272 Life and Nature in Southern Labrador. [March, 
the west end served as a dining and study table, and in the south- 
east corner a little stove, not over fifteen inches square, with a 
funnel whose elbow, projecting out-of-doors, had to be turned 
with every change of wind, was the focus, the modernized hearth- 
stone, over which hung our Lares and Penates, sundry hams and 
pieces of dried beef, piéces-de-resistance of our meals, often allevi- 
ated by game and fish, clams and scollops or pussels (Pecten magel- 
Janicus), with oases of seal and whale flesh. How we college boys 
cooked and ate, rambled and slept in those seven weeks of sub- 
arctic life is a subject of pleasant memory. They were days of 
rare pleasure, of continuous health, and formed an experience 
whose value lasted through our future lives. We made hunting, 
ornithological, entomological, botanical and dredging expeditions 
in all directions, by sea and land; the geology, and the flora and 
fauna were explored with zeal, and resulted in the discovery of 
many new forms and the detection of Alpine and arctic European 
species before unknown to this continent. We investigated the 
Quaternary formation, ice marks, drift and fossil shells ; procured 
fossils of the Cambrian red sandstone beds, chiefly a sponge 
(a new species of Archzocyathus), which were scattered along the 
shore, probably derived from the red sandstone strata so well de- 
veloped at Bradore, also visited by some of our party. The re- 
sults were perhaps of some importance to science, and the lessons 
in natural science we learned of far greater moment to ourselves. 
The coast of Labrador is fringed with islands, large and small, 
from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to Hudson's strait. A sail- 
boat can go with safety from one point to the other, and only 
occasionally will be exposed to the ocean swell. These islands 
are the exact counterpart of each other, differing mainly only in 
size and altitude. Caribou island was two or three miles in 
length, formed of Laurentian gneiss, which had been worn and 
molded by glaciers, Its scenic features recalled those of the more 
rugged portions of the coast of Maine, particularly in Penobscot 
bay and Mt. Desert. The higher portions of the island is of bare 
rounded rock, with deep valleys or fissures down which run little 
rills; these valleys are dense with ferns, shelter many insects, and 
where they widen out into the lower land support a growth of 
dwarf spruce, hackmatack and willow. In the more protected 
e | : ~ Parts a few poplars and mountain ash rise to a height of from ten 
ane to fifteen feet. The Alpine vegetation is mostly confined to the ex- 
