64 RAISED BEACHES — LABRADOR DOGS. 



find them when they have strayed for several miles over hillocks, 

 across plains and open stretches of meadows that lead to a success- 

 ion of elevations and depressions, when perchance they have 

 rounded on their tracks and are quietly grazing not far from the 

 house in some entirely opposite direction from that in which they 

 started out. Strange to say the grass comes up here quite early in 

 the spring, and is grown some length before even the snow has be- 

 come melted, so that there is good grazing even in early spring. 



A curious fact remains to be spoken of : in digging in the gar- 

 den I was informed that at the distance of about three feet under 

 ground the sand contained abundance of shells similar to those now 

 growing alive on the beach a few rods away, and which belong, I be- 

 lieve, to the species Mytilus edidis; a little further front, along the 

 same sand ridge, nearer the shore, — or land-wash as the expression 

 is here, — these same shells appear on the surface, or at least so very 

 near the surface, that comparing the several Hues of demarcation 

 there would seem to be a fair amount of evidence that either there 

 had been a gradual subsidence of the waters about this part of the 

 coast, or that the land had gradually risen, allowing the sea to heap 

 up a succession of beaches over which the sand had been blown 

 from above until they had been covered, as they are at present, and 

 overgrown with vegetation. 



It seems not unlikely that one or the other of these actions has 

 taken place. In several different places along the island, and in sev- 

 eral of the islands, there appears to be this same peculiar sand struc- 

 ture overlying what were apparently once old beaches of the sea. 



A few words only here, about the dogs of Labrador. Upon our 

 first stepping on shore we were met by a troop of about fifteen dogs. 

 These dogs are of mongrel breed between the Esquimaux, the New- 

 foundland, and the various species imported here from other regions. 

 They are used to draw the sledges in the winter, and are as valuable 

 to the inhabitants as horses are to us, yet a worse set of snarling, 

 barking, and generally fierce and also unhospitable animals, it would 

 be hard to find. They feed on blubber and any food that they can 

 obtain in the winter, which has been previously banished from the 



