virtually all inhabitants lived in distributed clusters or villages, with no single place dominating. The area was administered from Port Royal, later Annapolis Royal. The following table shows the population of the region during the Acadian era. The vacant Acadian settlements around the Minas Basin were succeeded by the New England Planters who arrived in 1760 and were later joined by Loyalists settlers in the 1780s. The Planters maintained operation of the ferry, rebuilt and expanded the Acadian dyke systems, and reclaimed more farmland from the Basin through projects like the Wellington Dyke in 1816. Industry The communities around the Minas Basin were sustained by fishing, logging, farming, mining, boat building and shipbuilding. In the late 19th Century the Basin's shipyards produced some of the highest numbers of wooden ships in Canadian history and some of the largest, including the ship William D. Lawrence, the largest wooden ship built in Canada along with the giant barques Kings County, Canada's largest four masted-barque and Hamburg, Canada's largest three-masted barque. The tidal water also provided a means of transporting commodities such as lumber, apples and gypsum and powered Tide mills at locations such as Canning, Hantsport and Walton. Mining included gypsum (several locations including Windsor and Cheverie), iron (Londonderry), barite (near Walton and the Eureka Mine at Five Islands), manganese (several locations including Cheverie and Tennycape), and copper (the Colonial Copper Company at Cape d'Or). Gypsum was shipped from Hantsport until 2009. There have been attempts to generate energy from the rough waters of Minas Basin. However, the attempts were not successful. Nature Marine mammals include seals and porpoises. Fish include bass, shad, and flounder; lobster, crab, mussel, and clam are common. Many types of seaweed, sponges, worms, seajellys and more are also found. Birds include sandpipers, terns (visitors only), eagles, falcons, seagulls, herons, and kingfishers. Fossils are found near Parrsboro, Blue Beach and other areas along the Avon River. Rarely, fossils have been found at Evangeline Beach, Burntcoat Head, and other locations. These fossils include various shells (brachiopods, molluscs), sponges, trees, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and dinosaurs. Trace fossils include vertebrate footprints, fish fin-tracks, invertebrate trackways (ex. scorpions at Blue Beach), raindrop imprints, and wave ripples. They range from the beginning of the Carboniferous to the Jurassic. They were deposited when the region was warm and tropical, later when it was covered by a shallow sea, and later still when it was