LITTLE MECATTINA AND MUTTON BAY 



the bottom of the sea, and cast hundreds of 

 yards on shore, this will give some idea of what 

 a gaJe on the coast of Labrador can be, and 

 what the force of the waves." In another place 

 he says: "These stones I now think are prob- 

 ably brought on shore in the masses of ice 

 during the winter storms. These icebergs, then 

 melting and breaking up, leave these enor- 

 mous pebble-shaped stones, from ten to one 

 hundred feet deep." 



When I landed my first pilgrimage was to 

 one of these beaches. At the water's edge and 

 for some yards back the beach pebbles, cobble- 

 stone size, were round and smooth, kept so 

 by the wash of the waves and by grinding and 

 polishing against one another. Higher up they 

 lost their natural red color and were painted 

 gray by the lichens; this color gradually 

 merged into green as mosses replaced lichens, 

 while, higher up still, spruces and firs, laurels, 

 curlew-berry, Labrador-tea, and all the other 

 low-growing arctic plants had thoroughly 

 concealed the beach now raised fifty feet or 

 more above the sea. It was interesting to 

 notice a slight roughening of the surface of 

 the rock on which the lichens were growing. 



155 



