A LABRADOR SPRING 
rise above the moss. The botany of these bogs, 
plains or tundras, whatever one may choose to 
call them, always interested me and helped on 
in the difficult work of traversing them. Bog 
trotting, forsooth,— bog trudging, in truth, 
for when one sinks at every step nearly to the 
knee in the wet, elastic moss, one wishes for 
wings or perhaps snow-shoes. Audubon in a 
letter to his wife from this coast written July 
23, 1833, says: ‘“‘ Think of Mosses in which at 
every step you take you sink in up to your 
knees, soft as velvet, and as rich in colour.” 
Over four of these bogs we passed, each 
larger than the last, and we crossed inter- 
vening ridges grown up to woods. In one place 
there was a bare, sandy ridge, the edge of a 
raised beach, but little changed since its ele- 
vation above sea level. 
In the bogs were numerous ponds of all 
sizes from an acre to a square mile or two in 
extent. These ponds represent the contest 
between the force of water and of the growth 
of vegetation. It is evident that these plains 
were once the sea, and as the land rose and the 
sea was cut off they became great shallow 
fresh water lakes, around and in which the bog 
232 
