176 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



the prophecy of Sir Stephen Hill, 1 who said that this district 



could and would before long maintain 350,000 people (1873); 



but its present population is under 10,000, most of whom are 



busily engaged on pursuits very different from agriculture. 



and in the The other fertile belts are still in the hands of lumbermen, 



fnd'otfar wll are the natural pioneers of the agriculturists. Lumber- 



valleys ing has passed through three or four stages. Lumbering was 



"lumberers first P ractise d in tne immediate neighbourhood of the coast 



(1) worked and for purposes of boat-building and more recently of ship- 

 'andlwi/t" buildin g- In l8 4, 3 ships, averaging 73 tons, were built 

 ships; in Newfoundland. Between 1826 and 1839 the ships 



averaged 26 per annum, and the tonnage 62 tons; and in 

 1846 the ships were 31 and the tonnage 55 tons. It will be 

 remembered that the average tonnage of the west-country 

 sailing ship was 57 tons and 74 tons in the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries respectively, 2 and it might be thought 

 that Newfoundland was going backward from the seventeenth 

 to the sixteenth century standard. The explanation of this 

 anomaly is that the ships were put to different uses in 1 804 

 and i846; 3 and that in 1846 builders practised self-help to 

 an extent hitherto unknown, instances being known of grow- 

 ing trees being converted into ships of over 50 tons by the 

 unaided efforts of one man and his young boys. 4 



(2) did the In the Seventies a new demand for ships of which more 

 same on a ... . , .. . 



larger -scale anon arose ; steam-mills, timber licences for one year of six 



as capita- square miles, 5 and bounties on certain local ships, 8 were 



began to %o introduced ; and one steam-mill at the mouth of the Exploits 



inland; j n Notre Dame Bay (1871), a second on the Gambo (or 



Triton) in Bonavista Bay (1876) the latter being in charge 



of a lumberman from New Brunswick and a third, on an 



1 Report, 1873, p. 134. 



- Ante, p. 41, 84, 105. 3 Post, p. 199 et seq. 



4 Sir j. H. Glover, Accounts and Paper*, 1878-9, vol. 1, p. n 

 (c. 2273). 



'- Statutes of Newfoundland, 38 Viet., c. 3. 

 15 $ 6 per ton, 39 Viet., c. 5. 



