376 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



NEWFOUNDLAND. 



Its desolate Aspect. — Forests. — Marshes. — Barrens. — Ponds. — Fur-bearing Animals. — Severity of Cli- 

 mate.— St. John's. — Discovery of Newfoundland by the Scandinavians. — Sir Humphre}^ Gilbert. — 

 Rivalry of the English and French. — Importance of the Fisheries. — The Banks of Newfoundland. — 

 Mode of Fishing.— Throaters, Headers, Splitters, Salters, and Packers. — Fogs and Storms.— Seal- 

 catching. 



ENERALLY veiled with mists, Newfoundland appears at first sight 



gloomy and repulsive. Abrupt cliffs, showing here and there traces of a 

 scanty vegetation, rise steep and bare from the sea, and for miles and miles 

 the eye sees nothing but brown hills or higher mountains, desolate and wild as 

 they appeared in the eleventh century to the bold Norwegian navigators who 

 first landed on its desert shore. The waves of the ocean have everywhere cor- 

 roded the rocky coast into fantastic pinnacles or excavated deep grottoes in its 

 flanks. In one of these cavities the action of the surge has produced a remark- 

 able phenomenon, known under the name of " The Spout." In stormy weather 

 the waves penetrate into the hollow and force their way with a dreadful noise 

 from an aperture in the rock as a gigantic fountain visible at a distance of 

 several miles.* 



The interior of the country corresponds with the forbidding appearance of 

 the coasts, and offers nothing but a succession of forests, marshes, and barrens. 

 The forests, if they may thus be called, generally grow on the declivities of the 

 hills or on the sides of the valleys, where the superfluous waters find a natural 

 drain. The trees consist for the most part of fir, spruce, birch, pine, and juni- 

 per or larch ; and in certain districts the wych-hazel, the mountain-ash, the eld- 

 er, the aspen, and some others are found. The character of the timber varies 

 greatly according to the nature of the subsoil and the situation. In some parts, 

 more especially where the woods have been undisturbed by the axe, trees of 

 fair height and girth may be found ; but most of the wood is of stunted 

 growth, consisting chiefiy of fir-trees about twenty or thirty feet high, and 

 not more than three or four inches in diameter. These commonly grow so 

 closely together that their twigs and branches interlace from top to bottom, 

 while among them may be seen innumerable old and rotten stumps and branch- 

 es, or newly-fallen trees, which, with the young shoots and brushwood, form a 

 tangled and often impenetrable thicket. The trees are often covered with lich- 

 ens, and tufts of white dry moss are entangled about the branches. Other 

 green and softer mosses spread over the ground, concealing alike the twisted 

 roots of the standing trees and the pointed stumps of those which have fallen, 



* For an account of the similar phenomena of the " BufFadero," on the Mexican coast, and of the 

 "Souffleur," Mauritius, see "The Sea and its Living Wonders," 3d ed. p. 52. 



