The discovery of America added nearly a third to the then known land surface of the earth, and opened up two of its richest continents. If such an extent of territory were thrown into the world's market to-day, the rapidity with which it would be exploited and explored, and its wealth made tributary to the world's requirements, would astonish, if they were here, the men who pioneered the settlement of the new country and left so royal a heritage to their descendants. To those who cross the Atlantic in the great ocean liners of our time, and think them none too safe, the fleet with which Sir Humphrey Gilbert crossed the sea to plant his colony in the new land must seem a frail protection indeed against the dangers of the western ocean.