"The town of Vinal Haven includes both North and South Fox Islands, in latitude 44 north longitude 69 10' west. The population numbered, at the time of my visit, about eighteen hundred. The inhabitants were intelligent and industrious, and hospitable to strangers. They got most of their living and wealth by fishing. The town fitted out over one hundred licensed sailing vessels, besides smaller craft. "North Fox Island is nine miles long by two miles in width, and has a population of eight hundred. They have a postoffice, one store, a Baptist church and a meetinghouse, four schoolhouses, and a tide grist-mill. The land is rather poor, yet there are some good farms. The products are wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and grass. The principal timber consists of fir, spruce, hemlock, and birch. Raspberries and gooseberries grow in great abundance, and some upland cranberries are raised. The principal stock are sheep. "South Fox Island comes as near being without definite form as any spot on earth I ever saw. It would be difficult for any person to describe it. It is about ten miles in length by five in width, and is a mass of rocks, formed into shelves, hills, and valleys, and cut up into necks and points to make room for the coves and harbors that run into the island. The population is one thousand. The inhabitants get their living entirely by fishing. There is no chance for farming upon the island. There are a few garden patches which are cultivated at great expense. Some few sheep are raised there. Many of the inhabitants fish in the vicinity of Newfoundland, and bring their fish home, where they cure them on flakes and prepare them for the market. They supply the market with great quantities of cod, mackerel, and boxed herring. Upon this island there are two stores, three tide mills, six schoolhouses, and a small branch of the Methodist church presided over by a priest. What timber there is upon this {76} island, such as pine, fir, spruce, hemlock, and birch, and likewise whortleberries, raspberries, and gooseberries, grow mostly out of the cracks in the rocks. "Great quantities of fish in almost endless variety inhabit the coves and harbors around the islands. The whale, blackfish, shark, ground-shark, pilot-fish, horse-mackerel, sturgeon, salmon, halibut, cod, polleck, tom-cod, hake, haddock, mackerel, shad-bass, alewife, herring, pohagen, dolphin, whiting, frost-fish, flounders, smelt, skate, shrimp, skid, cusk, blueback, scallop, dog-fish, mutton-fish, lumpfish, squid, five-fingers, monkfish, horse-fish, sun-fish, sword-fish, thrasher, cat-fish, scuppog, tootog, eye-fish, cunner, ling, also the eel, lobster, clam, mussel, periwinkle, porpoise, seal, etc., are found.