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and seal-oil-the annual amount being estimated at fully £600,000 sterling. The climate, like that of North America generally, is subject to great vicissitudes. In summer, the thermometer ranges as high as 85° Fahr. ; in winter, the temperature, and that in nearly the same latitudes as the British Isles, falls 30° below the freezing-point. L. is a dependency of the United Kingdom, but it has never had a separate government of its own, being considered sometimes as an appendage of Canada, and sometimes as an appendage of Newfoundland. It is at present in the latter position.

LA'BRADORITE, or LABRADOR STONE, a

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LABRADO'R (Port. terra labarador, ' cultivable land'), the name given by certain Portuguese discoverers to the continental coast of America near Newfoundland; a name as inappropriate as that of Greenland! The name gradually came to be extended from the Strait of Belleisle to Hudson's Strait, being sometimes carried as far westward as the eastern shores of Hudson's Bay. More properly, however, L. embraces only such portions of that vast peninsula as do not fall within what were formerly the chartered territories of the Hudson's Bay Company (q. v.), by pouring water into Hudson's Strait or Bay. In this sense, the country stretches in N. lat. from about 52° to about 60°, and in variety of Felspar (q.v.), common as a constituent W. long. from about 55° to upwards of 65°; area, of dolerite, greenstone, the gabbro, and hypersthene 70,000 square miles; pop. 5000. Of this extensive rocks. It consists of about 53 per cent. of silica, country the interior is little known; but is under- and 29 alumina, with 12 lime, and a little soda and stood to be mostly an impenetrable wilderness of swamps and forests. The maritime border, how- other articles; taking a fine polish, and often peroxide of iron. ever (although its shores are wild and precipitous, reaching a height of from 400 to 600 feet, and exhibiting rich colours, not unfrequently several on the north from 1000 to 1500 feet), is not in the same piece, when the light falls on it in without its value. The sea is here far less subject particular directions; the general colour being to fogs than it is in the neighbourhood of New-missionaries in the island of St Paul, on the It was first discovered by the Moravian foundland, where the warm waters of the Florida Stream meet the cold currents from the north; and coast of Labrador. It has been found in meteoric as it is constantly supplied from the polar ice, its temperature is remarkably favourable both to the quantity and the quality of its fish. Of the entire population of L., 4000 are Esquimaux, who are settled on the gulfs and creeks of the coast, and who subsist chiefly by fishing. Many European establishments also have sprung up on the coast, some of them, such as the Moravian settlements, blending commercial pursuits with missionary labours. The principal missionary stations are Nain (founded 1771), Okak (1776), Hebron (1830), and Hopenthal (1782). The fisheries employ, in the season, nearly 1000 decked vessels, belonging partly to the British Provinces, principally Newfoundland, and partly to the United States. Besides a few furs and feathers, the exports consist of cod and salmon, with cod-oil 261

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LA'BRIDÆ, a family of osseous fishes, ranked by Cuvier in the order Acanthopterygii (q. v.), by Müller in his new order, Pharyngognathi (q. v.). They are divided by Müller into two families, Cteno-labrida and Cyclo-labrida, the former having ctenoid, the latter, cycloid scales; the former comparatively a small, the latter, a very numerous family. They are generally oval or oblong, and more or less compressed, with a single dorsal fin, spinous in front, and the jaws covered by fleshy lips. Their colours are generally brilliant. They abound chiefly in tropical seas, but twelve or thirteen species are found on the British coasts, none of them large, nor esteemed for food. The most valuable of the family is the Tautog (q. v.) of North

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