CHAPTER X 



AN EXPEDITION TO THE GULP OF ST. LAWRENCE 



THE last of all the journeys I made while a student was a con- 

 siderable expedition to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1861. This 

 was rather carefully planned so as to fit into the scheme of our 

 training. It came about in this way. My small experiences in 

 going about had awakened in me a great desire for a longer 

 coastwise journey, which would give an extended contact with 

 both sea and land. Since I was then studying the Silurian sys- 

 tem in my vacations in Kentucky, and knew the points fairly 

 well, the publications of the Canada Survey on the island of 

 Anticosti interested me greatly. The report of the explorer 

 and the writings of Billings showed that forms existed there 

 which differed from those of the Ohio valley or those of Great 

 Britain and Scandinavia, which I knew from the collections in 

 the Museum. In the autumn of 1860 I met Lord Head, then 

 Governor-General of Canada, at Professor Ticknor's house in 

 Boston, and talked with him of my plan of studying that island. 

 He was a very kindly old gentleman, and was so good as to in- 

 terest himself in my project and to promise help in the way of 

 a letter to all the government officers of the St. Lawrence dis- 

 trict. So all at once it was decided, with my master's approval, 

 that three of us should the next summer find some craft that 

 could be chartered for the voyage as cheaply as might be, 

 for we had to pay our own charges. 



The adventurers, consisting of Hyatt, Verrill, and myself, 

 managed through a good friend, a Captain Treat of Eastport, to 

 charter a little schooner of that port. We found a pretty-look- 

 ing little craft in the glisten of new paint; a skipper had been 

 found in a splendid giant, who bore the picturesque name of 



