6

ing among his countrymen the necessary funds for a reconnoitring voyage in this direction. Thanks to his exertions, May 24, 1868, witnessed the departure of a small ship of 80 tons, the Germania,' Captain Koldewey, from the port of Bergen, for Shannon Island (75° 14' N. lat.), the highest point on the east coast of Greenland attained by Sabine in 1823. Here the attempt to explore the unknown Arctic Seas beyond was to begin; but, meeting with enormous masses of drift-ice on her repeated endeavours to penetrate to the north-east, the Germania' has been obliged to return, after reaching the high latitude of 81° 5', and accurately surveying a small part of the Greenland coast hitherto but imperfectly explored. An expedition on a more extensive scale is to renew the attempt in 1869.

A third route to the Pole is no less strenuously recommended by M. Gustave Lambert, a French hydrographer, who, having sailed through Behring's Strait in a whaler, in 1865, is persuaded that this is the right way to reach the problematical open North Sea, which, once attained, promises a free passage to the navigator. Liberal subscriptions have been raised in Paris for the accomplishment of his plan, and an expedition, under his command, will most probably set out in 1869.

Thus, after so many illustrious navigators have vainly endeavoured to reach the Pole, sanguine projectors are still as eager as ever to attain the goal; nor is it probable that man will ever rest in his efforts, until every attainable region of the Arctic Ocean shall have been fully explored.

Its desolate Aspect-Forests-Marshes-Barrens-Ponds-Fur-bearing Animals -Severity of Climate-St. John's-Discovery of Newfoundland by the Scandinavians-Sir Humphrey 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.

G

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 shores. The waves of the ocean have everywhere corroded 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 remarkable 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 juniper or larch; and in certain districts the wych-hazel, the mountain-ash, the elder, 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 chiefly 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 branches, or newly-fallen trees, which, with the young shoots and brushwood, forma tangled and often impenetrable thicket. The trees are often covered with lichens, 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, the sharp edges or slippery surface of the numerous rocks and boulders, and the holes and pitfalls between them. Every step through these woods is consequently a matter of great toil and anxiety. In the heat of summer, while the woods are so thick as to Ishut out every breath of air, they are at the same time too low and too thinly leaved at top to exclude the the sun, the atmosphere being further rendered close and stifling by the smell of the turpentine which exudes from the

trees.

rays

of

*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'

3rd ed. p. 52.

MARSHES AND BARRENS.

441

Enclosed in these gloomy woods, large open tracts, called marshes, are found covering the valleys and lower lands, and frequently also at a considerable height above the sea, on the undulating backs of the mountains. These tracts are covered to a depth sometimes of several feet with a green, soft, and spongy moss, bound together by straggling grass and various marsh plants. The surface abounds in hillocks and holes, the tops of the hillocks having often dry crisp moss, like that on the trees. A boulder or small crag of rock occasionally protrudes, covered with red or white lichens, and here and there is a bank on which the moss has become dry and yellow. The contrast of these colours with the dark velvety green of the wet moss frequently gives a peculiarly rich appearance to the marshes, so that when seen from a little distance they might easily be mistaken for luxuriant meadow grounds, but a closer inspection soon destroys the illusion, and shows, instead of nutritious grass and aromatic flowers, nothing but a carpet of useless cryptogamic plants. Except in long continued droughts or hard frosts, these marshes are so wet as to be unable to bear the weight of a person walking over them. A march of three miles, sinking at every step into the moss, sometimes knee-deep, and always as far as the ankle, is, it may well be supposed, toilsome and fatiguing, especially when, as must always be the case in attempting to penetrate the country, a heavy load is carried on the shoulders. This thick coating of moss is precisely like a great sponge spread over the country, and becomes at the melting of the snow in the spring thoroughly saturated with water, which it long retains, and which every shower of rain continually renews.

The barrens' of Newfoundland are those districts which occupy the summits of the hills and ridges, and other elevated and exposed tracts. They are covered with a thin and scrubby vegetation, consisting of berry-bearing plants and dwarf bushes of various species, resembling the moorlands of the north of England, and differing only in the kind of vegetation and its scantier quantity. Bare patches of gravel and boulders and crumbling fragments of rock are frequently met with upon the barrens, and they are generally altogether destitute of vegetable soil. But only on the

barrens is it possible to explore the interior of the country with any kind of ease or expedition. These different tracts are none of them of any great extent; woods, marshes, and barrens frequently alternating with each other in the course of a day's journey.

Another remarkable feature of Newfoundland is the almost incredible number of lakes of all sizes, all of which are indiscriminately called ponds. They are scattered over the whole country, not only in the valleys but on the higher lands and even in the hollows of the summits of the ridges and the very tops of the hills. They vary in size from pools of fifty yards in diameter to lakes upwards of thirty miles long and four or five miles across. The number of those which exceed a couple of miles in extent must on the whole amount to several hundreds, while those of a smaller size are absolutely countless. It is supposed that a full third of the surface of the island is covered by fresh water, and this reckoning is rather below than above the mark. In a country so abundantly provided with lakes or ponds, it seems strange to find no navigable rivers. The undulating surface of the land, with its abrupt hills and deep gullies, is, without all doubt, one cause of this absence of larger streams.

Each pond or small set of ponds communicates with a valley of its own, down which it sends an insignificant brook, which takes the nearest course to the sea. The chief cause however both of the vast abundance of ponds and the comparative scantiness of the brooks is to be found in the great coating of moss which spreads over the country, and retains the water like a sponge, allowing it to drain off but slowly and gradually.

The wilds of Newfoundland are tenanted by numerous furbearing animals, affording a great source of gain to some of the fishermen, who in winter turn furriers. Arctic foxes are here in all their variety. Beavers, once nearly extirpated, but now unmolested owing to the low value of their fur, are increasing in numbers. Brown bears are pretty numerous, and Polar bears sometimes find their way to the northern promontory of the island upon the ice which comes drifting down in spring from Davis' Straits. By way of contrast, in hot summers the tropical humming-bird has been known