My last one in the series is located in Cross Point Cove, a rugged little cove just north of St. Bride's on the Cape Shore.
What first attracted me to this site that I read about in Howley's field book was how he found out about it. He was in St. Brides (then known as Distress) on July 19, 1868, his first expedition with his boss, Alexander Murray, then Director of the Survey. In his field book he writes: "I went out after dinner with one of Mrs. Conway's sons to Cross Point Cove, north side, to see a vein of rock which from his description I took to be quartz but turned out to be sulphate of barytes". I could picture them all sitting around the table after a big feed of dinner and the boys talking about the unusual rock nearby.
It is quite distinct on that shoreline of red and grey-green shales (the Branch shales as he called them).
I scoped it out on the topo maps and air photos and it was quite easy to get to. I first went there on July 19, 2009. I took many pictures and completed the first painting of the series in 2012. The painting is based on the image above but after doing 8 other pieces, this one didn't fit in, too much distance and not enough geology, so I decided to do another; thus the reason for the revisit!
I set out on Tuesday, September 13 on a very warm, windy day with only the dog for company.
Incidentally Howley enjoyed travelling solo as well. He writes in his "Reminiscence of Forty-two Years of Exploration In and Around Newfoundland" on page 122, that while surveying the Trinity Bay area in 1869 he started off on foot from New Harbour to Come By Chance:
"One might suppose that undertaking this journey through a hitherto unknown region and all alone was a foolhardy action but this did not give me the least concern. I rather rejoiced at the prospect of finding my way unassisted and without anyone to guide me...I continued to jog along, observant of everything around me and communing with nature as it were and quite contented and happy. I did not mind in the least the journey or the loneliness, indeed I rather preferred the latter. It seemed to suit my natural temperament, I was never given much to talking, but could think a lot and here I had ample scope to indulge in the latter propensity"
On my first visit to Cross Point Cove in July the weather was completely different, it was foggy and drizzly, the colours were more subdued. But I discovered it wasn't only the weather that was different: the next image was taken in 2009, the image below that a few days ago.
July 19, 2009
September 13, 2016
Notice the absence of the cave directly adjacent to the vein! My mother and I ate lunch in that cave back in 2009, sometime in the last 7 years it had caved in! There is about 8 feet of rubble covering the vein since the last time I was there. I can imagine the sound that made in the collapse.
Here's another before and after looking east towards the cove.
I've lost more than 1/3 of the vein and now missing some lovely "ladder veins".
2009
2016
Maybe I'll paint the older image from 2009, I love those ladder veins! The collapse however had exposed some lovely formations of the barite on the rocks and I found this very large piece with fresh crystals (if "fresh"is the right term!)
And this pattern of crystals on the face of a huge chunk of rock that must have been part of the collapse.
Apologies for not putting a set of keys or some reference point next to the rock for size...not quite thinking like a geologist yet! Anyway, it was a beautiful, inspiring day on the Cape Shore, now I am set for finishing off this series.
