[ 113 ] _ ^^^ 



^be (Branb fall6 of Xabra&orX^^^ V' 



AN account of his visit to the Grand Falls of Labrador has 

 been given by Henry G. Bryant, of Philadelphia, in the 

 Century Magazine and in a Bulletm of the Geographical 

 Club of Philadelphia. They are situated on the Grand or Hamil- 

 ton Kiver, which rises in the lakes of the upland region of the 

 peninsula and flows in a general south-easterly direction into 

 Hamilton Inlet — the great arm of the sea which, under various 

 names, penetrates into the interior a distance of one hundred and 

 fifty miles. No scientific explorer has advanced far into the 

 country, and all that is known of it is derived from vague informa- 

 tion furnished by Indians, a few missionaries, and the Hudson 

 Bay Company's men. The first white man to visit and describe 

 the falls was John McLean, of the Hudson Bay Company, in 1839. 

 They were visited twenty years afterward by Joseph McPherson. 

 These are the only white men who are known to have seen the 

 Grand Falls till the summer of 1891, when Mr. Bryant and an 

 expedition from Bowdoin College reached them independently of 

 one another. Mr, Bryant, accompanied by Prof. C. A. Kenaston, 

 of Washington, and a Scotch and an Indian assistant, left North- 

 west Eiver Post, at the head of Hamilton Bay, on August 3rd, to 

 proceed up the stream by canoe. On the 27th they reached the 

 point where the further navigation of the stream is obstructed by 

 rapids, whence they proceeded overland and reached the Falls 

 Sept. 2nd. " A single glance showed that we had before us one of 



the greatest waterfalls in the world A mile above the 



main leap the river is a noble stream four hundred yards wide, 

 already flowing at an accelerated speed. Four rapids, marking 

 successive depressions in the river bed, intervene between this point 

 and the falls. ... An immense volume of water precipitates 

 itself over the rocky ledge, and under favourable conditions the 

 roar of the cataract can be heard for twenty miles. Below the 

 falls, the river, turning to the south-east, pursues its maddened 

 career for twenty-five miles shut in by vertical cliffs of gneissic rock, 

 which rises in places to a height of four hundred feet. The rocky 

 banks above and below the falls are thickly wooded with furs and 

 spruces, among which the graceful form of the white birch appears 

 in places." The height of the falls was found, by as accurate a 

 measurement as could be made with cord, to be three hundred 

 and sixteen feet. 



* Popular Science Monthly. % 



International Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science. 



Third Series. Vol. V. i 



