Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/263

Rh in a message to the senate, the President submitted this proposal, and asked the senate's previous advice. This was formally given in a resolution adopted June 12, by a vote of thirty-eight to ten, in which the senate advised the President to accept the proposal of the British government. A treaty based upon this proposal was concluded and signed on the fifteenth day of June by the representatives of the two powers. This treaty, on the following day, was laid before the senate by the President, for its approval, and three days later was confirmed without amendment. This convention provided for the extension of a line on the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, westward from the Rocky Mountains, to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly, through the middle of said channel, and of Fuca Straits, to the Pacific Ocean.

It was found by the commissioners appointed to determine a line in accordance with this convention that in one part of the strait there were two recognized channels, an easterly one, by the Straits of Rosario, and a westerly one, by the Canal De Haro. The commissioners failing to agree as to which of the channels was the channel contemplated by the treaty, the determination of this portion of the line was left in abe}^ance. It remained so until the year 1871, when the joint high commission appointed to adjust sundry differences between the two governments, met in Washington. By certain articles of a convention, concluded at this time it was agreed by the representatives of the two powers, to submit to the Emperor of Germany the question as to which of the two channels was the more in accordance with the treaty of June 15, 1846, the commissioners pledging their respective governments to accept his award as final. The Emperor of Germany submitted the question to three experts, Doctor Grimm, Doctor Goldschmidt, and Doctor Kiepert. In ac-