THE PRIMORDIAL SANDSTONES. 1 17 



itself in the water, while another slopes in the opposite 

 direction. The higher terraces appear as if wooded or 

 green. There were indeed three shades of green : in the 

 lower terrace the debris is covered with a pale green 

 herbage ; the older vegetation is darker, while the upper 

 rusty green tint is very dark. 



At Blanc Sablon, which was originally so named by 

 Jacques Cartier, the settlement consists of twenty 

 houses ; they were painted white and from the vessel 

 appeared like masses of floe-ice stranded on the shore. 

 Of the houses four are "rooms," or fishing-establish- 

 ments. 



We then pass the fishing-settlement of Forteau, with 

 a lighthouse on the point, besides about twenty houses, 

 and a Catholic church. Off the lighthouse is Shallop 

 Island ; the harbor is two or three miles deep, walled in 

 by vertical cliffs, furrowed and streaked by rain and frost. 

 Into the harbor empties a salmon stream ; one man here 

 seems to have the monopoly of the salmon fishery, put- 

 ting up from twenty to sixty barrels a year ; they are salted 

 and sent to Europe. 



Now as we pass on, the bay opens and at its head 

 we can see the Laurentian formation, with its low^ ob- 

 tusely pointed gneiss hills ; but the general surface of 

 the Labrador coast is very uniform, while the opposite 

 shores of Newfoundland now recede and appear to be 

 much lower. The strait is about eleven miles wide in 

 its narrowest part. 



Sailing on but half a mile off shore at Anse-au-Loup, 

 we can plainly see that the Cambrian rocks are red and 

 gray sandstones — that the strata, almost horizontal, dip 

 a little to the west, descending to the strait by three 



