THE FLOE-ICE. 20$ 



only be approximative; the missionaries have also, by as- 

 cending the highest points near their respective stations, 

 taken the bearings of the islands about, Captain L. by a 

 patent log taking the distance between them.* For ninety 

 years a " Harmony" — the name being handed down 

 tO' successive vessels — has made its annual voyage to 

 Labrador, the missions having been established in Green- 

 land in 1733 and first on this coast in 1771 ; during that 

 time but two men have been lost from the vessel, one 

 of them having been drowned by upsetting in a kayak. 

 From the hills east of the station the ice-field could 

 be seen about ten miles out to sea, but bergs were visible 

 all along the coast. Captain Linklater on this voyage 

 encountered more ice than in any previous year of his 

 service. He found the field to be eighty-five miles wide ; 

 and from careful observations during a number of years 

 judged the rate of travel of the floe past the coast at this 

 point to be at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day, or a 

 little over a mile an hour. During this summer the ice 

 had, as we had observed, been running down the coast 

 from June 22d to August 22d, though it actually began 

 earlier and must have continued later than that. That 

 the ice finally disappeared by melting rather than by 

 sinking we believe, though the fishermen on the coast 

 maintain that it finally sinks. The extent of the ice-fields 

 therefore off the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland 

 must have been this season not much less than 80,000 

 square miles ; the effect of such a wet blanket on the 

 coast may well be imagined. 



* The results of these surveys were embodied in a MS. map by the Rev. S-. 

 Weiz, and it was this map which was kindly loaned me by the Secretary, IMr. 

 Latrobe, of the London office, and used in compiling the map of Labrador in 

 the present volume. 



