192 THE LABRADOR PEOTNSULA. chap, xxxir. 



when it so happens that they do not stand too thick, and the 

 soil suits them, they will arrive at a great size, particularly the 

 white spruce. Where there is a poverty of soil and they grow 

 close together, they are black, crabbed, and mossy, consequently 

 of no value ; but where the soil is pretty good, if they stand too 

 thick, yet they run clear and tall and attain substance suffi- 

 cient for shallops' oars, skiffs' oars, stage-beams, rafters, and 

 other purposes for which length principally is required. Had 

 not Nature disposed them to shoot their roots horizontally, the 

 adventurers in that country would have found a great difficulty 

 in building vessels of any kind ; for it is from the root, with 

 part of the trunk of the tree, that most of the timbers are cut, 

 and no others will supply proper stems, and ' other particular 

 timbers. 



Among the trees of the north-east Atlantic coast, 

 Cartwrigiit mentions black, white, and reel spruce, larch, 

 silver fir, birch, and aspen. Among the luiderbrush — 

 willow, cherry, and mountain-ash. 



Animal life was well represented in this region in 

 Cartwright's time, now eighty years since. He mentions 

 among buxls — wdiite-tailed eagle, falcons, hawks, and 

 owls, raven, ptarmigan, spruce-partridge, curlew, grey 

 plover, sand-pipers and other w^aders, geese, ducks, gulls, 

 divers, swallows, martins, snipe, and pigeons, and a few 

 species of the smaller kind. 



Among beasts — ^black and white bears, reindeer, wolves, 

 wolverines, foxes, martens, 1}tix, otters, mink, beaver, 

 musk-rats, racoons, hares, rabbits, and moles. 



But most abundant of all is marine life. The ocean 

 appears to swarm with all species common to sub-arctic 

 regions. Cartwright's description of the salmon and bears 

 on the White Bear Eiver show^s how considerable must 

 have been the resources of the north-east coast when he 



