NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 435 
The development of our knowledge of the river is easily 
traced. It makes a first appearance in records on the remark- 
able Franquelin-de Meulles map of 1686, under its Indian name 
Cheminpy, where it appears well drawn, with the Indian names, 
now extinct, of the branches, and the portage to Richibucto. 
It persists thereafter on a great many maps through the French 
period, with its name often misspelled to Chiamaristi, etc. On 
the English maps it is barely indicated down to the fine large 
map of the Province by Bonnor of 1820, where it is well sketched 
through most of its length; while on Lockwood’s map of the 
Province, of 1825, it is shown with considerable accuracy, 
evidently from survey. The origin of this survey, however, 
I do not know, since no plan of a date so old exists in the Crown 
Land Office. The lower part of the river was accurately sur- 
veyed in 1832 by S. MacDonald, while our maps of the upper 
parts are based upon Layton’s good survey of 1836 (made in 
connection with a proposed line of railway from Richibucto to 
Grand Lake), of which a copy is also in the Crown Land Office, 
with a published reduction thereof. Subsequently, additions 
have been made from various timber line surveys and other 
sources, though our maps are still far from complete. 
The geology of the river was first studied by Gesner, with 
results contained in his well-known Third and Fourth Reports 
on the Geology of the Province. Gesner described the very 
simple geological formation of its basin so fully and accurately 
that nothing has since been added thereto, although various 
scattered references occur in later Reports, chiefly in connection 
with boring, and other operations, for coal on its lowermost 
part, and in description of some of its glacial phenomena. The 
river is well settled along its lower course, partly by expansion 
from the earliest English settlements of the province, and partly 
by the descendants of later immigrants from Great Britain 
and Ireland, while some scattered settlement exists towards 
the Richibucto portage. But as in all of our New Brunswick 
smaller rivers, the settlement is contracting in extent while 
