from the one main business thoroughfare, which runs parallel with the water-front. The capital is a reformed fishing village dignified by the appurtenances of Government and by establishments whose solidity is based on industries of the sea.
The "bankers" of four centuries ago chose this harbour as their rendezvous. The fleets of to-day are manned by crews of the same West-of-England stock that Cabot selected as best suited to hardy marine service. Less than a hundred miles south is the upper end of the mountainous shoal 500 miles long and 300 miles wide which is formed by the conjunction of the Gulf Stream and the Arctic Current. The cod returning from polar waters where they go to spawn—one medium cod lays 9,000,000 eggs at a time—find on the ledges of the sand-bank favourite small fish, crabs, worms and sea insects. The codders bait them with herring, caplin and squid and take in an average year over 125,000 quintals (112 pounds to the quintal) on the banks alone. Besides, Newfoundland controls the fisheries of the Atlantic Labrador coast, and her local fisheries are of vast importance. The best cod for eating are plump near the tail and have undulated sides. Most of the catch is "hard" or salt cured. Nearly every cove of Newfoundland's 6000 miles of coast line shows a straggling group of huts and drying stages on the restricted beaches or clinging to the shelves of grim cliffs.
