igos.] OF THE ALASKA BOUNDARY. 87 



Hon. John W. Foster, the agent of the United States in this 

 important case, remarks in his report to Secretary Hay : 



"It is a noteworthy fact that this important adjudication was brought to 

 a close within less than eight months from the time when the treaty creating 

 the tribunal went into effect. Such a prompt result is almost without 

 parallel in the intercourse of nations." 



Equally prompt was the action of the governments in appointing 

 commissioners in accordance with a requirement of the convention 

 constituting the Tribunal. Within a few months, that is, in the 

 spring of 1904, the commissioners, Mr. W. F. King, on behalf of 

 the British Government, and your speaker, representing the United 

 States, began the delimitation of that part of the boundary which 

 had been in dispute. The commissioners were guided in their plans 

 by maps, accompanying the decision, on which the Tribunal had 

 marked certain mountain peaks as being the mountains contemplated 

 by the Treaty of 1825. 



It is the business of the commissioners to identify the peaks, to 

 establish their geographical position, to mark by visible monuments, 

 wherever possible, the turning points in the line and such other 

 points as may be necessary, and to describe and define the line 

 between the points selected by the Tribunal. There was a stretch 

 of about one hundred and twenty miles where the topographic infor- 

 mation was insufificient, and there the commissioners were directed 

 to make additional surveys and to select mountain peaks within cer- 

 tain prescribed limits to define the boundary. The commissioners 

 decided to mark at once certain river crossings and the mountain 

 passes and to connect all the boundary peaks by a continuous triangu- 

 lation based on the trigonometric datum adopted by the Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey for southeastern Alaska. 



The boundary line, starting from the neighborhood of Mt. St. 

 Elias, crosses that summit and other high peaks of the St. Elias 

 Alps and the Fairweather Range. In general, it lies amid perpetual 

 snow and ice except when it drops abruptly into the river valleys 

 only to rise again into regions of perpetual snow. Finally, it reaches 

 the head of Portland Canal and becomes a water boundary. 



In the four years since work was begun on this portion of the 

 boundary the commissioners have fixed trigonometrically all the peaks 



