The sea-side plantain[86] is very frequent on the shore. The French boil its leaves in a broth on their sea-voyages, or eat them as a sallad. It may likewise be pickled like samphire.
The bear-berries[87] grow in great abundance here. The Indians, French, English, and Dutch, in those parts of North-America, which I have seen, call them Sagackhomi, and mix the leaves with tobacco for their use.
Gale, or sweet willow[88], is likewise abundant here. The French call it Laurier, and some Poivrier. They put the leaves into their broth, to give it a pleasant taste.
The sea-rocket[89] is, likewise, not uncommon. [[212]]Its root is pounded, mixed with flour, and eaten here, when there is a scarcity of bread.
The sorb-tree, or mountain-ash, the cranberry-bush, the juniper-tree, the sea-side pease, the Linnæa, and many other Swedish plants, are likewise to be met with here.
We returned to bay St. Paul to-day. A grey seal swam behind the boat for some time, but was not near enough to be shot at.
September the 2d. This morning we went to see the silver or lead veins. They ly a little on the south-side of the mills, belonging to the priests. The mountain in which the veins ly, has the same constituent parts, as the other high grey rocks in this place, viz. a rock-stone composed of a whitish or pale grey lime-stone, a purple or almost garnet-coloured quartz, and a black glimmer. The lime-stone is in greater quantities here than the other parts; and it is so fine as to be hardly visible. It effervesces very strongly with aqua fortis. The purple or garnet-coloured quartz is next in quantity; lies scattered in exceeding small grains, and strikes fire when struck with a steel. The little black particles of glimmer follow next; and last of all, the transparent crystalline speckles of [[213]]quartz. There are some small grains of spar in the lime-stone. All the different kinds of stone are very well mixed together, except that the glimmer now and then forms little veins and lines. The stone is very hard; but when exposed to sun-shine and the open air, it changes so much as to look quite rotten, and becomes friable; and in that case, its constituent particles grow quite undistinguishable. The mountain is quite full of perpendicular clefts, in which the veins of lead-ore run from E. S. E. to W. N. W. It seems the mountain had formerly got cracks here, which were afterwards filled up with a kind of stone, in which the lead-ore was generated. That stone which contains the lead-ore is a soft, white, often semidiaphanous spar, which works very easily. In it there are sometimes stripes of a snowy white lime-stone, and almost always veins of a green kind of stone like quartz. This spar has many cracks, and divides into such pieces as quartz; but is much softer, never strikes fire with steel, does not effervesce with acids, and is not smooth to the touch. It seems to be a species of Mr. Professor Wallerius’s vitrescent spar[90]. [[214]]There are sometimes small pieces of a greyish quartz in this spar, which emit strong sparks of fire, when struck with a steel. In these kinds of stone the lead ore is lodged. It commonly lies in little lumps of the size of peas; but sometimes in specks of an inch square, or bigger. The ore is very clear, and lies in little cubes[91]. It is generally very poor, a few places excepted. The veins of soft spar, and other kinds of stone, are very narrow, and commonly from ten to fifteen inches broad. In a few places they are twenty inches broad; and in one single place twenty-two and a half. The brook which intersects the mountain towards the mills, runs down so deep into the mountain, that the distance from the summit of the hill, to the bottom of the brook, is near twelve yards. Here I examined the veins, and found that they always keep the same breadth, not encreasing near the bottom of the brook; and likewise, that they are no richer below, than at the top. From hence it may be easily concluded, that it is not worth while sinking mines here. Of these veins there are three or four in this neighbourhood, at some distance from each other, [[215]]but all of the same quality. The veins are almost perpendicular, sometimes deviating a little. When pieces of the green stone before mentioned ly in the water, a great deal of the adherent white spar and lime-stone is consumed; but the green stone remains untouched. That part of the veins which is turned towards the air is always very rough, because the sun, air, and rain, have mouldered a great part of the spar and lime-stone; but the green stone has resisted their attacks. They sometimes find deep holes in these veins, filled with mountain crystals. The greatest quantity of lead or silver ore is to be found next to the rock, or even on the sides of the vein. There are now and then little grains of pyrites in the spar, which have a fine gold colour. The green stone when pounded, and put on a red-hot shovel, burns with a blue flame. Some say, they can then observe a sulphureous smell, which I could never perceive, though my sense of smelling is very perfect. When this green stone is grown quite red-hot, it loses its green colour, and acquires a whitish one, but will not effervesce with aqua fortis.
The sulphureous springs (if I may so call them) are at the foot of the mountain, which contains the silver, or lead ore. Several [[216]]springs join here, and form a little brook. The water in those brooks is covered with a white membrane, and leaves a white, mealy matter on the trees, and other bodies in its way; this matter has a strong sulphureous smell. Trees, covered with this mealy matter, when dried and set on fire, burn with a blue flame, and emit a smell of sulphur. The water does not change by being mixed with gall-apples, nor does it change blue paper into a different colour, which is put into it. It makes no good lather with soap. Silver is tarnished, and turns black, if kept in this water for a little while. The blade of a knife was turned quite black, after it had lain about three hours in it. It has a disagreeable smell, which, they say, it spreads still more in rainy weather. A number of grasshoppers were fallen into it at present. The inhabitants used this water, as a remedy against the itch.
In the afternoon we went to see another vein, which had been spoken of as silver ore. It lies about a quarter of a mile to the north-east of bay St. Paul, near a point of land called Cap au Corbeau, close to the shore of the river St. Lawrence. The mountain in which these veins ly, consist of a pale red vitrescent spar, a black glimmer, [[217]]a pale lime-stone, purple or garnet-coloured grains of quartz, and some transparent quartz. Sometimes the reddish vitrescent spar is the most abundant, and lies in long stripes of small hard grains. Sometimes the fine black glimmer abounds more than the remaining constituent parts; and these two last kinds of stone generally run in alternate stripes. The white lime-stone which consists of almost invisible particles, is mixed in among them. The garnet-coloured quartz grains appear here and there, and sometimes form whole stripes. They are as big as pin’s heads, round, shining, and strike fire with steel. All these stones are very hard, and the mountains near the sea, consist entirely of them. They sometimes ly in almost perpendicular strata, of ten or fifteen inches thickness. The strata, however, point with their upper ends to the north-west, and go upwards from the river, as if the water, which is close to the south-east side of the mountains, had forced the strata to lean on that side. These mountains contain very narrow veins of a white, and sometimes of a greenish, fine, semidiaphanous, soft spar, which crumbles easily into grains. In this spar they very frequently find specks, which look like a calamine [[218]]blend[92]. Now and then, and but very seldom, there is a grain of lead-ore. The mountains near the shore consist sometimes of a black fine-grained horn-stone, and a ferruginous lime-stone. The horn-stone in that case is always in three or four times as great a quantity as the lime-stone.
In this neighbourhood there is likewise a sulphureous spring, having exactly the same qualities as that which I have before described. The broad-leaved Reed Mace[93] grows in the very spring, and succeeds extremely well. A mountain-ash stood near it, whose berries were of a pale yellow fading colour, whereas on all other mountain-ashes they have a deep red colour.