288 ICEBERGS— FOX HARBOR. 



ful that they had ever witnessed. We caught a huge ball of fire on 

 our dredge rope, and hauled it in. It was placed in a small can of 

 water and found to be one of the jelly fishes, with which, in the 

 daytime, the water abounded. It was nearly an inch long. Is it 

 possible that these animals, large and small, are luminous to such 

 an extreme degree ? 



After remaining for several days in Chateau we left it for our 

 next port north. We had no more than cleared the land and taken 

 our course than the fog shut down upon us again, thick and heavy. 

 We kept steadily onward, however, but soon found we were 

 rushing into a tremendous ice mass. The vessel's course was changed 

 just as an immense ice tower, between two and three hundred feet in 

 height, surged by us with a velocity that would have crushed us in- 

 stantly had we struck it ; another and another followed, and we be- 

 gan to fear for our lives, but soon, by good fortune, the fog lifted 

 and we sighted Belle Isle, turning our prow, then, to a similar 

 course northward, to that which we had been steering eastward, we 

 were, by evening of the same day, quietly anchored at Fox harbor, 

 where we passed a most comfortable night. 



Fox Harbor is one of the principal harbors of St. Lewis Sound, 

 and just north of Cape Charles. It is a large indentation, and con- 

 tains several very important harbors, the most so being Battle Island, 

 often called the Boston of Labrador. St. Lewis inlet runs a long 

 way into the interior of the country and is navigable nearly its whole 

 length of some twenty to thirty miles, I believe. We did consider- 

 able dredging here, and produced capital results. 



I think that it was on Saturday, Aug. 12, that we arrived at Fox 

 Harbor, and glad enough were we to be in safe anchorage, once 

 more, while the fog continued to settle upon us. The next three 

 days were quite pleasant however, and we made the most of them. 

 Everybody on board started in the boats for a tour of investiga- 

 tion on shore. Here, at length, we had struck a real semi-arctic 

 habitation, inhabited by Indians, Esquimaux, and several half-breed 

 families. The houses were similar, but poorer, than those we had 

 seen all along the coast. The children were everywhere followed 



