89

Soil Drainage

Poor 3 Well drained I Locke Road soil

FIGURE 4. The conjectured route of Robert Gray’s journey across Lot 13 in 1793.

The land journey began at what was later to be the site of the village of Tyne Valley. The ‘excellent land’ under hardwoods must have been along the ridge of well-drained land north of the Trout River. The two wet swamps would have lain in the area to the west: the “spruce fir swamp" under the poorly-drained soils shown in the above map, just to the west of the old railway line; the “ash swamp” very likely in the area occupied by the ‘Locke Road soil series’ shown above. (According to MacDougall et al. (1988) (Soils of Prince Edward Island ), Locke Road soils support a comparatively rich type of wet woodland with a high proportion of broad-Ieaved species.) From Gray’s description and his map it would appear that he reached the west coast at the Barachois Run. (The 'M’ and 'N' above, along the western shore, are from his map, while the township boundary lines in the above map are those of the present day.) (For a more extensive discussion, see my article ‘Ajourney across Lot 13 in 1793’ in The Island Magazine, 42: 25-34 (1997), especially pages 33-34 where I discuss the route, as well as a further letter from me on the matter in The Island Magazine, 44

(1998). The soil drainage classes shown in the above figure are from MacDougall et al. (1988).