CARIBOU ISLAND. 107 



The 1 7th we weighed anchor, and with light winds 

 and some rain early in the morning, but a strong north- 

 easterly head-wind in the forenoon, we made only twenty- 

 five miles during the day. The coast along our course 

 was of very even height, the monotonous outline being 

 relieved by an occasional elevation. The rock was of 

 syenite with its characteristic scenic features. It was of 

 warm, reddish flesh tints, but full of chinks and cracks, 

 made by the water percolating or running into them and 

 freezing, resulting in the cracking and disruption of large 

 rock masses. Then the continued action of the frost 

 year after year widens the chinks into gulches, with even, 

 precipitous sides, now filled with snow-banks ten or 

 fifteen feet long, and sometimes a dozen or more rods 

 in extent, their edges bordered with arctic flowers. The 

 hills were barren on top, with moss and dwarf spruce in 

 the cavities or ravines. Here and there were to be seen 

 clumps of grass, but the herbage in a Labrador fore- 

 ground is not grasses or sedges, but low shrubby woody 

 plants such as the dwarf cranberry, the curlew-berry 

 {Empetrum nigrum), etc., which form a dense uniform 

 carpet of varied but dull green hues. 



On the afternoon of the 1 8th we dropped anchor near 

 Caribou Island, and on landing found Mr. Carpenter, the 

 missionary of these shores, who had befriended us in so 

 many ways while camping on this island in the summer 

 of i860. He was well and prospering in his good work. 

 I lost no time in borrowing a spade and digging for 

 quaternary fossils, and was rewarded with the discovery 

 of several species not detected in i860; among these 

 were Serripes groenlandicus, Buccinum undatum, etc. 



On the evening before June 20, the longest day of the 



