1885.] Life and Nature in Southern Labrador. 371 
shell. It was evident that here was a raised sea-bottom, and the 
Quaternary formation. In the afternoon I returned to the spot 
and dug up many more shells mingled with pieces of a yellow 
limestone containing Silurian fossils, brachiopods and corals. 
This horizon, then, represented a deep sea-bottom, over which 
the open sea must have stood at least 300 feet, while the clay 
fossils of the mouth of the Esquimaux river must have lived in 
a deep muddy bay sheltered from the waves and currents of the 
open sea. The drift deposits of Labrador are scanty in extent 
compared with those of the Maine coast. They are but isolated 
patches compared with the extensive beds of sand and clay which 
compose the Quaternary deposits of New England. 
On the 22d August we made our last excursion up the Esqui- 
maux river, going up some six miles from its mouth. Froma 
hill top I could look over the surface of this lake-dotted land. 
The surface was rugged and bare in the extreme. The river val- 
ley, however, was well wooded, the spruce and birch perhaps 
thirty feet in height. Here and there the river passed through 
high precipitous banks of sand. The hills were rough, scarred 
with ravines, precipices, and deep gaps, the syenite wearing 
into irregularly hummocky hills, the rough places not filled up 
with drift, and thus the contours tamed down as in New Eng- 
land. Indeed, Labrador at the present day is like New England 
at the close of the ice period or at the beginning of the epoch of 
great rivers, before the terraces were laid down and the country 
adapted for man’s residence. Labrador was never adapted for 
any except scattered nomad tribes. It is still an unfinished land. 
While the hills were bare and the rocks covered with the rein- 
deer moss, here and there by the river’s edge in favorable, pro- 
tected places were tall alders and willows, with groups of asters 
and golden rods. Here I saw a veritable toad, and glad enough 
was I to recognize his lineaments. I was also told that there 
were frogs in existence, though we ‘never saw or heard them. 
There are no snakes or lizards, so that our history of these ani- 
mals in Labrador will be as brief as that of the Irish historian, 
but we did find a small salamander at Belles Amours in a later 
trip to this coast. 
On our return we found that a whaler had towed a sab into 
the month of the river and was about to try out the oil. We 
secured a piece of the flesh, and on reaching camp boiled it; it 
