Il6 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



we could see that the low point running out into the 

 Gulf from the Laurentian background of syenite was the 

 western extremity of the basin of Cambrian red sand- 

 stones and grits which extend between Belles Amours 

 and Anse-au-Sablon. Skirting the coast within a mile 

 or two of these interesting series of rocks, they are seen 

 to rise to a height of five or six hundred feet, forming 

 the coast line, but with a contour tame and monotonous 

 compared with the syenitic hills of Bradore. The belt is 

 a narrow one, and while sailing past the shore we could 

 look up through the harbors and bays to the low coni- 

 cal hills of Laurentian gneiss in the interior. Passing 

 by Bradore Bay the lofty buttes of Bradore are seen to 

 rise up from the low foreground of red sandstone. We 

 then passed within sight of Greenly Island, where in 1856, 

 during a severe southwest gale, so sudden and common 

 in the strait, thirty-one vessels for want of. good anchor- 

 age and shelter were driven upon a lee shore. Parra- 

 keet Island then hove in sight, a favorite breeding-place 

 for the parrakeet or puffin, with a single house on it, 

 the hospitable mansion of a member of the ubiquitous 

 Jones family, where in i860 a party from our camp on 

 Caribou Island received board and lodging for which 

 only thanks would be accepted. 



We then sight Blanc Sablon. The land here is high 

 and descends to the sea in five very distinct terraces, of 

 which the second is much the highest. There were 

 huge bowlders of grit on the beach ; the raised beaches 

 were packed with bowlders and the terraces in general 

 direction appeared in perspective, as if dipping up the 

 strait ; like river-terraces they were parallel to each 

 other, but the lower one gradually dips down and loses 



