Nova Scotia
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Nova Scotia. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
no'va sko'shia, a maritime province of the Dominion of Canada . The name is Latin for New Scotland. The province includes the peninsula of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island . The Strait of Canso, which separates them, is about sixteen miles long and rather less than two miles in width. The peninsula is about 280 miles long and one-third as wide. The area is 3,120 square miles. The surface is rolling--never mountainous. The greatest elevation, near Halifax, is about 1,000 feet. The direction of the ridges and the nature of the rocks indicate that the peninsula is a northeastern prolongation of the Alleghany Mountains . The Atlantic coast, including the coast of the Bay of Fundy, is indented by numerous bays offering harborage. The city of Halifax is situated on one of these. To shorten the journey from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of St. Lawrence a ship railway fourteen miles in length has been constructed across the low neck of the peninsula. It leads from Chignecto Bay to Northumberland Strait. Ships of not to exceed 2,000 tons burden enter enormous trucks at the water's edge and are drawn across the isthmus by a locomotive. The truck runs on a double track of steel rails--four rails in all. The annual snow and rainfall is about forty-five inches. There are not less than 400 lakes. There are no long rivers, but many short streams, well stocked with trout. The winters are like those of Maine. The summers are too cool for Indian corn, but are a delight to tourists. A large part of the country is yet covered with forests of maple, oak, elm, walnut, tamarack, hemlock, spruce, pine, poplar, and basswood. Deer, bears, foxes, and several fur-bearing animals still find shelter. Fisheries of cod, herring, salmon, shad, mackerel, and lobsters employ 25,000 men on board ship and give employment to several thousand persons in canning factories. The annual pack is worth from $7,000,000 to $9,000,000 a year. In 1905 35,700,000 lobsters were taken, representing a value of $2,116,000. The leading occupation of the province is agriculture. The Grand Pre picture of plenty and comfort drawn by Longfellow in his Evangeline is not an exaggeration. The valleys are fertile and well tilled. Extensive tracts of salt marsh, especially along the Bay of Fundy have been reclaimed from the sea by dykes. The scouring of the tides brings up a rich sediment from the sea bottom which is cast ashore and furnishes soil of unsurpassed fertility equal to the best delta land formed by the wash of rivers. Over one-third of Nova Scotia is under actual cultivation. Hay is the leading crop. Oats, potatoes, and wheat rank in the order named. Nova Scotia is one of the great apple-producing regions of the world. A million bushels of prime apples are expected yearly. The bulk of the crop is placed in cold storage for shipment to the British market. Plums and pears do well. The dairy interests are large. The province ships between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000 worth of coal, chiefly to Montreal and Quebec, yearly. In Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island there are a score of gold mines still yielding $15,000,000 worth of ore yearly. The manufactures are shaped largely by the abundance of wood and coal and iron. A million dollars' worth of timber is shipped each year. Coke, furniture, wood pulp, agricultural implements, tanner's extract of hemlock bark, and leather are manufactured extensively. The manufacture of steel has been begun. Nova Scotia was settled by the French in 1610. Acadia, they called the province. The French capital was Port Royal. After changing hands repeatedly Acadia was ceded finally to England at the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. In 1749 a British colony was founded at Halifax. In 1755 the Acadian French, having persistently held back from taking the oath of allegiance to England, were transported and their homes were given to several thousand settlers from New England . Just prior to the American Revolution great numbers of Scottish emigrants arrived, and at the close of the war it is said 30,000 Royalists from New England and New York took refuge in this province. Very naturally their descendants look with anything but a friendly eye on the United States. In 1867 Nova Scotia joined the Dominion. The present population is about half a million. Halifax, the capital, has 40,000 inhabitants. Of the entire population, over a third are of English descent, one-third Scotch, and the rest of Irish, French, and German origin. In the number of adherents, the leading denominations are Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, and Congregational. The province has one of the most thorough systems of public education known. Teachers are required to fit themselves before beginning work. Over 1,000 young people attend the normal school at Truro. There are several commercial colleges, as well as schools of agriculture, art, manual training, and domestic science. See Acadia ; Canada
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a province of the Dominion of Canada, comprising the peninsula of Nova Scotia proper and the island of Cape Breton. It is bounded N. and N. W. by the Bay of Fundy, a small section of New Brunswick, the Strait of Northumberland, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on the E. and S. by the Atlantic. The main peninsula is separated from Cape Breton by the narrow channel of the "Gut" of Canso. Its extreme length is 350 miles, and its breadth from 50 to 100 miles. The area is 20,600 square miles a little smaller than West Virginia. The coast is indented with numerous inlets, that form a great number of good harbors. Exclusive of these, the coast-line is about 1,000 miles long. There are many rivers, most of them short, and navigable in their lower courses for a few miles. The principal of these are the Avon, Annapolis, Shubenacadie, Lahave, Musquodoboit, and St. Mary's. Along the Atlantic seaboard, and reaching inland about 20 miles, is a range of hills. The Cobequid Mountains extend from the Gut of Canso to the Bay of Fundy, through the middle of the main peninsula. The soil is generally fertile. The climate is temperate and equable, the mean temperature about 42° F. The summer average is 61°, the winter 23°. Though there is much sea fog, the climate is generally healthful. Agriculture is the principal industry. The wheat production in 1919 was 605,- 610 bushels; oats, 5,633,078 bushels; barley, 312,096 bushels. Other important industries are fishing, lumbering, and mining. The fisheries employ about 30,- 000 persons. The forests of Nova Scotia are large and valuable. The value of mineral products for 1919 was: coal $2,- 500,000; iron and steel $19,000,000; coke $5,771,000. Ship building is extensively carried on, and manufacturing industries are rapidly increasing. There are five universities, and an excellent system of common schools. There are about 1,500 miles of railway in the Province. The religious bodies include all the principal Protestant sects, and the Roman Catholic Church, which has two dioceses. Nova Scotia has an Anglican bishop jointly with Prince Edward Island. There is a provincial legislature in two houses. The executive is a lieutenant-governor, appointed by the Governor-general of Canada. He has a council of 21 members. Nova Scotia is supposed to have been first visited and discovered by the Cab-mance of amusing rogwery, and the Austrians under Radetzky, March 23, ots in 1497. Its first settlers were French, who located themselves here in 1604, but were expelled by settlers from Virginia, who claimed the country by right of discovery. The French called the country Acadia. It was ceded to Great Britain in 1763, and joined to Canada in 1867. It receives a subsidy from Canada toward the support of the provincial government. Imports (1919) $27,863,220; exports, $61,601,- 000. The chief cities are Halifax, Yarmouth, Truro, and Spring Hill. Pop. of the Province (1919) 492,338.