NOTES ON NEWFOUNDLAND. 269 



grows here with a diameter of nearly three feet, and 

 pine, spruce, and Larch are abundant. The scenery of 

 the Western coast differs greatly from that of the southern 

 and eastern. St. George's Bay and the Bay of Islands 

 are surrounded by rolling forest-covered hills, and fine 

 woods skirt the Humber river which enters the latter 

 basin, and the great lakes in the interior whence it flows. 

 With a soil quite capable of yielding abundantly to the 

 agriculturist, the presence of coal-fields, vast mineral 

 wealth, and extensive forests verging on the harbours 

 and rivers, it is surprising that this part of the island is 

 not more thickly settled. The fog, constantly shrouding 

 the southern shores, and often extending for some dis- 

 tance up the eastern, is here of quite unfrequent occur- 

 rence, and the easterly winds which chill the soil and 

 retard vegetation round St. John's, are divested of their 

 bitterness on crossing the island. 



Much light is thrown upon the interior features of the 

 main island to the southward of the great lakes by the 

 curious narrative of his journey across from Trinity Bay 

 on the east coast to St. George's on the west, published 

 as a pamphlet many years since by Mr. W. E. Cormack. 

 His account is still regarded as the best description of 

 the interior, of which but little more is known at the 

 present day than at the time of his visit. The journey 

 across the island was undertaken on foot, of course; a 

 single Indian accompanied him, and all the necessaries 

 of life were carried in knapsacks. After difiicult progress 

 of some days' duration through scanty spruce forests, he 

 thus describes his first view of the interior : — 



" We soon found that we were on a great granitic 

 ridge, covered, not as the lower grounds are, with 



