in the world,
is about 1640 miles distant from Ireland, and of all the American
coast is the nearest point to the Old World. Its relative position in
the northern hemisphere may well be indicated by saying that the most
northern point at Belle Isle Strait is in the same latitude as that of
Edinburgh, whilst St. John's, near the southern extremity, lies in the
same latitude as that of Paris. Strategically it forms the key to
British North America. St. John's lies about half-way between
Liverpool and New York, so that it offers a haven of refuge for needy
craft plying between England and the American metropolis. The adjacent
part of the coast is also the landing-place for most of the
Transatlantic cables: it was at St. John's, too, that the first
wireless ocean signals were received. From the sentimental point of
view Newfoundland is the oldest of the English colonies, for our brave
fishermen were familiar with its banks at a time when Virginia and
New England were given over to solitude and the Redskin. Commercially
it is the centre of the most bountiful fishing industry in the world,
and the great potential wealth of its mines is now beyond question. On
all these grounds the story of the colony is one with which every
citizen of Greater Britain should be familiar. The historians of the
island have been capable and in the main judicious, and to the works
of Reeves, Bonnycastle, Pedley, Hatton, Harvey, and above all Chief
Justice Prowse, and more recently to J.D. Rogers,[1] every writer on
Newfoundland must owe much. Of such elaborate work a writer in the
present series may say with Virgil's shepherd, "Non invideo, miror
magis"; for such a one is committed only to a sketch, made lighter by
their labours, of the chief stages in the story of Newfoundland.

To understand that story a short account must be given at the outset
of the situation and character of the island. But for the
north-eastern side of the country, which is indented by deep and wide
inlets, its shape might be roughly described as that of an equilateral
triangle. Its area is nearly 43,000 square miles, so that it is larger
than Scotland and considerably greater than Ireland, the area of which
is 31,760 square miles. Compared to some of the smaller states of
Europe, it is found to be twice as large as Denmark, and three times
as large as Holland. There is only a mile difference between its
greatest length, which from Cape Ray, the south-west point, to Cape
N