NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 215 
J 
77. — On the Physiography of the South Branch 
Nepisiguit. 
Read December i, 1903. 
One of the least known of all the wilderness parts of New 
Brunswick is that drained by the South Branch Nepisiguit. This 
is because that stream is practically not navigable for canoes from 
its mouth, while it is extremely difficult of access from any other 
direction. In August last (1903), in company with my friend, 
Professor A. H. Pierce, I traversed this stream from its mouth 
to beyond Bald Mountain near its source. The observations, and 
some surveys then made, are recorded upon the accompanying 
map and in the notes below. 
The development of knowledge of the river may be briefly 
traced. It appears first upon the remarkable Franquelin-de 
Meulles map of 1686, with the name Attououik.^ It then vanishes 
from all records, until its mouth is located upon Peters’ Plan of 
the Nepisiguit of 1832, and in 1837 it was surveyed for some fif- 
teen miles by Berton, whose plan, with the addition of a few in- 
correctly located mountains, was first u^ed on a printed map by 
Wilkinson in 1859. This was followed by Loggie in 1884, with 
the addition of Bald and some 
neighboring mountains, taken 
from an incorrect plan of 1882 
by Freeze, who approached it 
from the south while surveying 
timber lines. A great improve- 
ment over this map was made 
in the Geological Survey map of 
1887 (or 1888), which embodied 
the observations of Ells, who was 
in this region in 1880, and despite 
its fanciful and erroneous hash- 
ure topography, this map has 
remained the best down to the 
present. 
*This map is in Trans. Royal Soc. Canada, III, 1897, ii, 364. On this map the Little 
South Branch appears as Kagout, or Kagoot. But as the Micmacs of to-day call the Main 
or Lower South Kagikqu, or as Rev. Father Pacifique writes me Gagigo ; as Rand 
would write it, and the Little South Branch, Paatkunok, as Father Pacifique 
gives it Patganog; Paatkunok, as Rand would write it, I infer that deMeulles has accident- 
ally transposed these name«. Since the Micmac name of this river ought to be preserved, 
and since the very numerous Bald Mountains of the Province ought to be given at least 
alternative names. I propose that the Micmac name of the South Branch, in its ancient and 
simple form used by deMeulles, Kagoot, be applied to this mountain. 
