ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



INTRODUCTION. 



A first view of the present subject inevitably gives the impression 

 that the factors determining the origin and distribution of settlements 

 in New Brunswick are so numerous, so complex in their interaction, 

 and often so subtle, as to be impossible of disentanglement and defini- 

 tion. The problem is, in its character, very like some of those which 

 have to be faced in the study of various phases of organic nature, and, 

 attacked by the same methods, it can gradually be solved. This 

 method consists essentially in this, — the selection and deteriuination 

 of the leading factors, and their individual study, from which know- 

 ledge only is it possible to understand their combination and inter- 

 action. One deals with these factors as the student of optics deals 

 with his pencils of rays; the leading or extreme ones being known, 

 the lesser and intermediate fall, almost of themselves, into their proper 

 places. Practically this throws the present work into three divis- 

 ions: — first, a study of the individual factors involved in the deter- 

 mination of the origins of settlements in New Brunswick; second, a 

 study of the interaction, of the various factors to produce the settle- 

 ments as we find them, a study best worked out upon a chronological 

 outline; and third, a summary of the subject from the point of view 

 of the individual settlements, which will be most convenient if arrangôd 

 in the form of a dictionary. Such is the plan of the present work. 



Like the earlier Monographs of this series, this work is preliminary 

 in character. Having no predecessor in its special field it must needs 

 break new ground for itself, and, with so vast and complicated a subject, 

 neither completeness nor great accuracy can be expected at a single 

 step. Nevertheless I hope that it, as well as the earlier members of the 

 series, will provide both a broad and a firm foundation for the future 

 more detailed study of its interesting and important subject. • 



History may be approached from either one of two distinct points 

 of view. First, it is primarily a narrative of interesting events telling 

 men of what happened in the past of their race or the world, and its 

 tendency is to make prominent those heroic or othe'r stirring events 

 which appeal to the healthy human imagination or whicli nuignify the 

 merits or glory of one's own people, "^riiis is the popu.lar, and to most 

 persons the only, phase of history, — the one they read with pleasare 

 and recommend as conducive to i)atriotism and other desirable 

 qualities. Second, history is primarily an explanation of the raisons 

 d'être, of present social and political conditions. This is intrinsically 

 much its more impoTtant phase, but it is of little popular interest, 

 partly because it is intellectnally ditlicult, and partly because, so far 



