he
flood by removing a small obstruction [portage][31] less than an
eighth of a league wide; this would certainly prevent the inundations,
dry up the lands and render cultivation practicable."

[31] It would be interesting to know the exact location of the
"portage" referred to above. Was it the rocky neck between
Marble Cove at Indiantown and the Straight Shore? Or was it
the comparatively slight obstruction at Drury's Cove that
prevents the river finding an outlet by way of the Marsh Creek
into Courtenay Bay? See on this head Dr. George F. Matthew's
interesting paper on "The Outlets of the St. John River:" Nat.
Hist. Society bulletin No. xii., p. 42.

A bill was once introduced into the House of Assembly for the purpose
of enabling the promoters to remove, by blasting, the rocks that
obstruct the mouth of the river and thus allow the waters to flow more
freely. It was claimed that many benefits would follow, chiefly that
the lumbermen would be able to get their logs and deals to market more
expeditiously and at less cost, and that the farmers, of Maugerville,
Grand Falls and Sheffield would be saved the serious inconveniences
occasioned by the annual freshet. However, popular sentiment was
strongly opposed to the project. People speedily realized that not
only would the beauty of the river be destroyed but that navigation
would be rendered precarious and uncertain. The project, in fact,
would have changed our noble St. John into a tidal river, unsightly
mud flats alternating with rushing currents of turbid waters, while so
far as protection of the low-lying lands goes the remedy would in all
probability have proved worse than the disease, for instead of an
annual inundation there would have been an inundation at every high
tide. Moreover the harbor at St. John would have been ruined. There
can be no secure harbor at the mouth of a great tidal river where
swirling tides pour in and out twice in the course of every
twenty-four hours.

Cadillac mentions the convenient route to Quebec via the River St.
John. The Indians had used it from time immemorial and the French
followed their example, as at a later period did the English. The
missionaries Le Loutre and de L'Isle-Dieu in the statement prepared by
them in 1753, already mentioned, say:--

"It is very easy to maintain communication with Quebec, winter and
summer alike, by the River St. John, and the rou