VENEZUELA AND AFTER 327 



where the mountains should prove to be more 

 than ten leagues from the ocean, the line should 

 run parallel to the coast at a distance of ten 

 leagues from it. Mountains such as the treaties 

 called for, the Americans could not find; Cana 

 dian geographers found them in adequate abun 

 dance and very near to the ocean. As to the 

 &quot;coast&quot; from which the ten leagues were to 

 be measured, the difference of opinion was no 

 less marked. To the Americans the term 

 meant continental land, with all the sinuosi 

 ties and indentations with which the region 

 abounded, so that the boundary should never 

 come within thirty miles of tide-water; to the 

 Canadians the coast-line was a wholly different 

 thing, to be run by the general trend of the 

 land, and to be determined on occasion by the 

 headlands of inlets, or by offshore islands, so 

 that the boundary would often cross consid 

 erable stretches of tide-water. 



There was no concealment of the practical 

 issue that lay behind the technical contentions 

 of the two parties. The American position 

 excluded Canada absolutely from contact with 

 the ocean anywhere on the Pacific coast north 

 of the southernmost point of Alaska; the 

 Canadian claim insured to Canada a seaport on 



