New BRITAIN, a large country of North America, called also Terra Labrador, has Hudson's bay and strait on the north and west, Canada and the river St Lawrence on the south, and the Atlantic ocean on the east. It is subject to Great Britain, but yields only skins and furs. The following is the best description of this country that hath yet appeared. It was drawn up by the commander of the Otter sloop, and communicated to the Royal Society by the honourable Daines Barrington in 1774.
"There is no part of the British dominions so little known as the immense country of Labrador. So few have visited the northern parts of this vast country, that almost from the straits of Belleisle until you come to the entrance of Hudson's bay, for more than ten degrees of latitude, no chart which can give any tolerable idea of the coast hath been hitherto formed. The barrenness of the country explains why it has been so seldom frequented. Here avarice has but little to feed on.
"Perhaps, without an immoderate share of vanity, I may venture to presume, that, as far as I have been, which is to the latitude of 59. 10. the draught which I have been able to form is by much the best of any that has hitherto been made.
"Others have gone before me blest with abilities superior to mine, and to whom I hope to be thought equal only in assiduity. But I had advantages of which they were destitute: with a small vessel, and having an Indian with me, who knew every rock and shoal upon
the coast, I was enabled to be accurate in my observations; and these are the reasons why I deem my own sketch preferable to all others.
"As this country is one of the most barren in the whole world, so its sea coast is the most remarkable. Bordered by innumerable islands, and many of them being a considerable distance from the main land, a ship of burden would sail a great way along the coast without being able to form any notion of its true situation.
"Hence it is that all the charts of it have been so extremely erroneous; and hence arose those opinions that some of the inlets extended a vast distance into the country, if not quite into the sea of Hudson's bay.
"Davis's inlet, which has been so much talked of, is not 20 leagues from the entrance of it to its extremity.
"The navigation here is extremely hazardous. Towards the land, the sea is covered with large bodies and broken pieces of ice; and the farther you go northward, the greater is the quantity you meet with.
"Some of those masses, which the seamen call islands of ice, are of a prodigious magnitude; and they are generally supposed to swim two-thirds under water. You will frequently see them more than 100 feet above the surface; and to ships in a storm, or in thick weather, nothing can be more terrible.
"Those prodigious pieces of ice come from the north, and are supposed to be formed by the freezing of cataracts upon the lands about East Greenland and the pole. As soon as the severity of the winter begins to abate, their immense weight breaks them from the shore, and they are driven to the southward. To the miserable inhabitants of Labrador, their appearance upon the coast serves as a token of the approach of summer.
"This vast tract of land is extremely barren, and altogether incapable of cultivation. The surface is everywhere uneven and covered with large stones, some of which are of amazing dimensions. There are few springs; yet throughout the country there are prodigious chains of lakes or ponds, which are produced by the rains and the melting of the snow. These ponds abound in trout, but they are very small.
"There is no such thing as level land. It is a country formed of frightful mountains, and unfruitful valleys. The mountains are almost devoid of every sort of herbage. A blighted shrub and little moss is sometimes to be seen upon them, but in general the bare rock is all you behold. The valleys are full of crooked low trees, such as the different pines, spruce, birch, and a species of cedar. Up some of the deep bays, and not far from the water, it is said, however, there are a few sticks of no inconsiderable size. In a word, the whole country is nothing more than a prodigious heap of barren rocks.
"The climate is extremely rigorous. There is but little appearance of summer before the middle of July; and in September the approach of winter is very evident. It has been remarked, that the winters within these few years have been less severe than they have been known heretofore. The cause of such an alteration it would be difficult to discover.
"All along the coast there are many rivers that empty
empty themselves into the sea, yet there are but few of any consideration: and you must not imagine that the largest are any thing like what is generally understood by a river. Custom has taught us to give them this appellation; but the greatest part of them are nothing more than broad brooks or rivulets. As they are only drains from the ponds, in dry weather they are everywhere fordable; for running upon a solid rock, they become broad without having a bed of any depth below the surface of the banks.
"The superficial appearance of this country is extremely unfavourable. What may be hidden in its bowels, we cannot pretend to suggest: probably it may produce some copper; the rocks in many places being impregnated with an ore of that resemblance. Something of a horny substance, which is extremely transparent, and which will scale out into a multitude of small sheets, is often found amidst the stones; there are both black and white of this sort, but the black is the most rare. It has been tried in fire, but seems to be nowise affected by heat.
"The species of wood here are not very various: excepting a few shrubs which have as yet received no name from the Europeans, the principal produce of the country are the different sorts of spruce and pine. Of these, even in the more southern parts, there is not abundance; as you advance northwards they gradually diminish; and by the time you arrive at the 60th degree of latitude, the eye is not delighted with any sort of herbage. Here the wretched residents build their miserable habitations with the bones of whales. If ever they cheer their aching limbs with a fire, they gather a few sticks from the sea-shore, which have probably been washed from Norway or Lapland. Here a vast quantity of snow remains upon the land throughout the year.
"Although the winter here is so excessively rigid, in summer the heat is sometimes disagreeable; and in that season the weather is very moderate, and remarkably serene. It is but seldom foggy, speaking comparatively between this and Newfoundland; nor are you so frequently liable to those destructive gales of wind which visit many other parts of the globe.
"It is in general high land, and sometimes you meet with mountains of an astonishing height; you are also frequently presented with prospects that are really awful, and extremely romantic.
"The inhabitants of New Britain are called Esquimaux." See GREENLAND and Hudson's Bay.