A LABRADOR SPRING 
rapid railroad migration to the north. I 
breathed a sigh of relief at the result of this 
hasty survey of the situation, for I had arrived in 
time, and in the next four weeks I was to be 
present at the rapid change from winter to 
summer, at the miracle of the Labrador 
spring. 
Although there were no fresh green leaves 
to be seen, there was no absence of this colour 
in vegetation, and it was not limited to the 
cone-bearing trees to which the name evergreen 
is usually limited. These latter are quickly enu- 
merated, namely the black, white and a few red 
spruces, the balsam fir and two kinds of ground 
juniper, for there were no pines in this region, 
and spruce and fir were by far the prevailing 
trees. On the ground of the bogs or barrens, 
which extend their vegetation into the spruce 
forests, the universal sphagnum moss as well 
as many other mosses were evergreen. As 
the various lichens which abound in Labrador 
assume every colour of the rainbow, some of 
these also were green. Clumps of pitcher-plant 
leaves were everywhere in the bogs, looking 
often as fresh and intact as if they had been pre- 
served in a green-house, instead of lying buried 
15 
