OF LABRADOR AND MAINE. 211 



St. Lawrence river system. It is 125 miles long, and flows south, emptying into that river 

 near the Bay of Seven Islands, at a point west of Anticosti and opposite the northern shore 

 of the Gaspe Peninsula. From this point the streams running into the Gulf assume, the 

 farther we go east, a N. W. and S. E. direction. Such is that of the Meschikimau or Es- 

 quimaux River, which empties into the western mouth of the Straits of Belle Isle, at the 

 lower Caribou Island. 



This stream is about 250 miles long, as I learned from residents, and is only navigable 

 for about twelve miles from its mouth by ordinary fishing-boats. There is no large river 

 between this and Hamilton River which flows into the Atlantic in a direction a little north 

 of east. This river seems to flow in a fissure that runs at right angles to the line of up- 

 heaval of the syenite and traps of the Atlantic coast ; as upon the Gulf coast the rivers 

 flow from the northwest along natural fissures in the earth's crust that run at right angles 

 to the axis of elevation of the Laurentian chain on the north side of the St. Lawrence. 

 In this connection it should be noticed that the fiords on the Atlantic coast of Labrador 

 assume the same direction, and though they agree much in this respect with the direction 

 of those farther south, there is yet a greater west and east course as we go northward 

 towards Cape Chudleigh, until beyond lat. 58° the fiords run in a N. W. and S. E. direction, 

 especially on the Hudson Bay slope. According to Davies * the Grand or Hamilton River 

 is supposed to rise from a chain of lakes in the " rear of the Seven Islands, and flows for a 

 considerable distance on the top of the ridge, if I may so express it, between the head waters 

 of the rivers falling into the St. Lawrence and those falling into the Hudson's Bay and 

 Straits, for they are said by the Indians to be quite close to the waters of the Grand River 

 on either side." Our author also states, that " two hundred miles from its mouth it forces 

 itself through a range of mountains that seem to border the table land of the interior, in 

 a succession of tremendous falls and rapids for nearly twenty miles. Above these falls, 

 the river flows with a very smooth and even current." 



Two other important rivers empty into Invuctoke Bay : the Kenamou, which flows in 

 from the south, and the Nascapee or Northwest River, which is a larger stream with a very 

 circuitous southeasterly course. 



The Atlantic system of streams to the north are small rivers flowing into the ocean in an 

 easterly course. 



Ungava Bay receives two important rivers which imperfectly drain the northwestern 

 slope of western Labrador. The smaller of the two is the Kangutlualuksoak or George 

 River, which empties into the bay in lat. 58° 57', and is 140 miles long. Its water-shed is 

 said by Kohlmeister and Knoch 2 to be a chain of high mountains which terminates in the 

 lofty peaks of syenite at Aulezavic Island and Cape Chudleigh, which are the highest 

 mountains in Labrador, and rise probably over 3000 feet in height, as the smallest of them, 

 Mount Bache, was measured in 1860 by the Eclipse Expedition of the U. S. Coast Survey, 

 and found to be 2150 feet high. This mountain is a gneiss elevation, and a sketch on the 

 geological chart by Mr. Lieber, the geologist of the expedition, shows it to be rounded by 

 glacial action, while lofty, " wild, volcanic-looking mountains " form a water-shed in the 

 interior, whose craggy peaks have evidently never been ground down by land-ice into 



1 Trans. Lit. and Phil. Soc, Quebec, vol. iv. p. 70, 1843. unknown region. By Benj. Kohlmeister and George Knocb, 



2 Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Lab- Missionaries of the Church of the Unitas Fratrum. London, 

 rador, to Ungava Bay, westward of Cape Chudleigh, under- 1814. 



taken to explore the Coast, and visit the Esquimaux in that 



MEMOIRS BOST. SOC. NAT. HIST. Vol. I. Pt. 2. 54 



