42 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Passchendaele, and the breaking of the 

 Queant-Drocourt line, these men have 

 indeed "stood a wall of fire around their 

 much-loved isle." 



And when the victorious Canadians 

 marched into Mons in the dawn of that 

 historic November morning, it was the 

 pipers of that most Cape Breton of all 

 units, the 85th Nova Scotia Highlanders, 

 that skirled on ahead to "Bonny Blue 

 Bonnets Are Over the Border." 



But Cape Breton's army was not ex- 

 clusively Gaelic in its personnel. There 

 are English and Irish and Welsh and 

 Lowland Scottish names — men from the 

 mining districts* and French Acadians 

 from the settlements of the West Coast 

 and Richmond County, where the French 

 of Louis XIV is still spoken. These 

 were some of the men who took back to 

 France the folk-songs brought over the 

 seas by their ancestors two and three 

 centuries ago. 



Sometimes, as they passed singing 

 through the French villages, old inhabit- 

 ants came out to hear almost forgotten 

 "chansons" of their youth on the lips of 

 these kinsmen from overseas. 



There were Cape Breton medical offi- 

 cers and nursing sisters on every front, 

 whether serving with Canadian, or Im- 

 perial, or American units. And back of 

 this record of active service stood the 

 people of the island. 



It is not too much to say that Canada's 

 output of munitions was dependent upon 

 Cape Breton steel and Cape Breton coal 

 which means Cape Breton workmen. In 

 the little city of Sydney and the county 

 of which it is the shire-town, the sum of 

 $12,000,000 was subscribed in one year 

 for war needs ; and this from a popula- 

 tion of less than 100,000, none of them 

 citizens of great wealth. 



And as great as these contributions, 

 which can be reckoned in dollars, were 

 the untiring efforts of Cape Breton 

 women to provide for every need of the 

 men overseas. In town and village and 

 in the remotest country districts alike 

 there were mothers, and wives and 



* It is said that the mining town of New 

 Waterford sent more men overseas in propor- 

 tion to its population than any other town in 

 the British Empire. 



daughters, and sisters of Cape Breton 

 soldiers spinning and knitting for their 

 comfort — and waiting, too often in vain, 

 for their return. 



cape breton's wealth in coal 



Commercially, Cape Breton is best 

 known for the wealth of her enormous 

 coal deposits and for her growing steel 

 industry. The first regular mining of 

 Cape Breton coal appears to have been 

 for the supply of the fortress of Louis- 

 burg, though there is earlier mention of 

 its use, and in a report to the British 

 Admiralty in 171 1 Admiral Walker says: 



"The island has always in time of 

 peace been used in common, both by the 

 English and the French, for loading 

 coals, which are extraordinarily good 

 here, and taken out of the cliffs with iron 

 bars only and no other labour." 



As fuel, it continues to be "extraor- 

 dinarily good," and in 1918 the island's 

 production was 4,585,110 net tons. 



There are three distinct coal fields, — 

 the Sydney, the Inverness, and the Rich- 

 mond — the importance of the first over- 

 shadowing the others, though in them- 

 selves of considerable value. The Syd- 

 ney field, with its estimated deposit of 

 one thousand million tons (exclusive of 

 seams less than four feet thick), is prob- 

 ably the most valuable in the Dominion. 



The land area of this field forms 

 merely the southern extremity of a vast 

 deposit extending far out under the At- 

 lantic — submarine areas that are already 

 being worked two miles from shore. 



The value of these coal areas is en- 

 hanced twofold by the shipping advan- 

 tages of Sydney and Louisburg harbors 

 and it is significant that these ports are 

 nearer not only to European and African 

 markets, but, by reason of the island's 

 easterly projection, nearer to those of 

 South America than any other ports on 

 the North Atlantic seaboard (see map, 

 page 35). _ 



The shipping of Louisburg and Syd- 

 ney is within shorter sailing distance of 

 Rio de Janeiro than that of New Orleans. 



THE ONLY "COAL AT TIDE-WATER" 



Cape Breton coal is of the bituminous 

 variety, especially useful in the manufac- 



