[aanone ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 417 
Fundy, the St. John River, and the North Shore. The first division 
would therefore, naturally be into three great counties, or, since these 
would be excessively large, into three primary groups of counties—the 
Fundy group, the St. John River group and the North Shore group. 
Happily, we have the best of evidence that this theory of the primary 
sub-division was the idea actually in the minds of those who made the 
division, for Governor Carleton, writing June 28, 1785, to the Secre- 
tary of State in England (Archives, 1895, New Brunswick, 4), says:— 
“The province will soon be divided into eight counties, three along 
the Bay of Fundy, four up the St. John River, and one at Miramichi.” 
In the original act, moreover, and in the issue of the county warrants, 
the Fundy group, St. John, Westmorland and Charlotte, are first 
described in this order ; Northumberland comes next, and the St. John 
River group last. 
We turn now to the sub-divisions of the three primary groups, 
and consider first the Fundy, counties. Of these, the first, St. John, 
was made but a narrow strip along the coast, and its northern boundary 
was established parallel with the Bay. I have been somewhat sur- 
prised that this county was not made deeper into the country, to in- 
clude Kings, but perhaps its possession of the city of St. John was 
thought to give it an ample population. In the case of Westmorland 
and Charlotte, however, the counties were obviously made much deeper 
in order to include within them all of the rivers centering in Chig- 
necto Bay and Passamaquoddy Bay respectively. How perfectly the 
lines of those two counties were, from the point of view of the geo- 
graphical knowledge of the time, adapted to effect those ends may be 
seen by comparing the original lines of Map No. 34 with the Des- 
Barres Map: No. 15, when it will be seen that the Charlotte lines en- 
close all of the rivers emptying into Passamaquoddy, and the Westmor- 
iand lines all of those emptying into Chignecto Bay. That the Des- 
Barres map was inaccurate and hence that those lines do not really 
enclose those rivers is not the fault of the designers of the county 
lines, but of the imperfect geographical knowledge of the time. 
Passing now to the St. John or river group of counties, we note 
that the boundaries between them are made by lines crossing the river 
at right angles. Owing, however, to the fact that the St. John here 
makes a great bend in a quarter circle with its centre in Charlotte, the 
remarkable arrangement is produced by which the original counties 
radiate from Charlotte. The general position of these lines appears 
to have been fixed with the idea of so arranging the counties that each 
would include certain of the great branches of the river with their 
fringes of land grants and contiguous settlements; thus Kings was to 
