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Show fj DaiLY HISTORY fes! - n 1 i ss us anwisiwi 1 1 imManMMPBnTS . ' " .' ( ... ' ' " ' '. 1 (Copyrighted, 1905. by News Clearing llouso Company.) NEW FOTJNDLAND. In the spring: of 1197 the Venetian navigator John Cabot failed from liria-tol, liria-tol, Enfrland, westward, and discovered land, along which he cruised for about nine hundred miles. From the descriptions descrip-tions of accounts his discoveries- extended ex-tended from some part of the toast of Labrador, New Foundland, which he named Helluland, meaning "Land of Stone." and Nova Scotia, naming it ( Markland, meaning "Land of Wood." After the discovery of New Found- 1 land no attempt was made for over n century and a half to settle the island. The one great cause which brought men thither was the immense cod fisheries about Its shores, and for years fishermen fisher-men only landed on the shore for wood i and water, and to cure their iish. The French first occupied the Island, and made a permanent settlement in 1662. In 170.1 the island came into possession pos-session of the English by the Treaty of Utrecht, and remained n until 1763. when It was ceded to France, but was finally returned to England by the treaty of Paris, at the end of the Napoleonic Na-poleonic wars. In the cession of the Island, to England the right was reserved re-served by France that French subjects should have the right to fish and use the western shore, and extending around the north and, northeastern sides of the island, comprising nearly half the shore line. The French claimed the exclusive use of this shore, and this claim has been a source of contention down to the treaty of 1904, when the French sold their exclusive rights, and now both parties use the disputed shore In common. The English have been almost the, only settlers on the Island, and their settlements have been entirely along the coast, and principally on the extreme ex-treme southeastern part. - The most Important place upon the island is St. Johns, a city of 30,000 Inhabitants. In-habitants. The industry of the Island has until within a few years, been almost exclusively exclu-sively fishing and the curing of fish. The interior of the island remained unknown and unexplored until 1864. and even now there are large tracts but little known. The development of the Interior resources has been done in the last twenty years, and is almost entirely due to the efforts of one man, Robert G. Reld. He has built a railroad rail-road across the Island of over 630 miles, Is building a fleet of mail steamers, improving im-proving the docks at St. Johns, has erected wood-pulf and lumber mills, and opened up various mines, principally princi-pally copper and lion. There are be- sides mines of gold, antimony, lead, line, cortl, asbestos, talc, and extensive quarries of granite and slate. The island Is heavily timbered with pine, spruce and fir. In a few years, witfi Increased transportation facilities New Foundland will- have a much greater population, mines will be opened and worked, paper mills built, and the Island a place .of Industry such as it has never known. |