They make great quantities of tar at bay St. Paul. We now passed near a place in which they burn tar, during summer. It is exactly the same with ours in East-Bothnia, only somewhat less; though I have been told, that there are sometimes very great manufactures of it here. The tar is made solely of the Pin rouge[94], or red Pine. All other firs, of which here are several kinds, are not fit for this purpose, [[219]]because they do not give tar enough to repay the trouble the people are at. They make use of the roots alone, which are quite full of resin, and which they dig out of the ground; and of about two yards of the stem, just above the root, laying aside all the rest. They have not yet learnt the art of drawing the resin to one side of the tree, by peeling off the bark; at least they never take this method. The tar-barrels are but about half the size of ours. A ton holds forty-six pots, and sells at present for twenty-five francs at Quebec. The tar is reckoned pretty good.
The sand on the shore of the river St. Lawrence, consists in some places of a kind of pearl-sand. The grains are of quartz, small and semidiaphanous. In some places it consists of little particles of glimmer; and there are likewise spots, covered with the garnet-coloured sand, which I have before described, and which abounds in Canada.
September the 4th. The mountains hereabouts were covered with a very thick fog to-day, resembling the smoak of a charcoal kiln. Many of these mountains are very high. During my stay in Canada, I asked many people, who have travelled much in North-America, whether they ever met with mountains so high, that the snow never melts on them in winter; to which [[220]]they always answered in the negative. They say that the show sometimes stays on the highest, viz. on some of those between Canada and the English colonies, during a great part of the summer; but that it melts as soon as the great heat begins.
Every countryman sows as much flax as he wants for his own use. They had already taken it up some time ago, and spread it on the fields, meadows, and pastures, in order to bleach it. It was very short this year in Canada.
They find iron-ore in several places hereabouts. Almost a Swedish mile from bay St. Paul, up in the country, there is a whole mountain full of iron ore. The country round it is covered with a thick forest, and has many rivulets of different sizes, which seem to make the erection of iron-works very easy here. But the government having as yet suffered very much by the iron-works at Trois Rivieres, nobody ventures to propose any thing further in that way.
September the 5th. Early this morning we set out on our return to Quebec. We continued our journey at noon, notwithstanding the heavy rain and thunder we got afterwards. At that time we were [[221]]just at Petite Riviere, and the tide beginning to ebb, it was impossible for us to come up against it; therefore we lay by here, and went on shore.
Petite Riviere is a little village, on the western side of the river St. Lawrence, and lies on a little rivulet, from whence it takes its name. The houses are built of stone, and are dispersed over the country. Here is likewise a fine little church of stone. To the west of the village are some very high mountains, which cause the sun to set three or four hours sooner here, than ordinary. The river St. Lawrence annually cuts off a piece of land, on the east side of the village, so that the inhabitants fear they will in a short time lose all the land they possess here, which at most is but a musket shot broad. All the houses here are very full of children.
The lime-slates on the hills are of two kinds. One is a black one, which I have often mentioned, and on which the town of Quebec is built. The other is generally black, and sometimes dark grey, and seems to be a species of the former. It is called Pierre à chaux here. It is chiefly distinguished from the former, by being cut very easily, giving a very white lime, when burnt, and not easily mouldering into shivers [[222]]in the air. The walls of the houses here are entirely made of this slate; and likewise the chimnies, those places excepted, which are exposed to the greatest fire, where they place pieces of grey rock-stone, mixed with a deal of glimmer. The mountains near Petite Riviere consist merely of a grey rock-stone, which is entirely the same with that which I described near the lead-mines of bay St. Paul. The foot of these mountains consists of one of the lime-slate kinds. A great part of the Canada mountains of grey rock-stone stand on a kind of slate, in the same manner as the grey rocks of West-Gothland in Sweden.
September the 6th. They catch eels and porpesses here, at a certain season of the year, viz. at the end of September, and during the whole month of October. The eels come up the river at that time, and are caught in the manner I have before described. They are followed by the porpesses, which feed upon them. The greater the quantity of eels is, the greater is likewise the number of porpesses, which are caught in the following manner. When the tide ebbs in the river, the porpesses commonly go down along the sides of the river, catching the eels which they find [[223]]there. The inhabitants of this place therefore stick little twigs, or branches with leaves, into the river, in a curve line or arch, the ends of which look towards the shore, but stand at some distance from it, leaving a passage there. The branches stand about two feet distant from each other. When the porpesses come amongst them, and perceive the rustling the water makes with the leaves, they dare not venture to proceed, fearing lest there should be a snare, or trap, and endeavour to go back. Mean while the water has receded so much, that in going back they light upon one of the ends of the arch, whose moving leaves frighten them again. In this confusion they swim backwards and forwards, till the water is entirely ebbed off, and they ly on the bottom, where the inhabitants kill them. They give a great quantity of train-oil.
Near the shore, is a grey clay, full of ferruginous cracks, and pierced by worms. The holes are small, perpendicular, and big enough to admit a middling pin. Their sides are likewise ferruginous, and half-petrified; and where the clay has been washed away by the water, the rest looks like ocker-coloured stumps of tobacco-pipe tubes. [[224]]