CANAAN 



1091 



CANADA 



SINGLE TAX). A large part of the population 

 of the town and the surrounding country is 

 Norwegian, and the town is the seat of the 

 Norwegian Lutheran College. J.D.S. 



CANAAN, ka'nan. See PALESTINE. 



CANAANITES, ka'nanites, in general, the 

 name given to the heathen nations dwelling 

 in Palestine west of the Jordan before the 

 conquest of the country by the Israelites. At 

 the time of the Israelitish invasion these na- 

 tions were the Hittites, Jebusites, Hivites and 

 Amorites. According to the Old Testament the 

 Canaanites were descendants of Ham, the sec- 

 ond son of Noah; but as a matter of fact only 

 a part of the nations dwelling in Palestine at 

 the time of the Israelitish invasion were 



Canaanites. The Canaanites were gradually 

 subdued by the Israelites, and in Solomon's 

 time they all paid tribute. 



In language, government, morals and relig- 

 ion these people were different from the Israel- 

 ites, the principal feature of their religion being 

 the worship of Baal and Asherah, his consort, 

 who was called "the happy." The symbol of 

 Asherah was the stem of a tree, though this 

 was sometimes carved into an image. The 

 symbol of Baal was probably a cone, and repre- 

 sented the rays of the sun. It was undoubtedly 

 the mingling of these symbols in large numbers 

 which constituted the groves of Baal, so fre- 

 quently mentioned in the Old Testament. See 

 PALESTINE. 



AN AD A, DOMINION OF. A little more 

 than a century and a half ago, in 1763, at the 

 close of the French and Indian War, Great 

 Britain formally acquired ownership of the 

 French possessions in North America, then 

 called New France. At that time there were a 

 few scattered settlements along the Saint Law- 

 rence and its tributaries, but even Montreal 

 and Quebec, the largest, were small villages. 

 Canada in those days was but a small part of 

 the present province of Quebec. There were 

 a few settlements in Nova Scotia and on 

 Prince Edward Island, but with these excep- 

 tions the rest of the great area now included 

 in the Dominion was the home of Indians and 

 wild beasts. The population of Canada was not 

 more than 70,000. 



For about fifteen years this new British 

 possession was practically a colony of French- 

 men, with a few British officials. During and 

 after the Revolutionary War, however, a new 

 element appeared, and by 1783 there were thou- 

 sands of English-speaking settlers. They had 

 left the rebellious English colonies,- and had 

 moved northward to establish new homes for 

 themselves. These United Empire Loyalists 

 formed the first important groups of English- 

 speaking Canadians, and on the foundation- 

 stones which they helped to lay has risen a 

 great self-governing nation which remains a 

 loyal, integral part of the British Empire. 



Practically the whole of Canada's present 

 population is descended from Europeans, and 

 its present area is slightly larger than the whole 

 of Europe. Canada, except the southern part 

 of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Prov- 

 inces, lies north of the forty-ninth parallel of 

 latitude. In Europe, north of this parallel, are 

 the richest and most populous nations. If Can- 

 ada had centered under its one government all 

 the peoples, the industries and the resources 

 of Europe north of this parallel, it would be 

 the greatest nation in the western hemisphere 

 and probably one of the most populous and 

 the richest in the world. It would boast of a 

 population of 250,000,000 people. 



In Europe north of the forty-ninth parallel 

 are the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, 

 Denmark, Norway, Sweden, nine-tenths of Ger- 

 many, nearly all of Russia, the northern third 

 of Austria-Hungary and all of France north of 

 Paris. Near the sixtieth parallel are three 

 great capital cities, Petrograd, Christiania and 

 Stockholm. Moved directly westward, Petro- 

 grad would lie on the east shore of Hudson 

 Bay, about as far north as the northern end of 

 Labrador. Then Stockholm would be in the 

 middle of Hudson Bay and Christiania would be 

 on the west shore near Fort Churchill. London, 

 Berlin and Vienna would all fall within the Do- 

 minion (see second map following). 



In proportion to the population which Can- 



