QUESTION OF SUBSIDENCE AT L0UIS150UK(J, C. H. — McIXTOSH. 265 



I am of the opinion that there are some features of the forti- 

 fications at Louisbourg yet remaining, by which we can make 

 a test of this point. 



The peninsula upon which the fortress was situated has so 

 frequently been described that I need not give any lengthened 

 description of it, but it would appear necessary to note certain 

 features of a topographical and geological charactei-. 



Extending from the historic White Point easterly to Black 

 Rock, the whole shore is an alternation of beaches of rounded 

 cobble-stones and of hard enduring rock}- reefs, the remnants of 

 redoubts belonging to an overpowered battle-front of the coast. 



Inland along the same line there is an alternation of gravelly 

 hills and low flat peat-covered swamps, almost wholly destitute 

 of trees, and at a point nearly due south from the citadel of the 

 fort there is a continuous stretch of swamp formed of peat of a 

 depth var^-ing from one to probably over six feet, and rising 

 from an elevation but little above ordinaiy tide to a maximum 

 height of twenty to thirty feet at the foot of tlie southern 

 glacis. 



Rochefort Point, the eastern extremity of the peninsula, is a 

 rofck about fifteen feet in height, thinl}- covered with soil, but 

 from it along the harbour shore towards the west, bed rock, ex- 

 cept in the sea ledges, disappears, and the northern portion of 

 the mined town and fortifications is evidently' situated on a 

 considerable depth of glacial drift, more of the nature of gravel 

 than of clay. 



On consulting a plan of Louisbourg,* dated 1745, by Lieuten- 

 ant R. Gridley, of Pepperell's Artillery, we will observe a pond, 

 with a beach of considerable extent, lying between it and the har- 

 bour. At the southeastern extremity of this pond was erected the 

 Maurepas Bastion. It would be more correct to state that this 

 bastion was built out in the pond, since the waters of the pond 

 surround it on its front, its left flank, and its rear — and its 



*A copy of Grialey's plan is in the Provincial Museum, Halifax, X. 8., una a 

 reproduction of it in Trans. Roy. Soc. of Canada, vol. ix (1891), sec. 2. plate 1. 



