The Question of Subsidence at Louisbourg, Cape Breton. — 

 By Kenneth McIntosh, C. E., St. Georges Channel, 

 Richmond Co., N. S. 



{Read ?nst December, 1903.) 



Engaged during a portion of the year 1901 in making sur- 

 veys on the site of the old fortress of Louisbourg, Cape Breton 

 Co., N. S., I incidentslly took somewhat copious notes of topo- 

 graphical features, and although I made nothing in the nature 

 of a contout survey, still I am satisfied that the result of my 

 work is a plan, which, simply as a plan, is in some respects 

 instructive. 



During the current year, 1903, I received a letter from Dr. 

 Henry S. Poole, on the reputed subsidence of land in the neigh- 

 borhood of Louisbourg, and asking for my impressions on this 

 question. 



This being the first intimation I ever had that a recent sub- 

 sidence of land in that region was regarded by anyone as a fact, 

 I was under this disadvantage, viz., that my observations, 

 although copious, were not made with a view to throwing light 

 on this subject. 



However, upon carefull}^ scanning my notes taken on the 

 ground, I find it difficult to surmise upon what observed facts 

 the conclusion of subsidence could possibly be based. 



In this connection, it will, of course, be understood that we 

 are utterly waixing any discussion of the subsidences and ele- 

 vations of tiie remote past, and that we are dealing with the 

 hypothesis of a subsidence in present progress, and it is scarcely 

 necessary to state that the question can only be decided, if at 

 all, by a comparison of the present height above sea level of 

 some portion of the shore which has neither been built nor worn 

 away, with its elevation above tide level at some remote period. 



(264) 



