176 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



the prophecy of Sir Stephen Hill,* 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. 

 andin the The Other fertile belts are still in the hands of lumbermen, 

 ^d'^th ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ natural pioneers of the agriculturists. Lumber- 

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

 '^l I r s ^^^^ practised in the immediate neighbourhood of the coast 

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

 TndlmVr^^^^^^^S- ^^ '^°4, 30 ships, averaging 73 tons, were built 

 skz/>s; 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,^ 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 1804 

 and 1846;^ 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.^ 

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

 TarLrlcale ^"^^ — arose ; steam-mills, timber licences for one year of six 

 as capita- square miles,^ and bounties on certain local ships,* were 

 began Z <ro introduced ; and one steam-mill at the mouth of the Exploits 

 inland; in 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. ^ Post, p. 199 et seq. 



* Sir J. H. Glover, Accounts and Papers, 1878-9, vol. 1, p. 11 

 (c. 2273). 

 • ^ Statutes of Newfotmdland, 38 Vict., c. 3. 

 •^ $ 6 per ton, 39 Vict., c. 5. 



