The Story of Newfoundland | Page 3

occupied by water. The largest lake is Grand Lake,
56 miles long, 5 broad, with an area of nearly 200 square miles. The
longest mountain range in the island is about the same length as the
longest river, 200 miles; and the highest peaks do not very greatly
exceed 2000 feet.
The cliffs, which form a brown, bleak and rugged barrier round the
coasts of Newfoundland, varying in height from 300 to 400 feet, must
have seemed grim enough to the first discoverers; in fact, they give
little indication of the charming natural beauties which lie behind them.
The island is exuberantly rich in woodland, and its long penetrating
bays, running in some cases eighty to ninety miles inland, and fringed
to the water's edge, vividly recall the more familiar attractiveness of
Norwegian scenery. Nor has any custom staled its infinite variety, for
as a place of resort it has been singularly free from vogue. This is a
little hard to understand, for the summer climate is by common consent
delightful, and the interior still retains much of the glamour of the
imperfectly explored. The cascades of Rocky River, of the Exploits
River, and, in particular, the Grand Falls, might in themselves be
considered a sufficient excuse for a voyage which barely exceeds a
week.
Newfoundland is rich in mineral promise. Its history in this respect
goes back only about sixty years: in 1857 a copper deposit was
discovered at Tilt Cove, a small fishing village in Notre Dame Bay,
where seven years later the Union Mine was opened. It is now clear
that copper ore is to be found in quantities almost as inexhaustible as
the supply of codfish. There are few better known copper mines in the
world than Bett's Cove Mine and Little Bay Mine; and there are copper

deposits also at Hare Bay and Tilt Cove. In 1905-6 the copper ore
exported from these mines was valued at more than 375,000 dollars, in
1910-11 at over 445,000 dollars. The value of the iron ore produced in
the latter period was 3,768,000 dollars. It is claimed that the iron
deposits--red hematite ore--are among the richest in the world. In
Newfoundland, as elsewhere, geology taught capital where to strike,
and when the interior is more perfectly explored it is likely that fresh
discoveries will be made. In the meantime gold, lead, zinc, silver, talc,
antimony, and coal have also been worked at various places.
A more particular account must be given of the great fish industry, on
which Newfoundland so largely depends, and which forms about 80 per
cent. of the total exports. For centuries a homely variant of Lord
Rosebery's Egyptian epigram would have been substantially true:
Newfoundland is the codfish and the codfish is Newfoundland. Many,
indeed, are the uses to which this versatile fish may be put. Enormous
quantities of dried cod are exported each year for the human larder, a
hygienic but disagreeable oil is extracted from the liver to try the
endurance of invalids; while the refuse of the carcase is in repute as a
stimulating manure. The cod fisheries of Newfoundland are much
larger than those of any other country in the world; and the average
annual export has been equal to that of Canada and Norway put
together. The predominance of the fishing industry, and its ubiquitous
influence in the colony are vividly emphasised by Mr Rogers[2] in the
following passage, though his first sentence involves an exaggerated
restriction so far as modern conditions are concerned:
"Newfoundlanders are men of one idea, and that idea is fish. Their lives
are devoted to the sea and its produce, and their language mirrors their
lives; thus the chief streets in their chief towns are named Water Street,
guides are called pilots, and visits cruises. Conversely, land words have
sea meanings, and a 'planter,' which meant in the eighteenth century a
fishing settler as opposed to a fishing visitor, meant in the nineteenth
century--when fishing visitors ceased to come from England--a
shipowner or skipper. The very animals catch the infection, and dogs,
cows, and bears eat fish. Fish manures the fields. Fish, too, is the
main-spring of the history of Newfoundland, and split and dried fish, or

what was called in the fifteenth century stock-fish, has always been its
staple, and in Newfoundland fish means cod."
The principal home of the cod is the Grand Newfoundland Bank, an
immense submarine island 600 miles in length and 200 in breadth,
which in earlier history probably formed part of North America. Year
by year the demand for codfish grows greater, and the
supply--unaffected by centuries of exaction--continues to satisfy the
demand. This happy result is produced by the marvellous fertility of the
cod, for naturalists tell us that the roe of a single female--accounting,
perhaps, for half the