The discovery of America added nearly a third to the then known land surface of the earth, and opened up two of its richest continents. If such an extent of territory were thrown into the world's market to-day, the rapidity with which it would be exploited and explored, and its wealth made tributary to the world's requirements, would astonish, if they were here, the men who pioneered the settlement of the new country and left so royal a heritage to their descendants. To those who cross the Atlantic in the great ocean liners of our time, and think them none too safe, the fleet with which Sir Humphrey Gilbert crossed the sea to plant his colony in the new land must seem a frail protection indeed against the dangers of the western ocean.Perhaps in no way can the progress made since the beginning of the nineteenth century be more forcibly brought before the mind than by comparing the immense iron steamships of the present day with the small wooden vessels with which commerce was carried on and battles were fought and won a hundred and fifty years ago.The Isthmus of Chignecto separates the waters of the Bay of Fundy from those of Bay Verte, and constitutes the neck of land which saves Nova Scotia from being an island. It is seventeen miles between the two bays at the narrowest point, and considering the town of Amherst the south- eastern limit, and the village of Sackville the north-western, it may be put down as a little less than ten miles in width.... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.