THE PORT OF BREST 



china arranged in squares and circles showed 

 the former presence of children. Above the 

 narrow shelf close to the beach on which the 

 houses were built was a terrace, and about a 

 hundred and fifty feet higher another terrace, 

 while on either side still higher were others ; all 

 bore the familiar earmarks of raised beaches. I 

 regret that I had no means of measuring their 

 exact heights. 



Old Fort was the ancient Port of Brest. This 

 is clearly proved and set forth in detail by 

 W. C. Gosling in his valuable work on Labra- 

 dor. The port was founded at the beginning 

 of the sixteenth century by the hardy Breton 

 and Basque fishermen, probably before Jacques 

 Cartier's arrival in 1534. Audubon's friend 

 Samuel Robertson of Sparr Point, the grand- 

 father of my friend of the same name and place, 

 misled by a tradition that Brest was a city of 

 some size and importance, added much con- 

 fusion to the subject by locating the port at 

 Bradore Bay. He described in the "Proceed- 

 ings of the Literary and Historical Society of 

 Quebec" for February, 1843, what he be- 

 lieved to be the. remains of a city of some two 

 h,undred houses or a thousand inhabitants that 

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