Excursions in and about Newfoundland, during the years 1839 and 1840. (General Report of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland, during the years 1839 and 1840.)

Front matter

j EXCURSIONS IN AND ABOUT NEWFOUNDLAND DURING THE YEARS 1839 AND 1840. By J. B. JUKES, M.A., F.G.S., F.C.F.S. of st. john*s college, Cambridge ; LATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEYOR OF NEWFOUNDLAND. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME I. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1842. LONDON: Printed by "William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street. TO CAPTAIN PRESCOTT, R.N., C.B., LATE GOVERNOR OF THE COLONY OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND ITS DEPENDENCIES, &c. &c. Dear Sir, It would be an act of ingratitude on my part were I to publish any work relating to Newfound land, and omit in some way to acknowledge the con stant public support and the kind private hospitality with which you were so good as to honour me during my stay in that country. Allow me, then, to dedicate this little book to you, as a slight mark of my respect and attachment ; and in so doing to assure you that your kindness is grate fully remembered by, Dear Sir, Your very obliged and obedient friend and servant, J. B. JUKES.

Preface

I feel that the publication ofa book made up of such slight materials as the following notes demands some apology. My reason, then, for sweeping out my note-books and laying their contents before the public is, the utter ignorance which prevails in England with regard to Newfoundland. Of this ignorance I must plead guilty to the possession of a full share before my visit to that country. Before I looked into books to learn something of the place I was going to, I did not know the name of the capital, or whether the island had any towns or permanent inhabitants or not. Since my return from the country I have found many persons — I may say, indeed, almost every one — in the same state of entire darkness on

PREFACE.

. VI the subject. Very great ignorance of the condition and extent of our Colonial possessions, generally, prevails indeed among all ranks of society, except in those classes con nected with them by trade ; but Newfoundland, the oldest of all our Colonies, seems to have become utterly blotted out of our recollection, or is known only by its dogs. I thought, there fore, there might be a sufficient number of people willing to know something about it, and who would allow me to take them by the ear while I told them what I had seen of it. Scarcely had I begun, however, to enter on this task, when I was called to commence preparations for an excursion of some years, to another quarter of the globe. The marks of extreme haste, and many slips of the pen, will, no doubt, be abundantly evident to the reader, but let me assure him that such haste was the result of uncontrollable circumstances, and not a mark of disrespect towards him.

PREFACE.

. VII Should he desire to be more thoroughly and better informed on many points with respect to Newfoundland, I beg to refer him to a work shortly to be published by my friend Dr. Stabb of St. John's, which will, I believe, contain a full historical and statistical account of the island. It now only remains for me to state that the Legislature of Newfoundland voted in their last session the sum of 100/. to defray the ex pense of printing my Report on the Physical Geography and Geology of the island, and lithographing and colouring its accompanying maps and sections. That vote, with the rest of the money bill, was subsecpiently lost in the Council. At my request, however, His Excel lency the Governor, Sir John Harvey, has taken upon himself to pay this grant, and to him my acknowledgments are accordingly due, as enabling me to put everything in train be fore I leave England. I must here also pub-

PREFACE.

. licly offer my thanks to the Honourable J. Crowdy, the Colonial Secretary, for the uni form courtesy and kindness I have received from him in this and other matters. Wolverhampton, February 8th, 1842. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

Chapter I

Departure from Liverpool — Falling in with Ice — Landing at St. John's — Visit to Portugal Cove, Cape St. Francis, Shoal Bay, Bell Isle, and Harbour Grace . Page 1

Chapter II

Engage the Beaufort — Visit to Harbour Grace, Cupid's Cove, Brigus, the Cat's Cove Hills, Holyrood Butterpots, and Kelly's Island — Visit to Carbonear, Bacalao Island — Ice Islands off Trinity Harbour — Visit to Trinity, Random Sound, Come-by-Chance, Chapel Arm, New Harbour, Heart's Content — Return to St. John's . 37

Chapter III

Leave St. John's for the Westward — Lamelin — St. Pierre — Langley — Bay of Islands — Excursion up the Humber River, — Calm in the Gulf of St. Lawrence — Catch of Cod-fish ..... 85

Chapter IV

Cape St. George — St. George's Bay — Sulleon, an Indian, engaged as a guide — St. George's Inlet — Exploring Party to the Grand Pond or Lake — A Gale thereon — Beautiful Exhibition of Aurora Borealis — Coalbrook — Signs of a Coal-country — Discovery of Coal — Return of Party — Hardships undergone — Hare Hill — Ories Hill — Eligible Sites for new Settlements . . X CONTENTS.

Chapter V

Raised Beach— Crab's River — A bed of Coal— South side of St. George's Bay — A Storm — Gypsum beds — The Red Indians— Their Superstitions — Coal — Wreck of the Onondago — Narrow Channel . . . Page 156

Chapter VI

The Dead Islands — George Harvey — Want of Lighthouses —A Ball— La Poile Bay —Arrival at SfPeter's— The Cod Fishery — St. Lawrence — Reach Placentia — Visit Trepassee and Ferryland, and return to St. John's. 182

Chapter VII

Arrival at St. John's and meeting with Dr. Stuwitz — Christmas Amusements — Description of a Newfoundland Settlement — The Fishery — Habits ofthe Planters — Character ofthe Natives — Politics — Fogs of Newfoundland. 219

Chapter VIII

Return of Dr. Stuwitz, and departure with him to the Ice — Appearance of the Ice and difficulty of getting through it — Capture of the first Seal — Grand slaughter amongst the Seals — Icebergs — Aurora Borealis— Capture of a Shark — Description of the different species of Seal found near Newfoundland — Effects of a Swell upon the Ice — Return and arrival at St. John's. . EXCURSIONS IN AND ABOUT NEWFOUNDLAND.

Chapter I

Departure from Liverpool — Falling in with Ice — Land in St. John's — Visit to Portugal Cove, Cape St. Francis, Shoal Bay, Bell Isle, and Harbour Grace. April 11th, 1839. — Sailed from Liverpool in the merchant brig " Diana," bound for St. John's, Newfoundland. May 4th. — The temperature of the air on the open sea had been mild and pleasant, the thermometer frequently rising to 60° in the middle of the day ; for the last day or two, however, it had been gradually falling. To day, being in long. 48° W., lat. 47° N., there was a thick fog, occasionally lifting and clear ing off in open drifts in various directions, and suddenly closing in again. The temperature vol. i. b [Chap. I. 2 EXCURSIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. of the water fell rapidly as we proceeded on our course, and about two o'clock it was only 35°.

The air, which at ten a.m. was 54, had likewise sunk to 38°. The swell of the sea gradually subsided, and the vessel was steadier than it had been since we sailed. A sharp look-out was accordingly kept, and as we were sitting after dinner in the cabin, about four p.m., the cry of "Ice a-head" brought us all on deck, and the vessel was put about immediately. I peered over the side into the driving fog, but could see nothing but small jagged pieces of white ice, hardly to be dis tinguished from the foam on the crest of a wave, whirling about in the eddy of the vessel. Beyond them was a kind of white obscure, that might probably be the sheen of the ice through the fog. Practised eyes, I suppose, saw more, and it was said to be the edge of a large field of ice, or rather to be the edge of " the ice," which was apparently understood to extend to the north for an indefinite distance.

We soon left it far behind, and drove off to the south ward. On returning to the cabin, the captain was congratulated on having made a good " ice-fall," and hopes expressed of as good a CiiAr. I.] 3 A GOOD ICE-FALL. land-fall. Had we struck the ice in the night, we should probably have got entangled among it, and been greatly hindered and delayed on our voyage. During the two or three following days, large pieces of ice and small icebergs were frequently seen. Fogs also were frequent, occasionally clearing off entirely, and then re curring in a most singular manner. There seemed to me to be large well-defined banks of fog resting on the sea in various places, or moving slowly about, into and out of which we passed almost instantaneously, ancl which were not very easily observed by a person a little distance outside of them, with a bright sun overhead.

May 8th. — At sunset last night we saw the high land about Cape St. Francis, clearly defined on the horizon. At the sight of it, I seemed to myself, for the first time, really to have left the English shores. The vessel had unconsciously been associated in the mind with England, and appeared as it were a part of it : now, however, we looked on a distant land, and were really about to enter on a strange scene. On coming on deck this morning we were b2 EXCURSIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. [Chap. I close in-shore, standing backwards and for wards across the mouth of the harbour, with a light, but bitterly cold breeze blowing off the land. The cold wind blowing over the ice the other day was not to be compared to the biting keenness of this, although the thermometer was a degree or two higher, being about 41°.

We were compelled, for the first time since leaving Liverpool, to light a fire in the cabin-stove, in order to breakfast in comfort. The first view of the harbour of St. John's is very striking. Lofty precipitous cliffs, of hard dark red sandstone and conglomerate, range alongthe coast, with deep water close at their feet. Their beds plunge from a height of from 400 to 700 feet, at an angle of 70°, right into the sea, where they 'are ceaselessly dashed against by the unbroken swell of the Atlantic waves. This immense sea-wall is the side of a narrow ridge of hills which strike along the coast here, and through which there are occa sional narrow vallies or ravines. These trans verse valleys cut down through the range to various depths, and the bottom of one being about fifty or sixty feet below the level of the sea forms the entrance to the harbour Chap. I.] ST. JOHNS HARBOUR. 5 of St. John's, and is appropriately termed the Narrows.

Inside, the harbour expands and trends towards the S.W., and the land on the other side of it has a much more gentle slope, and a much less height than that imme diately on the coast. It is also of a better quality, and more fertile. The dark naked rocks that frown along the coast near St. John's, their stern outlines unbroken by any other vegetation than a few stunted firs that seem huddled together in the more sheltered nooks and hollows, give a stranger but an unfavourable idea of the country he has come to visit, and seem to realize all the accounts he may have heard or read of the coldness and barrenness of the land. As we sailed back wards and forwards across the mouth of the Narrows, which in one place is only 220 yards across, with rocky precipitous heights of 500 feet on each side, we caught a view of the town, which, from its being built for the most part of unpainted wood, had a sufficiently sombre and dismal appearance.

The harbour, however, was full of vessels, and on landing there seemed to be much bustle and business going on. The melting of the previous [Chap. I. 6 EXCURSIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. winter's snow had, however, furrowed the streets in various places with gutters running across them, while from their ill-kept state, from their long, straggling, and irregular appearance, the narrow dirty alleys and lanes leading out of them, the dingy aspect of the unpainted houses, and the groups of idle and half-drunken sailors and fishermen, the absence of street lamps and drains, the entire want of all police, and the air of dis order and confusion which reigned through out, it was evident that the scene was a foreign one. I found afterwards that it was just the season when a number of vessels, having shortly returned from the sealing ex pedition, their crews were all loitering about with money in their pockets, and the merchants' wharfs and premises wrere crowded with their men unloading the vessels, and preparing the seals for the oil-vats.

My first impulse on landing was to ascend the ridge on the south-east side of the harbour, which, from the people all using compass bearings instead of the true, is called the south side, and the ridge the south side hill. From its top, which is about 750 feet above the sea, there CHAr. I.] A FIRE IN ST. JOHN'S. 7 was an extensive prospect over sea and land. On returning to the town, myself and a fellow voyager found it quite destitute of inns and hotels, but were lucky enough to engage very comfortable rooms in a private lodging-house. May 9th to 20th.— Having called on the governor and delivered my credentials, I found myself most kindly and hospitably received, not only by himself and family and the authorities generally, but by a number of private persons and families, to whom I was gradually introduced.

And here, once for all, let me record my thanks to the many kind friends I had the pleasure of making, for their abundant hospitality, and assure them, at the same time, that I shall studiously avoid the ill-judged ostentation of gratitude, of dragging their names before the public. On the evening of May 12th, we were alarmed by the cry of fire, and in a few hours a block of houses in the principal street, in the centre of the town, was burnt to the ground. The behaviour of the military and the fire companies was very good, and to their exer tions and those of the more respectable in habitants was owing the preservation of the [Chap. I. 8 EXCURSIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. town. I was, however, much struck with the stupid indifference of a large part of the lower class of the population, as compared with the great, and sometimes self-baffling readiness and eagerness of the population of any large town in England, in similar circumstances.

No inducement or excitement beyond that of present pay and reward seemed sufficient to rouse one of the hundreds of great idle fellows that stood around to stir hand or foot for the preservation of the houses and property about. I was afterwards told, indeed, that by far too many of the population looked upon a fire as a godsend, more especially if it reached or threatened a merchant's store, when a regular system of plunder was carried out unblush ingly, and, as it were, by prescriptive right. I think I afterwards perceived the causes of the low state of moral feeling* exhibited on this and one or two similar points, by people that in other respects had many excellent qualities. * The former state of vassalage in which they were held by the merchants, — the adventurous nature of their pursuits leading them to look on danger or misfortune as necessary and inevitable, — as also the want of education, and commu nity of feeling, and of a popular opinion, are among the causes alluded to.

Chap. I.] THE NEW ROADS. 9 During these first ten days I rode out several times with the governor and the surveyor-general, visiting Portugal Cove, Logie Bay, and some other parts of the neighbourhood. Several roads out of St. John's have been recently constructed, and are, for about five miles, sufficiently good to ride or drive on. The road to Portugal Cove is finished from end to end, being about nine miles and a half. The other roads beyond the first five or six miles are either bare rugged rock, wet moss and morass, or a bed of boulders, like the bed of a torrent. Sometimes a combination of all three within the space of twenty yards offers a choice of evils. Except on a regularly constructed road, or over a cleared and cultivated field, it would be quite impracticable to take either horse, mule, or ass a single yard.

The country in the in terior rises into many flat-topped or rounded ridges, having an average height of 500 or 600 feet above the sea. One rounded hill, five miles south-west of St. John's, called Branscombe Hill, is nearly 900 feet high, and from its summit there is an extensive pano ramic view of the land between the east coast b3 [Chap. I. 10 EXCURSIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. and Conception Bay. The land hereabouts was formerly nearly all covered with wood, consisting principally of various species of fir, spruce, and larch, with some birch. The wood is of a stunted growth, small pole-like trunks growing close together, with branches and twigs thickly interlacing from top to bottom : these, with the old trees falling across each other in all directions, form a matted thicket which is nearly impenetrable.

In the immediate neighbourhood of St. John's, and occasionally along the line of the roads leading from it, these woods have been par tially cleared, and those spots in which vege table mould either was found, or could be formed, are turned into fields and gardens. The tops of the hills and ridges, more espe cially of the South Side Hill, are quite in capable of cultivation, being covered merely with dwarf berry-bearing bushes. Such spots are called " barrens." The hollows and slopes of the hills, and the bottoms of the valleys, contain generally either a pond or a marsh. A marsh is a tract of moss, which is sometimes several feet in depth, like a great sponge, and, of course, Chap. I.] QUIDDY VIDDY POND. 11 always wet. The term pond is applied indiscriminately to all pieces of freshwater, what ever may be their size ; the grand pond on the western side of the island being fifty miles long.

These ponds or lakes are inconceivably numerous, the whole country being dotted over with them. Hundreds of lakes, two or three miles long and upwards might be found, while those of a smaller size are incalculable. Imme diately north of St. John's, and close to the town, which is built on the low ridge that sepa rates the harbour from it, is a pretty little lake about a mile long, called Quiddy Viddy Pond. About half way to Portugal Cove the road winds for two miles along the banks of another, called Twenty-mile Pond or Windsor Lake, which with its surrounding woods is a characteristic and striking scene. On approaching Portugal Cove the eye is struck by the serrated and picturesque outline of the hills which run along the coast from it towards Cape St. Fran cis, and presently delighted with the wild beauty of the little valley or glen at the mouth of which the cove is situated.

The road winds with several turns down the side of the valley, into which some small brooks hurry their waters, flashing in the sunshine as they leap over the rocks and down the ledges, through the dark green of the woods. On turning the shoulder of one of the hill-side slopes, the view opens on Conception Bay, with the rocky points of the cove immediately below, and the smooth and fertile-looking Bell Isle in front at about three miles distance, beyond which the high lauds of the other side of the bay were seen still streaked and patched on their summits and sides with snow. On returning this day (May 13th) from Portugal Cove, we were overtaken by two or three smart snow-storms. Logie Bay is a small indentation of the coast, about four miles north of St. John's, and is remarkable for the wildness of its rock and cliff scenery : nothing like a beach is to be found anywhere on this coast, the descent to the sea being always difficult and generally impracticable.

In Logie Bay, the thick-bedded dark sandstones and conglomerates stand bold and bare in round-topped hills and precipices, 300 or 400 feet in height, with occasional fissures traversingtheir jagged cliffs, and the boiling waves of the Atlantic curlinoround their feet in white eddies, or leaping against Chap/ I.] SHIPPING A SERVANT. their sides with huge spouts of foam and spray. Just by Logie Bay is a mineral spring, con taining among other things a large proportion of iron in solution. At the period of our visit to this place, the scattered wooden huts were empty and deserted, and the fish flakes and stages out of repair, as the people only reside during the summer season. I had now been regularly installed as Geological Surveyor, and instructed to ex amine into the structure of the country, directing my attention in the first instance to the neighbourhood of the principal towns and inhabited places.

A strong prejudice existed that coal was to be found near St. John's. It behoved me, therefore, to find out in what direction it could possibly lie. I shall not enter, however, on geological matters in these notes, but refer the reader interested in them to the Report in the Appendix. My first care was to engage a man who was ac quainted with the country, as a guide and servant. Accordingly a rough-looking sub ject named Kelly, with a strong brogue, presented himself, whom, after some hesitation, I engaged, or in his own language " shipped." All domestic servants come to be " shipped." Families are applied to to know whether they want to " ship" a housemaid or a cook. Some idea of the rate of wages may be formed by the fact of my having to pay this fellow, a common fisherman, 28/. * currency, and his board for the summer, that is, from the 1st of May to the 31st of October.

I found after wards I paid him 6/. too much, but in strange places one must always submit to a little im position by wray of paying one's admission fees. It will perhaps be the best way to afford the reader some idea of the country, and of the customs of the people, to give at some detail a notice of the first two excursions I made from St. John's, the one north to Cape St. Francis, the other south to Petty Harbour and Shoal Bay. May 20th.— Dr. Stabb of St. John's having agreed to accompany me to Pouche Cove, where he had to visit a patient, we set off after a good breakfast, at seven o'clock. Kelly car- • 1 1, sterling is equal to 1/. 3s. Ad. currency, the English shilling passing for fourteen pence. The rule is, to turn sterling into currency add a sixth ; to turn currency into sterling subtract a seventh.

Chap. I.] 15 TORBAY. ried a knapsack and hammer-bag, while I was encumbered with a prismatic compass, box sextant, mountain barometer and thermome ter, gun and shot-belt. There was a road as far as Torbay, where I had been previously on horseback : the last three miles of this road, however, was merely a track over bare rock, Avith all its original hollows and ruggedness. On entering Torbay, we passed a small Ro man Catholic chapel, which Kelly immediately entered, and where he remained three or four minutes. Torbay is a bold indentation of the coast, offering little or no shelter except in the coves at its head, and none there against an easterly wind. The houses, as is always the case in the small places, are scattered irregularly round the cove, with a straggling path from one to the other.

They are built of wood, each by its own inhabitants, rarely painted, and with small windows and doors, the chimney and hearth being of brick. One or two have two stories, and a second room or parlour. As a shore frontage is of the first importance to their fishing operations, every advantage is taken to extend it. Zigzag stairs, supported by short poles resting on points of rock and 1. wooden props, lead in some places down the face of the black slate cliffs, to a wild little landing-place on some sharp jagged ledges; while stages are often carried out on the rocks, affording places on which to spread the fish to dry. The greater part of the road we had come was bordered with thick scrubby wood : in one place, however, this had been burnt some years ago, and the white dry sticks and stakes still remained bare and brittle, crossing each other at all angles and positions, and as bad or worse to penetrate than the o-rowing woods.

As it was useless and almost impossible to work traverses or to find sections in such a country, I was driven to the sea-cliff. This, however, was inaccessible, except by a boat. I accordingly wished to engage a boat to take us to Pouche Cove, a distance of six or eight miles. I could not get one with fewer than four hands, and at the rate of 10s. a man, which, thinking extravagant, I refused. We then walked to Middle Cove, another part of the same bay, and there with some difficulty induced two men to pull us alongshore for an hour and back again in an old ricketv leaky punt for a dollar and a half, or about. 6s. and Chap. I.] BURNT WOOD AT FLAT ROCK. 17 3d. sterling. Returning to Torbay we got a dinner of tea, eggs, and bread and butter, the latter being common ship's biscuit and salt butter, for which we paid As. sterling.

We then proceeded along the north shore of the bay by a little footpath on the edge of the cliff, and crossing over some high land came down on a small place called Flat Rock. Along the south side of this little cove, the thick red sandstone dips at a slight angle towards the sea, forminga long, smooth, sloping pavement, whence the name of the place. At this point we left the shore, and followinga narrow path into the woods, came to a brook crossed by a wooden bridge. This bridge consisted of two or three beams laid across the stream, with a number of poles nailed down across them side by side. Just beyond this, a part of the woods had been recently burnt : the black charred trunks and branches of the trees still standing among the heaps of ashes and charcoal had a striking and singular appearance when viewed for the first time.

A path several feet wide had been cut through the woods for three or four miles beyond this, but no other pains had been taken with the road than in a few of tlie more boggy places to lay down some sticks and branches of trees, by means of which a dexterous jumper leaping from one to the other might avoid sinking much more than ankle deep. The slippery sticks, however, made a fall so often inevitable, that, to avoid risk to the barometer, I was content to wade how I best could. We passed one or two little ponds of a few hundred yards in diameter, embosomed in wood. At the last of these the scenery was very characteristic ofa wild country. The tranquil pond seen at a little distance through the trees, with the thick rank forest circling it on every side so as to exclude every breath of air, old trees covered with tangled bunches of moss and white lichens, fallen through sheer decay and leaning against their neighbours in all positions over the water of the pond, presented a scene which had evidently been un altered for centuries, and which no act or care of man had ever modified in the least ; while from the full margin of the pond a small brook, some five yards wide, leaped with sudden im petuosity, and foaming over a rocky bed at our feet, hurried into the woods, frequently con cealed by masses of fallen timber from bank to Chap. I.] POUCHE COVE. bank, utterly lost to sight in about thirty or forty yards, and only to be seen again when, in sailing alongshore, it was found to fling its waters over the broken crags into the sea.

At this point the broad path ended, and a little narrow winding crevice, as it were, cut through the woods, barely sufficient in some places to allow a broad-shouldered man to squeeze between the crowded stems of the pole like trees conducted us to Pouche Cove. It was just dusk when we arrived, and we put up at the first house or cabin we came to. The people received us most hospitably, and gave us tea and bread and butter, but, owing to the recent death of a daughter, could not accommodate us for the night. We then were taken to the house of the schoolmaster, where we were kindly received ; but his house being equally unfurnished with room for more than his own family, he took us to a Mrs. Sullivan's, where, it appeared, strangers usually put up. We found here several people assembled round the wood-fire, and shortly joined the circle.