ST. JOHN: SABLE ISLAND. 19 



down the South Beach, but the remainder is shown as a mere sand 

 flat. There is no detail as to the fresh- water ponds or the individual 

 dunes. 



Another British Admiralty chart of Sable Island, dated 1770, ap- 

 peared as Chart 8 in Robert Sayer's North American Pilot of 1779. 

 These charts were drawn from original surveys by James Cook, Mi- 

 chael Lane, Surveyors, Joseph Gilbert, and other officers in the King's 

 Service, and they were engraved by Thomas Jeffreys, and printed by 

 R. Sayer and J. Bennett. Although this Sayer chart was, like the 

 Des Barres chart, an official British Admiralty chart and was pub- 

 lished in a volume of the same year as the second issue of the Des Bar- 

 res chart, and although there is no indication of the identity of the 

 surveyor of the Sayer chart, yet the two charts were undoubtedly 

 based on two distinct and independent surveys. The Sayer chart is 

 on the scale about 3 miles to the inch. The outline of the island is 

 the same flat crescent, like that shown by Des Barres, and the length 

 is " about 30 Miles, in Breadth across the Pond, Meadow and upland 

 a Mile;" but the details are quite different. There is no indication 

 of the height of the sand dunes, and the local place-names differ. The 

 opening from the salt lake through the North Ridge has been drifted 

 over and appears as a sand flat, marked, "The Place to Dig for a 

 Harbour. " Instead there is an opening through the South Beach at 

 the western end of the salt lake. The South Beach is shown with a 

 line of dunes running for six miles from the east end, then for the rest of 

 its length it is shown as a mere sand flat with a few remnants of dunes. 

 This chart lacks the detail of the location of the fresh-water ponds 

 and the numerous ridges of dunes such as appears on the Des Barres 

 chart. 



Superintendent James Morris, in 1801, estimated one hill at the 

 east end to be 200 feet high and others to be 150 feet high. 



Lieut. Burton, in 1808, made a survey of the island when it was pro- 

 posed to place a lighthouse there.. He reported the island to be 30 

 miles in length and 2 miles in breadth, with hills from 150 to 200 feet, 

 beginning at the west end, and attaining their greatest elevation at 

 Mount Knight, its eastern extremity. 



When, in 1802, the position for the main station was chosen, it was 

 one remarkably sheltered among the sand hills, 5 miles from the West 

 End. 



" In 1814 the Superintendent, Mr. Hudson, wrote the Government, 

 that owing to the rapid manner in which the island was being washed 



