Page:Alaskan boundary tribunal (IA alaskanboundaryt01unit).pdf/118

 He tnnnifestly looked at the map and saw the mountains proposed by Russia which wonld be reached by a line that would follow Portland Channel up to the monntains whieh border the coast, ‘and thence would proceed as far us 139- longitude.” He made no objee- tion to the purticular mountains clearly indicated. ut in his amended proposal ignored the suggestion “of Russia as to the mountains and proposed to run the line parallel with the sinuosities of the coast, and always at a distance of ten oiarine leagtes frou: the shore.” In their observations wpon his amended proposal, the Russian pleni- potentiaries set forth distinctly their reasons for a mountain boundary as follows:

The motive which caused the adoption of the principle of niutual expediency to he proposed, and the moet important advantage of this principle, is to prevent the respective establishments on the northwest coast from injuring each other and entering into collision. .

The Enelish establishments of the Hudson's Bay aml Northweet companies bave a tendency to advance westward along the 43° and 4° of north latitude.

The Russian establizhinents of the American Company have a tendency to descend southward toward the fifty-fifth parallel and beyond, for it shoult le noted that, if the American Company has not vet nade permanent establishments on the mathe- matical line of the fifty-tifth degree, it is nevertheless true that, by virtue of its priy- lege of 1799, against which privilege no power has ever protested, it is exploiting the hunting and the fishing in these regions. saul that it regularly occupies the islands andl the neighboring coasts during the season whieh allows it to send its hunters and fishermen there,

Tt was, then, to the mutual ndvantage of the two Empires to assign just limite to this advance on both sides, which, in time, could not fail to euse most unfortunate complications,

ft waz also to their mutual advantage to fix these limits according to natural partitions, which always constitute the most distinet and certain frontiers.

Por these reasons the plenipotentiaries of Russia have proposed as limits apon the coast of the continent, to the south, Portland Channel, the head of whieh lies about (par) the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, and to the east the chain of mountains which follows ata very short distance the sinuosities of the coast.

Thus they wanted a natural partition, and distinct and certain frontiers, For this reason they proposed Portlhiid Channel, a body of water doubtless supposed to be stufliciently certain, whose head was known to end about the 56°, as the limit to the south (using the term ina general sense and not to give the direction with exactness), and