Page:Alaskan boundary tribunal (IA alaskanboundaryt01unit).pdf/123

 be drmwi between British aut Russian oceupaney on the northwest coast of America, and of the comparative inconvenience of admitting some relaxation in the fermis of your excelleney’= last tnstroctions, or of having the question between the two governments ansettled for an indetinite fime, is Majesty's Government lave resolved to authorize your excellency te consent to inelude the south point= of Prince of Wales Island within the Russian frontiers, amd te take as the tine af dlemareation, a line drown from the southernmost point of Prince of Wale I<landl from seath to north through Portland Channel, till it strikes the mainland in latitade 56; thence following the sinuasities of the coast, along the base of the mountains nearest the sea te Mount Elias, and thence atone the one hundred ani thirty-ninth degree of longitule te the Polar Sea.

The line is still to follow * the situosities of the coast” from where, drawn through Porthiud Channel. it strikes the muainhind in letituce Mi-. but ‘along the base of the mountains nearest the seu.” He does not speak of a mountain chain, but of mountains and the ‘base of the mountains nearest the sea.” If this means the mountains nenrest the ser und not the base nearest the sea. then these mountuins were not the chain referred to by Russia, They could not be. for Vancouver showed in his maps and his narrative that there were mountains to the seaward of this chain. The mountains were not to rin parallel to the coast. The line was to be drawn * following the sinttosities of the coast. along the base of the mouutains.” There is nothing to show that he ever intended to depart from the hitherto accepted meaning of the word coast. This line would. if be meant the mountains near- est the sea. have been drawn practically right at the coast. und all of the way around, and the lisiére wontd have been a mere fringe with no substantial footing. But he further says:

Tn fixing the course of the eastern Iximnidary of the strip of land te he occupied by Russia on the woast, the seaward base of the mountains is a=stnieel as that tinit, bot we hove experience thet other monntains on the other side of the American conti- nent, Which have been assumed in Joriner treaties as lines of Ioundary, ave tiecor- rectly laid down in the maps, and this inaveuracy has given vise to very trowblesaine disenssions. It is, therefore, necessury that sine other security should be taken that the line of demarcation te be drawn parallel with the coast, a= far ax Mount St, Elias, ix not carried 100 far inland.

This is done by a proviso that that line shoutd in ne ease (4 6, notin that of the mountains, which appear ly the map almost te border the coast, trrning ont to be far removed frot it}, he carried farther to the eaet than a specified nimbier of leaves from the sea. The utmost extent which His Majesty's Governmeut woull je «is- poset to conecde woukt be a distanve of ten leagues, but it woold be desirable if your excelleney were enabled to obtain a still more narrow limitation.