344 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Naturally this report was not received with favour in the United 
States.! As one result it brought forth a remarkable document from 
the Legislature of Maine. It is a Report of the Joiat Committee of 
the Senate and House of Representatives of Maine, on the North- 
eastern Boundary, dated March 30, 1841, and signed by Charles 5. 
Daveis (Blue Book, 1843, 96.) It is upon the whole a calm, accurate, 
sometimes amusingly pathetic if not bathetic, presentation of the case 
of Maine, and its tone is in marked contrast with most of the Maine 
documents which had preceded it. No doubt it reflected a real change 
of opinion in that State, a change which the next year rendered the 
acceptance of the treaty possible. Another result of the Featherston- 
haugh and Mudge report was to determine the United States to have 
a survey made of the disputed territory upon their own account. 
These ea parte surveys by both nations were entirely proper and car- 
ried on in both cases with the greatest friendliness upon both sides. 
In July, 1840, Congress authorized the appointment of a commission 
for the purpose, and, as finally constituted it was composed of Messrs. 
Renwick, Graham and Talcott. They began work at once and for 
three successive seasons, aided by the best of instruments, prosecuted 
their surveys with the greatest skill and determination. The surveys 
made to the westward of the lines of New Brunswick do not directly 
concern us here. It is enough to say that they showed the highlands 
of Featherstonhaugh and Mudge had no real existence, but that the 
country where they were supposed to be found is in reality a great 
plateau country deeply cut by rivers, such a country as always appears 
mountainous when viewed by travellers on the rivers. This explains 
fully also the curious fact that these highlands are on both sides of the 
Aroostook. They found, however, a true range of highlands south of 
the St. Lawrence to the south-west of Lake Temiscouata, though to the 
eastward of that lake the country has a plateau character deeply cut by 
the rivers, but the termination of the north line is at an elevation of 
over 1,300 feet. The reports of this commission contain matter of the 
very greatest interest to our local history and geography, the more espe- 
cially since the surveyed lines were measured for altitude partly by spirit 
levels and partly by very careful barometric observations.? 

1 The more especially as Featherstonhaugh had formely been in the 
employ of the United States. Some very sarcastic remarks upon this phase 
of the subject are made by the Maine Joint Committee in 1841. (Blue-book, 
1843, 103). 
2 These Reports, three in number, appeared in U. S. House Executive 
Documents, 26th Congr., 2nd Sess., No. 102 (also in Blue-book, 1843, 54) : in 
27th Congr., 2nd Sess., No. 70, and in 27th Congr., 8rd Sess., No. 31. They are 
all reprinted in Vol. IV. of Richardson’s ‘‘ Messages and Papers of the Presi- | 
dents.” The fourth and final report of this admirable commission is promised 
