[GANONG] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 413 
C.—TueE INTRAPROVINCIAL (INTERNAL) BOUNDARIES. 
(1) THE County BOUNDARIES. 
Within a year after New Brunswick was erected into a separate 
province, it was divided into eight counties by special charters or war- 
rants. In January of the following year (1786) the first legislature 
met at St. John and passed as its first law, “ An Act for the better 
ascertaining and confirming the Boundaries of the Several Counties 
within this Province, and for subdividing them into Towns or 
Parishes.” The division thus established is shown upon the accom- 
panying map No. 35, and in part upon No. 34 The parish bound- 
aries will be considered later; we shall follow now the evolution of 
the county boundaries from 1785 to the present day. 
As to the motives, principles and steps which determined the first 
division of the province in 1785 and 1786, no record whatever appears 
to have been preserved. The division was of course made by 
Governor Carleton in consultation with his council. It is not difficult, 
however, to infer from the results the general principles followed in 
the division, an inquiry which is greatly facilitated if we view the sub- 
ject from the point of view, not of our present excellent knowledge 
ot the geography of the province, but of the very imperfect knowledge 
then prevailing, as reflected in the contemporary maps. It is plain 
that, in planning out the original county lines, maps of the province 
were indispensable; and the topography shown upon such maps must 
have greatly influenced the selection of courses of the boundary lines. 
We need, first of all, therefore, to inquire what maps Governor Carle- 
ton and the Council had before them in 1785, a question, which, though 
it cannot be answered with certainty, can be answered with a high 
degree of probability. No map of the province by itself had been 
constructed in 1785, and, while surveys had been made of the coasts 
and principal rivers, the entire interior, including all the smaller 
rivers, was unsurveyed and almost unknown. By far the best map 
showing the entire province then in existence, one enjoying the highest 
prestige from the reputation of its maker, and readily accessible in 
the widely-used volumes of charts of Nova Scotia, was the “Coast 
of Nova Scotia, New England, New York, etc.,” of 1780 in the “ Atlan- 
tic Neptune ” of DesBarres, of which map the New Brunswick portion 
is reproduced herewith (Map No. 15) from the copy in my “ Carto- 
graphy ” (392) where a fuller account of it may be found. In the 
same volume of DesBarres is found another map, entitled “A Chart 
