THE ROARING FORTIES 133 



pation of Oregon by one year s notice from either 

 government, Polk asked Congress for authority 

 to give the necessary notice. After debates 

 lasting all through the winter, the authority was 

 given, and Great Britain was duly notified in 

 April of 1846. Long before this date, however, 

 a way had been found for the resumption of 

 diplomatic discussion of the question. Polk 

 stiffly maintained his old position, but consented 

 to take the advice of the Senate on any propo 

 sal that should come from Great Britain. The 

 offer duly came of the forty-ninth parallel, re 

 serving to the British Vancouver Island and 

 the navigation of the Columbia River. On the 

 advice of the Senate Polk accepted this; the 

 treaty was signed June 15, 1846, and went into 

 effect in August. This happy outcome not only 

 ended a dangerous tension between the two 

 great English-speaking peoples, but by com 

 pleting a conventionally fixed boundary from 

 ocean to ocean, seemed to remove definitively 

 a prolific source of controversy. Unfortunately 

 a small fraction of the line at the ocean end 

 was defined in terms of geography rather than 

 astronomy, and thus a dispute was prepared 

 that was destined to carry the history of bound 

 ary troubles over another quarter of a century. 



