ACADIA is the designation of a territory of uncertain and disputed extent. Though its sovereignty passed more than once from France to England, and from England to France, its limits were never exactly defined. But in this chapter it will be used to denote that part of America claimed by Great Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, as bounded on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by a line drawn due north from the mouth of the Penobscot River, on the north by the River St. Lawrence, and on the east by the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Strait of Canso. Within these bounds were minor divisions vaguely designated by French or Indian names; and the larger part of this region was also called by the English Nova Scotia, or New Scotland. [Illustration: SIEUR DE MONTS. [This follows a copy of a water-color drawing in the _Massachusetts Archives; Documents Collected in France_, i. 441, called a portrait of De Monts from an original at Versailles. Mr. Parkman tells me that he was misled by this reference of Mr. Poore in stating that a portrait of De Monts existed at Versailles (_Pioneers_, p. 222); since a later examination has not revealed such a canvas, and the picture may be considered as displaying the costume of the gentleman of the period, if there is doubt concerning its connection with De Monts. There is another engraving of it in Drake’s _Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast_.—ED.]] So large a tract of country naturally presents great varieties of soil and climate and of other physical characteristics; but for the most part it is fertile, and it abounds in mineral resources, the extent and value of which were long unsuspected even by such eager seekers for mines as the early voyagers. It was often the theatre of sanguinary conflicts on a small scale, and its early history, which is closely connected with that of the New England colonies, includes more than one episode of tragic interest. Yet it has never filled an important place in the history of civilization in America, and it was a mere make-weight in adjusting the balance of losses and acquisitions by the two great European powers which for a century and a half contended here for colonial supremacy. Acadia seems to have been known to the French very soon after the voyages of Cabot, and to have been visited occasionally by Breton fishermen almost from the beginning of the sixteenth century. For nearly a hundred years these adventurous toilers of the sea prosecuted their dangerous calling on the Banks of Newfoundland and the near shores before any effective attempt at colonization was made. It was not until 1540 that a Picard gentleman, Jean François de Roberval, was appointed viceroy of Canada, and attempted to establish a colony within the St. Lawrence.[400]