PROGRESS BY LAND, 1818-1910 177 



islet in Hall Bay (1879), ministered to the new demand. 

 Capitalism and brother colonists had arrived. The ships 

 were for the use which will be presently described, were 

 40 tons or so, and were turned out at the rate of 128 a year 

 (1876-80). It is during this decade that we first hear of 

 inland residents, and Howley wrote in 1876 that 'there is 

 scarcely a habitation anywhere situated five miles from the 

 salt water, with the exception of one small settlement 

 recently commenced by some lumberers at the head of Deer 

 Lake V 



In the Nineties a new use was found for lumbering, and U) worked 



11 1-1 ,-11 r re further tn- 



a local law authorized 99 years Umber-leases of tracts ol irom [ am i lin j er 



z to i^o square miles on payment of 7 los. per square P ul P. con - 



cessions to 

 mile every twenty-five years, and on condition that the less ^ 



should spend 612 los. per square mile on building pulp 

 or paper factories (iSgo). 2 About the same time the 

 Exploits Lumber Company acquired 500 square miles of 

 timberland. A new day dawned for the lumberman, and the 

 land-grant railway companies of the Nineties only accelerated 

 a process which had already begun, 



In 1880 the State projected a State railway from St. John's ('/< "^ 



__ _r , , , r departure 



northward to Hall Bay, and handed over the task of con- beillg con . 



structing it to an American Syndicate, to which it granted neded with. 

 5,000 acres along the line (or elsewhere) in fee-simple for j evc i p. 

 every mile of railway which was constructed. If the land went}; 

 was selected opposite the railroad it was to be eight miles 

 deep for every mile of frontage, and to alternate with similar 

 blocks which were reserved by the State. The State under- 

 took to promote emigration and to enable aliens to hold 

 lands in fee-simple. In 1889 the Newfoundland Railway 

 Company, as the Syndicate was then called, had only con- 

 structed their main line as far as Whitbourne, with a branch 

 thence to Harbour Grace, so the State resumed possession 



1 J. P. Howley, Geography of Newfoundland, 1876, p. i. 



2 53 Viet., c. i. 



VOL. V. t'T. IV 



