[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 145 
under two governments the Madawaska Acadians, who, from their com- 
munity of race, history, customs and interests should form, and prefer 
to form, a single people under one government. The great merit of a 
river as a boundary is of course its unmistakability, and it was this 
supposed property which determined the original selection of the St. 
Croix as a boundary in 1621, whence it has descended to us as the 
international boundary. 
Inferior to rivers in recognizability, but superior to them in the 
natural separation of peoples (for they are usually uninhabited) are 
watersheds, and these are the better the higher and more inaccessible 
they are, and best of all when they rise into unmistakable lines of dis- 
tinct peaks. Wherever such a range comes anywhere in the vicinity of 
a desired boundary it is almost sure to be chosen, or rather, it falls 
naturally into its place, as a boundary. Most of the natural boundaries 
of the old world are of this sort. But watersheds are often featureless 
plateaus, as is the case with some in New Brunswick, and in such cases 
the line between the headwaters of the streams may be a very irregular 
one, difficult to recognize. In such cases artificial lines following the 
general courses of the watersheds are the best boundaries, and such are 
most of the county lines of New Brunswick. 
Where very strongly marked natural boundaries exist, it may hap- 
pen that several successive peoples may use them quite independently of 
one another, giving us several successive coincident boundaries having 
no causal connection with one another. An excellent case of this is the 
Bay of Fundy, with the narrow Isthmus of Chignecto at its head, which 
together naturally mark off the peninsula from the mainland. Sir 
William Alexander made this the boundary between his Provinces of 
New Caledonia and New Alexandria in 1625; it was made the boundary 
between the governments of Charnisay and LaTour in 1638 ; it formed 
the practical boundary of the French claim to the mainland of Acadia 
after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 ; and it became the boundary 
between the Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1784. 
On all of these occasions the boundary was determined anew without 
reference to its earlier use, and solely by the nature of the topography. 
Again, the Indians used the watersheds for their boundaries, and we use 
them as a basis for our county lines, but there is merely physiographic 
coincidence and no inheritance here concerned. On the other hand, a 
natural boundary, even when less prominent, often forms an hereditary 
connection, is an hereditary boundary, so to speak, from one period or 
people to another, and is adopted by one, because it was in use by a 
preceding ; such is the case with the St. Croix, which has persisted as 
a boundary from 1621 to the present. 
