238 Dark days of Canada. 



" eruption has taken place in a north-easterly direction^ 

 " which caused total darkness in a breadth of about fifteen 

 " leagues from each side of Cape Chat."* 

 The fourth narrative is in these words. — 

 July 3d, 1814 — Sunday. — A most extraordinary day. In 

 the morning dark thick weather, and fog of a deep yellow 

 colour, which increased in density and colour until four 

 o'clock P.M. at which hour the cabin was entirely dark, 

 and we dined by candle light; the binnacle also was 

 lighted shortly after. In the evening, at twenty minutes 

 after sun set, there was total darkness, so much so that on the 

 deck a man could not see another at three feet distance, this 

 continued until the moon arose, when there was some little 

 appearance of light, but very little; it gradually went off 

 until it disappeared in the course of the fourth of July. — 

 The wind during this extraordinary obscurity was westerly, 

 with some northing, and the Phcenix was in latitude 45', 

 50", north, and longitude 53', 12", west. 



The relative positions of the ship in which Captain Payne 

 was embarked, the Sir JVilliam Heathcott, ■vvith her 

 associate transport, and of the Phoenix, may be readily seen 

 upon reference to a map of the gulf of St. Lawrence, and 

 from inspection it will be perceived that the northerly 

 wind which blew on the second of July carried the 

 clouds of ashes, dust, sand, smoke, and vapour across the 

 River St. Lawrence, in a line from the Bay of Seven Islands 

 to Cape Chat, and that by the westerly wind which set in, 

 in the night of the second of July, they were carried, .proba- 

 bly with more of the same description, across the gulf of 

 St. Lawrence and the Island of Newfoundland, to the place 



• Quebec Gazette, July 28tli, 1814. 



