Climate of Labrador.

LABRADOR is a triangular peninsula, bounded on the east by Davis' Strait, on the south by Canada East and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on the west by Hudson Bay; but it is as excessively cold and barren as the countries to the west of the bay, and is, besides, almost constantly enveloped in fogs. The climate is very rigorous, and the winter lasts nine months of the year. It is too severe to ripen any of the cereals; but potatoes and several species of culinary vegetables are said to thrive and come to maturity. The climate, however, of the interior is somewhat milder than that of the coasts. The surface is mostly a mass of rocks and mountains, interspersed with innumerable lakes and rivers, which abound in fish. It swarms with beavers and other fur-bearing animals; reindeer, foxes, and bears also abound. The eider-duck and other birds in countless swarms frequent the eastern coast; also seals of different species. The northern and northeastern portions are inhabited by Esquimaux, among whom the Moravian brethren have established four settlements—at Nain, at Okak, Hoffenthal or Hopedale, and Hebron ; and besides preaching the gospel, have taught the natives many of the useful arts of life.

The mean temperature of Okak, situated in north latitude 57° 30', being about the same as Sitka, N. A., is as follows:Spring, 25°; Summer, 50°; Autumn, 33°; Winter, 4°: Yearly mean, 28° Fahr.

Perhaps there is no region on this continent of which the general idea is more cloudy and indistinct than that of Labrador. American fishermen now more frequently extend their piscatorial visits to its coasts than formerly, and, so far as we understand, with good average success. Some interesting facts going to shed a little light on the general darkness, with respect to the natural history and meteorology of Labrador, are presented in the following extract from a letter written by one of a party engaged in cod fishing along the shore of that bleak and chilling land. He says:

"From a thermometrical register kept at Rigolette, we find the lowest temperature of last winter to be but -37°, which is no colder weather than is found in New England; but that season was unusually warm. The average summer day temperature

according to our own observations, is about 54° Fahr. In one instance the thermometer indicated as high as 80° in the shade, and in another 74°. The lowest winter day temperature was -33°, and the mercury several times sank to 40°. It is not intensity of cold, but the raw chilly atmosphere, impregnated with fogs and the moisture of melting snow, that renders necessary much thicker clothing than we wear at home in mid-winter. Although the climate is considered very healthy by the settlers, yet I could hardly recommend it to invalids. To those afflicted with weak or diseased lungs it is extremely injurious. Of this we had abundant evidence in three cases among our passengers, all of which have been aggravated by the exposure. The winters here are very long, and may be said to extend from the middle of September to the 1st of June. The cold is quite uniform, and the snow lies about four feet deep on a level. All that portion of the ocean embayed by the chain of islands that extends along the coast is frozen solid until May, and the icefield sometimes extends beyond several miles to seaward. This is then the resort of the Arctic foxes and the white or polar bear. The water bear,' he is called here. They are often found upon the islands after the breaking up of the ice, where they have been left unexpectedly. They are quite numerous. Of foxes, large numbers are caught in traps. These live altogether upon the coast, and do not fraternize with the other species of fox in the interior. Snow may be said to disappear by the end of May, but it is found in gulleys and hollows all through the summer.

"Labrador water we cannot recommend. It is but the draining of melting snow and frozen earth, which, percolating through the moss, becomes a rank decoction, filled with vegetable matter, and of the color of whiskey. Natural springs are rare, but we have frequently found ponds and lakes upon the summits of rocky knolls, which appear to be fathomless, and whose water was pure and deliciously cold. As I have remarked, there are no roads in this country, and the only thoroughfares of travel in summer are the water courses which flow from the interior. I have referred at length to the Nor'west River and its immense outlet. The St. Francis or Alexis River is the only one of considerable size between that and the Straits of Belle Isle. It is a noble stream, but neither that nor the other is indicated on any maps yet made.

Labrador furnishes little sport to the angler. taken in immense quantities in nets, but will not the hook; neither will sea trout nor salmon trout. afford the only sport. The winter hunting is good. deer found here is the caribou and reindeer.

Salmon are meddle with Brook trout The only These are by

some considered as one and the same, but the settlers make them quite distinct. The one is mottled with reddish spots; the other is of a mouse color in summer, and nearly white in winter. From all I can learn, the two animals are identical, and the difference in appearance is occasioned by the change of coat. The reindeer is not domesticated here, nor made to draw sledges, as in Lapland. Their time of fawning is two months later than in the States, and they are in the velvet until near the end of August. Trapping the fur-bearing animals affords a considerable profit, and quite frequently the hunter is rewarded by a black or silver fox, whose market prices are from forty to sixty dollars.

"We cannot but remark how carefully the animals of this icy country are protected by nature from their enemies. When man goes forth upon the snow to hunt, where upon the spotless mantle the smallest dark object would be readily revealed, then they are robed in white. The white partridge flies up from his very feet, where he perceived but lumps of feathery snow. The deer, bear, fox, ermine, all clad in white, pass him with impunity. Did not hunger lead them to the traps, or their deeply embedded tracks 'prate of their whereabout,' seldom would they fall victims to man. In the summer they are slaty and mouse-colored, like the rocks, or wood-colored, like the trees, and in many an imaginary rock, or stick, or stub, there is animal life, which will take to itself legs or wings when opportunity of easy escape offers."

ICEBERGS, which have a great influence on the climate of Labrador, are thus described by Ballantyne, when passing through Hudson Strait: "It is impossible to convey a correct idea of the beauty, the magnificence, of some of the scenes through which we passed. Thousands of the most grotesque, fanciful, and beautiful icebergs and ice-fields, surrounded us on all sides, intersected by numerous serpentine canals, which glittered in the sun like threads of silver, twining round ruined palaces of crystal. The masses assumed every variety of form and size, and many of them bore such a striking resemblance to cathedrals, churches, columns, arches, and spires, that I could almost fancy we had been transported to one of the floating cities of Fairy-land. The weather being pleasant, with a light breeze, not a sound disturbed the stillness of nature, save the gentle rippling of the vessel's bow as she sped on her way, or the occasional puffing of a lazy whale, awakened from a nap by our unceremonious intrusion on his domains."

STRAITS OF BELLE-ISLE.

63

Straits of Belle-Isle.

METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL kept at Belle-Isle Lighthouse, by Capt. D. VAUGHAN, from May, 1859, to the end of April, 1860.

POSITION.-North latitude 51° 30'; West longitude 55° 30',off the coast of Labrador.

Date.

May,

June

July,

August,

September,

October,

November,

1859, 24° 47° May 27-The first steam-ship

པ

39

19

33°

passed inward bound. May 29-120 icebergs were

visible.

65° June 30-22 icebergs still visible. During the month there was constant hazy weather. 39° 68° Some fog almost every day this

37°

31°

25°

64°

61°

month, and several vessels wrecked.

Icebergs in sight, except on eleven days this month.

A few icebergs visible, except nine days this month.

46° This was a very stormy month; on the 7th there was a hurricane.

39° Nov. 1-The last steamer passed out. This was considered a pleasant month.

30° Dec. 5.-The Strait was one sheet of field-ice as far as can be seen.

30° Some icebergs grounded, and remained in sight until spring.

32° There was no thawing weather at Belle-Isle during the winter.

March 22.-The warmest day during the month.

-2°

38°

6°

Coldest day, 20° below zero; hottest, 68° above; variation,

88° Fahrenheit. Mean annual temperature, 35°.

Climate of Newfoundland.

"There is nothing in which the climate of Newfoundland differs more from that of Canada, and the adjacent provinces, than in its extreme vicissitudes. Spring comes more slowly than in Canada, the summer is shorter, the autumn less certain, the winter a series of storms of wind, rain, and snow; the last rarely remains on the ground for any considerable length of time, and the frost is never, or very rarely, so intense as it is in Upper Canada, several degrees more to the south.

"All this may, perhaps, be accounted for by its insularity, and its lying at the embouchure of the great valley of St. Lawrence, whilst the frozen and desolate regions to the northwest of Labrador and Hudson Bay, cause the prevailing winds to sweep over it, loaded with a varying and reduced temperature of the air; and then in the early spring vast masses of ice from Hudson Straits and East Greenland are forced along its Atlantic coast by a southerly current, where they consolidate or grind, until they are eventually forced off by milder air, and by the increasing warmth of the ocean, where they are sunk in the tepid waters of the Gulf Stream.

"If the laws of climate were regulated by the thermal zones which philosophers have drawn round the globe, Newfoundland would be an abode for man, equally free from great heats and from intense cold, as it lies in nearly the same parallels as France; whereas, it has the general temperature of the European countries, situated fifteen or twenty degrees higher than the northern shores of that fertile country.*

"Various attempts have been made to account satisfactorily for this seeming anomaly between the climates of the Old and New World, as is most wonderfully exhibited on this island and on the coast of Labrador. The theory of winds is still, however, in its infancy, but that they are affected in their passage over bleak howling wildernesses, cannot be doubted. In Canada, and everywhere in North America, east of the Rocky Mountains, a wind from the northwest invariably lowers the thermometer, and in winter causes excessive cold. Canada, Labrador, and Newfoundland are the region of lakes; and these, when frozen, of course increase the fury and bitterness of a storm from that quarter; but although Newfoundland is but little removed from Labrador, the coldest country in the world, and from Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, where frost reigns in all its vigor in winter, it is not so cold as other parts of the American Continent lying several degrees further to the south. The ther

* The mean annual temperature of St. John, N. F., 47° north, is the same as St. Petersburg, Russia, 60° North latitude, 39° Fahrenheit.