162 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



bounds, again in civilization. There we found a pretty village 

 with stores, and nice families of refined people. One household 

 I remember where there was much music. Above all, we found 

 a chance to buy sugar, which we had lacked for several weeks, 

 having given away our store to the needy people at the Anticosti 

 lighthouse. Since our keg of molasses had been in some way 

 lost, probably washed overboard, as were the most of our pro- 

 visions at one time or another in our endless threshings by the 

 seas, we had gone without sweetening for a long time. On the 

 general theory that we were hardy fellows well returned to 

 the savage state, we thought that we did not need that grace to 

 our food. But the hunger for it was much worse than that for 

 tobacco, which was also lacking, even the keg of " nigger 

 head" was empty. It was evident that the hunger was not due 

 to mere habit, but was physiological in its intensity. When 

 we came by sugar we at once consumed about half a pound 

 apiece of it, and for a month we were hungry for it. 



The Gasp district proved an interesting geological field, 

 rich especially in the deposits of the Oriskany period, which 

 abounded in fossils. Nowhere else do the rocks of that time 

 show the seas to have been so thronged with brachiopods. 

 Moreover, here for the first time we found the Paleozoic strata 

 affected by mountain-building stresses. In this field we have 

 the finish of the work done through the ages in building the 

 various mountain-ranges of the Appalachian system. What is 

 left of these final ridges consists of elevations having no great 

 height, nor is the distended terrane of much width. As before 

 noted, the strata on Anticosti, which is nearly in the line of 

 the Notre Dame Mountains, are singularly undisturbed, nor 

 are there any signs of a continuation of this line of disloca- 

 tions on the Labrador shore. Therefore I came to the conclu- 

 sion that the great eastern system of North America here 

 found its end. 



I made one or two short excursions into the interior of the 

 Gasp peninsula, seeking to get further information of its struct- 



