the trisected peninsula of Avalon is almost severed from the remainder of the island.
Placentia Bay is nearly 70 miles wide at the mouth and extends for the same distance into the land. Its upper area is thronged with islands which shield the course of the steamer Argyle as it makes its weekly rounds from Placentia to Rose au Rue, to Harbour Buffet, Haystack and Merasheen. The same craft has a sailing every week for Paradise, across the bay from Placentia town, and other ports down the east coast of Burin Peninsula, which are also served by the Glencoe, Placentia—Port-aux-Basques.
Placentia village covers a low spit of water-worn gravel beach, lapped on either side by long sea-arms whose tree-covered bluffs rise to a height of several hundred feet. Though it lies low on the water, no town in Newfoundland has a more gracious site. Students of nomenclature believe the bay was named by Portuguese voyagers who found it as fair as the situation of ancient Placentia on the Tagus. In 1662 Charles II sold to Louis XIV of France this portion of the southern shore. The French forthwith fortified it and on several occasions defended it against the English, who resented their sovereign's generosity. The French esteemed it "a post of the greatest importance and service . . . in regard that 'tis a place of refuge to the ships that are obliged to put into a harbour, when they go or come from Canada, and
