation of this inlet is rendered peculiarly'difficult 

 and dangerous by the great violence of the currents, which run 

 in many places with the velocity of a rapid, and are aided by 

 the strength of a tide that rises upwards of sixty feet perpen- 

 dicular ; presenting, in this respect, a great contrast to the coast 

 fronting the Atlantic, where the rise seldom exceeds eight feet. 



The difference may be accounted for by the fact, that this 

 bay lying at the mouth of the straits, and being open to the 



* Notes on Esquimaux Bay and the SuiToundiug Country, by W. H. A. 

 Davies, Esq. Eead before the Historical Society of Qiiebec. 

 t Notes on Ungava Bay and its Vicinity, 

 t Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service in tlie Hudson's Bay Territory. 



