ON CAPE BEETOK 253 



Cow Bay. became developed to auy extent. They appear to have been known to the 

 French even in the days of Sieur Denys, who was given the right to collect a small duty 

 on coal and plaster within the island. "While Louisbourg was occupied by the French, they 

 brought fuel chiefly from the cliffs of Morienne, now Cow Bay, and also from the little Labra- 

 dor a.s it was then called. The EuglLsh from 1745 to 1*749, when they occupied Louisbourg, 

 used the coal chiefly at Burnt Head, near Lingan or Bridgeport,' and the Labrador. After 

 1758, when Cape Bret( n became a permanent possession of England, the mines at Cow Bay 

 supplied the garrison and inhabitants of Louisbourg, and were for years protected by a 

 fort and block house, of which a memorial remains in the name of the "Block House 

 Mine." The coal deposits for seventy years were worked in a fitful and unsatisfactory 

 manner, either by the government itself or by small contractors, and the yearly output 

 did not average more than 4,000 chaldrons during that period. The British government 

 did not at auy time take an active interest in their operations, or encourage their develop- 

 ment by commercial enterprise. A small tax or royalty was usually levied on each 

 chaldron of coal mined by the contractor for the time being, and it was the opposition to 

 the payment of taxes by Messrs. Leaver and Ritchie, who had the lease of the Sydney 

 mines in 1816 that helped to show the English authorities the necessity of making a 

 change in the government of the island in 1820." Some years after the island was again 

 united to Nova Scotia, the imperial government gave a monopoly for sixty years of the 

 mines of the whole province to a spendthrift royal duke — the Duke of York — who deeded 

 his rights to a famous firm of English jewellers, Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, who 

 formed an English association in 1827, known as the General Mining Asssociation. This 

 company worked the mines of Sydney, Bridgeport and other places in Nova Scotia for 

 thirty years, exclusively under their charter of monopoly. An agitation against their 

 sole use of such valuable property eventually ended in an arrangement by which all the 

 mines came into the possession of the government of the province, with the exception of 

 those at Sydney, Pictou and other places where the association had long been working 

 successfully.^ As a consequence of this important change in the proprietorship of the 

 mines of Cape Breton, there are now some ten collieries carrying on a large trade ^ in one 

 of the richest sources of wealth which the island possesses. 



The total output of coal from the mines of the island of Cape Breton has now reached 

 about a million of tons, and the total export at about seven hundred thousand tons. ' The 



' See infra, sec. IX. 



- See supra, two pages. Also Brown, " Hist, of Cape Breton," pp. 433-435. 



■'' Mr. Gilpin, inspector of coal mines for the province of Nova Scotia, says with mnch truth that " tlie energy 

 and wealth of this company were of great benefit to the province, and its conduct and tliat of its chief officers has 

 ever been honourable, and calculated to set an example of honesty and reliability. " The Association " has now 

 disposed of all the coal lands owned by it in Nova Scotia proper and retains its selection.s in Caj» Breton, o[)era- 

 ting chiefly in the historical Sydney main seam, which has been drawn upon by the miner for over one hundred 

 years." See " Coal Mining in Nova Scotia," by E. Gilpin, M. Can. Soc C. E., p. ') 



* See App. XV. (last paragraph) to this work for a reference to "Geological Reports of Canada" and other 

 books, showing the value of the coal deposits of Cape Breton. 



" Mr. Gilpin, inspector of mines, in his annual report for 1890, gives the following statistics: Bridgeport raised 

 28,223 tons; Caledonia, 156,174; Franklyn, 723; Glace Bay, 111,472; Gowrie, 141,0'J9; International, 143,091; 

 Ontario, 9,049 ; Reserve, 150,906; Sydney, 181,571; Victoria, 90,930. The total sales were 916,994 tons, against 

 738,2.50 in 1888. Tlie home sales were 223,732 tons, and those in the province of Quebec, 480,462 tons Until the 

 imposition of a duty in 1867 on Nova Scotia coal coming into the United States ports, the greater proportion of 

 this product found its way into the American market, but since the commencement of Confederation and the 



