170 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
contemporary map, but an idea which formed the basis of a claim later 
made by the British. When we remember that the 1621 boundary was 
to run through to the St. Lawrence from the source of the river St. 
Croix, we can scarcely doubt, with Champlain’s map before us, that the 
branch running farthest up towards the St. Lawrence, 1.e., our present 
Chiputneticook branch, was the one intended as the boundary, and not 
the short western branch. This is confirmed by the fact that the long 
branch shows at its head three branches, and it would seem probable 
even to certainty that the words “ western source” were added in order 
to decide which one of these three was to form the boundary. That 
these three branches do not exist at the head of the. Chiputneticook is 
no objection to this view, the point is, they were supposed to exist ;* 
and documents were prepared on what was supposed to be the case, not 
on the unknown actual fact ; moreover, neither do they exist where the 
western branch enters the main river. This is further confirmed by the 
description of the north line which is to run northerly until it reaches 
St. Lawrence waters, for, according to Champlain’s map, such a Hne 
would need to run but a short distance to reach a river emptying into the 
St. Lawrence, apparently one nearly as large as the St. Croix itself. 
Moreover, we can put the argument in another way ; even if the framers 
of the charter of 1621 had had a modern map of the region before them, 
such as that in map No. 1, since their aim was to establish a boundary 
running approximately north and south, they would almost certainly 
have chosen that branch which extends farthest directly into the 
country, and not that which turns off at right angles less than one- 
third of the way back from the coast. I am of opinion, therefore, that 
the western source of the St. Croix intended by the charter of 1621 
was not the Scoodic of the modern maps, but the western source of the 
northern or Chiputneticook branch, the very one which does form the 
present boundary.” 
That the western branch of the three shown on the 1612 map (map 
No. 6) should be chosen, rather than the middle or eastern, was natural 

1 In fact there are at the head of the Chiputneticook branch of the St. 
Croix three branches, namely, the main chain of lakes, the Palfrey branch 
and the Little Digdeguash, and it is by no means impossible that it is these 
three, laid down from information supplied by the Indians, that are intended 
to be represented on this map. This, however, is very uncertain. 
Since a line was to run northerly from the western source to the ‘ nearest 
spring,” etc., it is probable that it was intended to run to the small lake 
at the head of the river shown on this map. 
2 If one considers from a certain resemblance between Lescarbot’s map of 
1609 and Alexander’s of 1624 that the former was used by the framers of the 
Charter, the case is still clearer for the Chiputneticook, for the three branches 
there shown are obviously the three branches of the lower river forming the 
cross, the westernmost of which is the present St. Croix River, with no trace 
of its western or Scoodic branch. 
