It might be expected that there should be a decrease in the Greenland seal fisheries, caused by the European and American sealers catching larger quantities every year, especially along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, and so actually diminishing the number of the animals in the Greenland seas.
The great auk, once common on the British coasts, those of Denmark, the east coast of North America, then restricted to those of Newfoundland, Greenland and Iceland, has been killed by man, and the same fate has overtaken the Labrador duck, the Phillip Island parrot, Nestor productus, and the large cormorant of FIG.
One of the indirect methods of investigating currents is by taking account of the initial temperature of the current and following it by the thermometer throughout its course; hence the familiar contrast between warm and cold currents, of which the Gulf Stream and the Labrador current are types.
A somewhat similar relationship cuts off Canada from the Atlantic on the east, the north-eastern coast of Labrador belonging to Newfoundland.
Three vessels took part in the venture, with 160 men and some women, including Gudrid, and Freydis, a natural daughter of Red Eric. They first sailed north-west to the Vesterbygd or "Western Settlement" of Greenland, thence to Bear Island, and thence away to the south till they reached a country they named Helluland (some part of Labrador?) from its great flat slabs of stone (hellur).