178 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



Stances changed the inhabitants of that tertiary polar 

 land, of which Greenland and Spitzbergen are the rem- 

 nants, they were either entirely effaced, or emigrated 

 southward, becoming the ancestors of our American 

 plants and animals, or, as in the case of a few forms, 

 maintained their ground but changed into the present 

 arctic animals and plants. 



The afternoon was spent on the opposite side of the 

 harbor, where there is an ancient sea-beach at least two 

 hundred feet high, with four terraces, well defined by 

 the windrows of pebbles left by the retreating waves — 

 how many thousand years ago, a wise man would hardly 

 dare to guess. On the two lower terraces the willows 

 grew in irregular rounded patches ; there were two spe- 

 cies, one growing to a foot in height, their tops of the 

 same length, as if clipped off with scissors ; the other 

 species was still more prone, creeping low in the rein- 

 deer moss and curlew-berry, or spreading vine-like over 

 the rocks. Their catkins were being investigated by 

 bumble-bees of two kinds, one or both truly polar. 



During the 20th a cold northeast wind blew ; the har- 

 bor was open to the wind and sea, so that our vessel was 

 pitching through the livelong day, making everybody's 

 headache, and sending nearly all to their bunks to sleep 

 through the discomfort. No ice, however, was brought 

 in by the wind, which showed that the coast was clear 

 whenever the wind should be fair. The icebergs, how- 

 ever, are seen marching ceaselessly down the coast at a 

 distance of ten or fifteen miles out at sea. 



The wind and swell did not prevent the fishermen 

 from seining for capelin, so essential as bait in fish- 

 ing for cod. When the seine is hauled the fish are 



