40 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



b. Lines and junctions of communication. Throughout this period 

 practically all travel was by water. Hence the siettlements were without 

 exception along the waterways, on waters navigable for vessels prior to 

 ihe expulsion, and on waters navigable by boat or canoe only when it 

 beeame necessary to seek a refuge from attacks' by British vessels. Ona 

 road of some importance was, however, made in this period, that from 

 the French settlements at Beauséjour to Baie Verte, by means of which 

 great quantities of grain and cattle were exported from the rich marsh 

 lands to Louisburg and Quebec. To facilitate this communication the 

 village of 'Baie Verte was established and to guard it Fort Gaspereau was 

 built. 



c. Location of good lands. The Acadian people were almost exclu- 

 sdvely farmers and hence their settlements were determined more liy the 

 quality of the lands than by any other factor. They turned naturally 

 first of all to those wonderfully rich salt marsihes at the head of the Bay 

 of Fundy, cleared by nature and needing only to be dyked to be soon 

 ready for the most bountiful harvest. This selection of the mars<hes by 

 them was the more natural since they were brought from a part of 

 France in which the reclamation of marsh lands was brought to great 

 perfection. Thus were determined the earliest, largest and richest Aca- 

 dian settlements, those at Annapolis, around Minas Basin, at Beaubassia 

 (Amherst), Beauséjour (Fort Cumberland), Tintamarre (Four Cor- 

 ners), Wescah (Westcock), Free des Bourques (Sackville), Free des 

 Richards (Upper Sackville), Im Coupe (Jolicœur), Le Lac (Ryes Cor- 

 ner), Memranicooh, Shepody and Felitcodiac. It was only when the 

 marsihes were practically all taken up, or when the Acadians were driven 

 from them at and after the expulsion that they resorted to other lands, 

 which explains why they were so long in settling on the St. John and why 

 they scarcely settled at all at Passamaquoddy and on the N"orth Shore 

 (where marshesi exist, but of poor quality), excepting in a few scattered 

 trading and fishing posts. The lands which they took up next after the 

 marshes were the river intervales, though these, no richer and requiring 

 great labour to clear them of forest, were settled only to a limited extent 

 in this period, and then chiefly after the expulsion. The intervale settle- 

 ments made by them on the St. John were on the best intervales on that 

 river, such as at Grimross (Gagetown), Freneuse (jMaugerville), St. 

 Annes (Fredericton), and their later settlements on the Petitcodiac 

 {Bahineau, Fourche à Crapaud) were also on intervales. As io the up- 

 lands, apparently no settlement whatever (outside of the fishing and 

 trading posts), were located upon them until after the Acadians were 

 driven from both marshes and intervales at the time of the expulsion, 

 after which they may have formed upland siettlements in retired places, as 



