94 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



lion, on the 6th, with a fresh northwest wind which so 

 effectually ruffled the ocean that nearly every man set- 

 tled his account there and then with the sea-god, our 

 course was laid for Cape Sable, which we sighted at 

 about I o'clock in the afternoon of the 7th. 



The following day we bowled along at the distance of 

 twelve miles from the Nova Scotian coast, the wind 

 blowing a fresh gale from the northwest, and about 2 

 A.M. of the 8th ran into Chedabucto Bay, anchoring four 

 miles from Port Mulgrave. Weighing anchor the next 

 day and moving up to the town, a mean little fishing- 

 hamlet, while the crew took in wood and water, each one, 

 according to his taste, went either shopping or trouting 

 in the rain, or geologizing. On the following day I 

 walked towards Porcupine Point, a bold headland said 

 to be 275 feet above the Gut of Canso. The view over 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence is a very pleasant one. The 

 Gut of Canso opens into the Gulf four miles from the 

 Point. The drift material consists of a rich soil con- 

 taining bits and masses of red sandstone, some of the 

 fragments containing calamites and the impressions of 

 delicate sea-weeds. The rocks in situ are a white con- 

 glomerate dipping at an angle of 80° and with a N. and 

 S. strike. 



The shores of the Gut of Canso are high and bold on 

 the western side, but much lower on the Cape Breton 

 shore. The contours of the hills on the Nova Scotian 

 coast are like those of a granite-gneiss region, the hills 

 terminating in drift " scaurs." On the Cape Breton side 

 the houses are more numerous and the farms either more 

 fertile or cultivated with greater care. At Port Mul- 

 grave the inhabitants did not raise vegetables enough for 



