VANCOUVER 159 VANDAL ment; several banks; and three daily and several weekly newspapers. There are within the city limits, 23 parks, of over 1,400 acres, including Stanley Park of 1,000 acres. Shipbuilding is one of the important industries. During 1919 42 wooden steamers were launched, 5 schooners, and 10 steel steamers, with a tonnage of 165,000, with a value of $28,875,000. There are 80 miles of water frontage. The city has 85 schools and missions and a school enrollment of over 17,000 pupils, and over 400 teachers. The assessed value of real estate in 1919 was $224,202,883. The bank clearings in the same year amounted to $657,913,208. There are nearly 450 industries, employ- ing nearly 30,000 wage earners. The value of the manufactured products in 1915 was $33,871,044. The city has large lumber interests, pork-packing plant, a sugar refinery, railroad construction and repair shops, ironworks, foundries, ex- tensive warehouses, etc., and is the cen- ter of the Fraser river salmon industry. Vancouver was laid out in 1885. It was entirely destroyed by fire in 1866, but was rebuilt the same year and since then has had a marvelous growth. Pop. (1891) 13,685; (1901) 26,183; (1919) 109,250. VANCOUVEB. GEORGE, an English navigator; born about 1758. He entered the navy as midshipman in 1771 ; accom- panied Cook on his second and third voyage (1772-1774 and 1776-1779) ; was made 1st lieutenant in 1780; and served in the West Indies till 1789. In 1790 he was put in command of a small squad- ron sent to take over Nootka from the Spaniards, and was also charged to as- certain if there was a N. W. passage. He sailed in the "Discovery," April 1, 1791, spent some time at the Cape, and afterward made for Australia and New Zealand, the coast of which he surveyed. He then went N. and received formal surrender of Nootka, and spent the three summers of 1792-1794 in surveying the coast as far N. as Cook's Inlet, winter- ing at the Sandwich Islands. On his re- turn voyage he visited the chief Spanish settlements on the W, coast of South America, and reached England in 1795, where a narrative of his voyage was published in 1798. Vancouver Island was named after him. He died near London, May 10, 1798. VANCOUVER ISLAND, an island be- longing to British Columbia; in lat. 48" 19'-50°53' N. and Ion. 123° 17'-128° 28' W. ; is separated from the mainland by Queen Charlotte Sound, Johnstone Strait, and Strait of Georgia, which taken to- gether form an open sea way. The island is 275 miles in length, and from 50 to 65 miles in breadth; area, about 12,000 square miles; pop. about 100,000. Its outline is boldly picturesque. The shores are marked by abrupt rocky cliffs and promontories, by pebbly beaches and sheltered coves, with fine harbors. The W. shores are gloomy and frowning in aspect, deeply indented by fiord-like arms of the sea, the banks of which are formed by steep rocks rising like walls. The whole country is more or less densely wooded, except where the moun- tain summits afford no foothold for plants, or where open grass lands occur. There are no navigable rivers, and the streams, which are torrents in winter, and are nearly dry in summer, are short, and are valuable only as supplying power for mills. The climate resembles that of southern Britain; the warm Pa- cific Gulf Stream striking the coast pre- serves a mild and equable tempera- ture; and in the S. E., where there is much less rain than in the N. or on the mainland, snow seldom falls. Only a small proportion of the surface is suited for agriculture — perhaps a million acres. Fruit culture is profitably carried on. The island is very rich in minerals. Be- sides gold, silver, copper, iron, etc., it possesses great fields of excellent coal, at Nanaimo in particular. Another source of wealth is in the fisheries; good banks lie off the coast, and fish and fish products of a considerable value annual- ly are exported from Victoria (g. v.), the capital. The island was discovered in 1592 by Juan de Fuca, and visited in 1792 by Capt. George Vancouver (1758-1798), an officer in the British navy; but the first permanent settlement was not made till 1843, when the Hudson Bay Com- pany built a fort and trading post where Victoria now stands. See British Columbia. VANDAL, one of the Slavonic or Teu- tonic tribes who inhabited the banks of the Oder, and the sea coasts of Pomer- ania and Mecklenburg, about A. D. 250. At the beginning of the 5th century they traversed the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Pyrenees, and founded a powerful king- dom in Spain. They afterward passed into Africa under their king, Genseric, 429, and after a career of conquest on that continent, during which they had embraced Christianity, Carthage fell under their victorious arms, Oct. 9, 439. Here they commenced the formation of a powerful navy, and fitted out an ex- pedition against Rome, which they sacked June 15-29, 455. Having embraced the Arian heresy in 530, they carried on a cruel persecution against the members
