74 



W. P. GANONG ON THE 



Tour, aud when its site might well have become confused with the other forts built by 

 the French about the harbour between 1690 aud 1750, could not be considered as of much 

 value iu comparison with that of the earlier and nearly contemporary maps made in Paris, 

 near the best sources of information, before any other forts were built. But happily we 

 have other satisfactory evidence. Two years later (iu 175*7) Bellin issued a new edition of 

 his map of Acadia, corrected in several respects, and upon that, as shown by the sketch 

 herewith given (No. 7), he places the fort upon the east side, marks its position by the 

 conventional circle, and then calls it " Ancien Fort La Tour," and renders it absolutely 



No. 7.— Bellin, 1757. 



certain to what this legend refers by joining the two by a short line of dots. The use of 

 the word " ancien " here is most significant ; it appears upon no other map I have seen. 

 Is there any way of aA^oiding the conclusion that Bellin, after his 1755 edition, had seen 

 evidence which satisfied him that the true ancient Fort La Tour had stood not upon the 

 west but upon the east side, and that he therefore placed it in the latter position in his 

 second edition, adding the word " ancien " to show that he referred to the real old fort 

 which La Tour built ? ' D'Auville himself published no later edition of his map, so we 

 cannot know what his later opinion would have been. Belliu's 1755 map was extensively 

 copied, while the 1757 map was not. This is probably due to the fact that the former was 

 issued separately as an ordinary map, while the latter appeared only iu a volume of the 

 work " Histoire générale des voyages," (vol. XIV). The testimony of the late maps which 

 place Fort La Tour upon the west side appears by this to be quite nullified, and the state- 

 ment seems therefore justified that all known cartographical evidence points us to the 

 east side of St. John Harbour for the site of Fort La Tour. 



The succession of forts in the harbour would seem to be as follows : in Carleton, at 

 " Old Fort," Charnisay's, Villebon's, Fort Frederick ; at Portland Point, Fort La Tour. 



I know of no evidence, documentary or cartographical, aud no line of argument from 

 induction, or from indirect evidence of any kind which I have not mentioned, which is 

 opposed to the conclusion to which I have been forced and which is discussed in this paper. 



In conclusion, then, iu the light of the fact that the only contemporary narrative we 

 have, that of Denys, proves the fort could not have been at Old Fort Point, but, on the 

 other hand, gives us strong reason for believing that it was at Portland Point, and in the 

 light of the fact that all evidence from maps points to the east side of the harbour, where 

 only a single fort site, that at Portland Point, is known, or has ever been recorded or 

 referred to, does it not seem that it is at Portland Point we must find the site of Fort La 

 Tour ? 



' It is well known that in 17.50 the French had a fort on the Old Fort site in Carleton. This perhaps helped to 

 confuse Bellin and d'Anville, who would have supposed that it stood on the old La Tour site. 



