was his second year in Newfoundland, his only companion being his wife. He invited us over with him in his canoe, to rest a day at his camp (where, he said, he had plenty of venison) which was readily agreed to on my part. "The island on which the mountaineer's camp was lay about three miles distant. The varying scenery, as we paddled towards it, amongst innumerable islands and inlets, all of granite, and mostly covered with spruce and birch trees, was beautiful. His canoe was similar to those described to have been used by the ancient Britons, on the invasion by the Romans. It was made of wicker-work, covered over outside with deer-skins sewed together and stretched on it, nearly of the usual form of canoes, with a bar or beam across the middle, and one on each end to strengthen it. The skin covering, flesh side out, was fastened or laced to the gunwales, with thongs of the same material. Owing to decay and wear, it requires to be renewed once in from six to twelve weeks. It is in those temporary barks that the Indians of Newfoundland of the present day navigate the lakes and rivers of the interior. They are easily carried, owing to their lightness, across the portages, from one water to another, and when damaged, easily repaired. "His wigwam was situated in the centre of a wooded islet, at which we arrived before sunset. The approach from the landing-place was by a mossy carpeted avenue, formed by the trees having been cut down in that direction for firewood. The sight of a fire not of our own kindling, of which we were to partake, seemed hospitality. It was occupied by his wife, seated on a deer-skin, busy sewing together skins of the same kind to renew the outside of the canoe which we had found required it. A large Newfoundland dog, her only companion in her husband's absence, had welcomed us at the landing-place with signs of the greatest joy. Sylvan happiness reigned here. His wigwam was of a semicircular form, covered with birch-rind and dried deer-skins, the fire on the foreground outside. Abundance and neatness pervaded the encampment. On horizontal poles over the fire hung quantities of venison steaks, being smoke-dried. The hostess was cheerful, and & supper, the best the chase could furnish, was soon set before us on sheets of birch-rind. They told me to make their camp my own, and use everything in it as such.' Kindness so elegantly tendered by these people of Nature, in their solitude, commenced to soften those feelings which had been fortified against receiving any comfort except that of my own administering. The excellence of the venison and of young beavers could not be surpassed. A cake of hard deer's fat, with scraps of suet toasted brown intermixed, was eaten with the meat; soup was the drink. Our hostess, after supper, sang several Indian songs at my request. They were plaintive and sung in a high key. The song of a female, and her contentment in this remote and secluded spot, exhibited the wonderful diversity there is in human nature. My Indian entertained them incessantly until nearly daylight with stories about what he had seen in St. John's. Our toils were for the time forgotten. The mountaineer had occupied his camp for about two weeks; deer being very plentiful all around the lake. His larder, which was a kind of shed erected on the rocky shore for the sake of a free circulation of air, was, in reality, a well-stocked butcher's stall, containing parts of some halfdozen fat deer, also the carcasses of beavers, of otters, of musk-rats, and of martens, all methodically laid out. His property consisted of two guns and ammunition, an axe, some good culinary utensils of iron and tin, blankets, an apartment of dried deer-skins to sleep on, and with which to cover his wigwam, the latter with the hair off; a collection of skins to sell at the sea-coast, consisting of those of beaver, otter, marten, musk-rat and deer-the last dried and the hair off; also a stock of dried venison in bundles. Animal flesh of every kind, in steaks, without salt, smokedried on the fire for forty-eight hours, becomes nearly as light and portable as cork, and will keep sound for years. It thus forms a good substitute for bread, and by being boiled two hours, recovers most of its original qualities. "We left the veteran mountaineer, James John by name, much pleased with our having fallen in with him. He landed us from his canoe on the south shore of the lake, and we took our departure for the west coast along the south side. Truly could this man proclaim: 66 "I'm monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute; I am lord of the fowl and the brute." One more feature of the interior, as described by Cormack, deserves notice. After nearly a month's travel over the savanna country, the traveller reached a hilly ridge to the westward, which he named Jameson's Mountains. This ridge proved to be a serpentine deposit, including a variety of rocks, all lying in nearly vertical strata alternating. "The mineralogical appearances," says Cormack, were altogether so singular that I resolved to stop a day or two to examine them. All the highest parts of the ridge were formed of this metalline rock, and were extremely sterile. The other rocks were noble serpentine, varying in colour from a black-green to a yellow, and from translucent to semi-transparent, in strata nearly a yard wide; steatite, or soap-stone; verde antique; diallage; and various other magnesian rocks. Sterile red earthy patches, entirely destitute of vegetation, were here and there on and adjacent to the ridge; and on these lay heaps of loose fragments of asbestos, rock-wood, rockhorn, and stones, light in the hand, resembling burnt clay, cum multis aliis, the whole having the appearance of heaps of rubbish from a pottery, but evidently detached from adjacent strata and veins. I could not divest myself of the feeling that we were in the vicinity of an extinct volcano." This range is about twelve hundred feet above the level of the sea. The serpentine deposits of which they are formed separate the low slate country, covered with savannas, through which the granitic rocks occasionally peep in the east, from a high granitic country that appears in the west. This spread of serpentine, which Cormack describes, is highly important, because it is in this formation that copper ore is found in this island, and wherever it comes to the surface copper ore may be looked for with a probability of success. This serpentine, therefore, in the centre of the island, which occurs again in Bay of Islands and Bonne Bay, may on examination be found metalliferous; and corroborates the opinion that the serpentine rocks from Notre Dame Bay run across the island, coming to the surface at intervals, the strike being southwesterly. After crossing the granitic country at the west the daring traveller with great difficulty, and amid many perils and hardships, reached St. George's Bay, both he and the Indian being in the last stage of exhaustion. His bold achievement of crossing the island from east to west at its broadest part, with only his gun to depend on, has never been repeated since. To him we are indebted for all we know regarding the central interior. His journey from Trinity Bay to St. George's Bay occupied a little over two months. His success, he says, was in part owing to the smallness of his party. "Many together could not so easily have sustained themselves. The toil and privations were such that hired men or followers of any class would not have endured them." N CHAPTER V. GEOLOGY. Jukes, Logan, and Murray-Eighteen years of surveying-Coal deposits "The Quebec group"-The great ancient rock systems represented in Newfoundland-More than half the island found to be Laurentian, and the highest series of rocks carboniferous -Geological demonstrations of the capacity of the country to sustain a large population. THE late J. B. Jukes, who was for many years at the head of the Irish geological survey, was the first scientist who was employed to examine the geological structure of the island. When a young man he spent the year 1840 in exploring the country, having been engaged by the government for that purpose. In such a short time, and having great disadvantages to contend with, he could accomplish but little. His work, however, was far from being fruitless. He published, in two volumes, an account of his explorations, which is highly interesting in many respects, and though the result of a short and superficial survey, and its information imperfect and frequently erroneous, it can still be read with pleasure and profit. Mr. Jukes's work had the effect of drawing attention to the island, and proved to be the preliminary step to a thorough geological survey at a later date. In the year 1864 the government of Newfoundland |