A LABRADOR SPRING 



rise above the moss. The botany of these bogs, 

 plains or tundras, whatever one may choose to 

 call them, always interested me and helped on 

 in the difficult work of traversing them. Bog 

 trotting, forsooth, bog trudging, in truth, 

 for when one sinks at every step nearly to the 

 knee in the wet, elastic moss, one wishes for 

 wings or perhaps snow-shoes. Audubon in a 

 letter to his wife from this coast written July 

 23, 1833, says: " Think of Mosses in which at 

 every step you take you sink in up to your 

 knees, soft as velvet, and as rich in colour." 

 Over four of these bogs we passed, each 

 larger than the last, and we crossed inter- 

 vening ridges grown up to woods. In one place 

 there was a bare, sandy ridge, the edge of a 

 raised beach, but little changed since its ele- 

 vation above sea level. 



In the bogs were numerous ponds of all 

 sizes from an acre to a square mile or two in 

 extent. These ponds represent the contest 

 between the force of water and of the growth 

 of vegetation. It is evident that these plains 

 were once the sea, and as the land rose and the 

 sea was cut off they became great shallow 

 fresh water lakes, around and in which the bog 



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