340 CAPTAIN CARTWRIGHT'S 



with too much trouble and expence to have them 

 on a large scale; as it would be difficult to fence 

 against the white-bears and wolves, and all kinds 

 of cattle must be housed for nine months in the 

 year. Corn might possibly be raised about the 

 heads of the deepest bays, and in the interior 

 parts of the country; but the few experiments 

 which I made in my gardens failed of success; 

 for the ears were singed by the frost before the 

 grain ripened. 



All the east coast, as far as I went and by what 

 I could learn from the Esquimaux, exhibits a most 

 barren and iron-bound appearance; the moun- 

 tains rise suddenly out of the sea, and are com- 

 posed of a mass of rocks, but thinly covered in 

 spots with black peat earth; on which grow some 

 stunted spruces, empetrum nigrum, and a few 

 other plants, but not sufficient to give them the 

 appearance of fertility; such lands therefore are 

 always denominated Barrens. 



As some compensation for the poverty of the 

 soil, the sea, rivers, and lakes abound in fish, fowl, 

 and amphibious creatures. No country is better 

 furnished with large, convenient, and safe har- 

 bours, or supplied with better water; for rivers, 

 brooks, lakes, jjools, and ponds are every where 

 to be met with in great abundance. And I cannot 

 help observing here, that the swelled throats ^ 

 which the inhabitants of many Alpine countries 

 are subject to, are occasioned by the mineral par- 

 ticles which the waters imbibe in their passage 



^ Goitre. 



