DESPATCHES, EEPOETS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 813 



pemdages of the coast on which they border, and from which, indeed, 

 they are formed." 



It thus appears that from the outer coast line of a maritime state, 

 as defined in physical geography, is invariably measured under inter- 

 national law, the limit of that zone of territorial water generally 

 known as the marine league. The boundary of Alaska, that is, the 

 exterior boundary from which the marine league is measured, runs 

 along the outer edge of the Alaskan or Alexander Archipelago, em- 

 bracing a group composed of hundreds of islands. When " measured 

 in a straight line from headland to headland " at their entrances, 

 Chatham Strait, Cross Sound, Sumner Strait and Clarence Strait, by 

 which this exterior coast line is pierced, measure less than ten miles. 

 That fact, according to the authorities quoted in the British Counter 

 Case, pp. 2428, place them within the category of territorial waters. 

 All of the interior waters touching upon the lisiere, such as Behm 

 Canal, Taku Inlet and Lynn Canal are, in the language of Hall, 

 " lakes enclosed within the territory," and as such are territorial 

 waters, regardless of their width at their entrances when measured 

 from headland to headland. 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE COAST LINE OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY FOR THE 

 PURPOSES OF BOUNDARY, AND THE POLITICAL COAST LINE, FOR THE PUR- 

 POSES OF JURISDICTION. 



Physical geography simply reproduces the actual coast lines of 

 maritime states, as they are defined by nature at the point of contact 

 of the sea with the land. The following description of the coast of 

 Maine, from an eminent geographical authority, may be taken as an 

 apt illustration : 



On the Atlantic coast Maine presents an uninterrupted succession of penin- 

 sulas, islands, and bays; and all these bays are the mouths of rivers outlets 

 of valleys having their origin far in the interior. Nothing similar is seen on all 

 the territory of the Union. One must come to Norway or go to the extreme 

 point of South America to find so long a part of the coast 400 kilometers in a 

 straight line from the southwest to the northeast so deeply cut up that we 

 measure on it more than 4,000 kilometers of contact with the deep sea. All 

 these bays of Maine are also fiords, but spacious, and which in spite of their 

 equally rocky banks, of comparatively little elevation, receive the morning and 

 afternoon sun, as well as that of noon, and open to mariners more ports, more 

 anchorages and safe shelters than all the other coasts upon the three seas of 

 the Union. 



It thus appears that the actual coast line of Maine, as known to 

 physical geography, following as it must the sinuosities defined by 

 the contact of the sea with the land, is about 4,000 kilometers, while 

 the political coast line superimposed upon it by operation of inter- 

 national law, is vastly shorter by reason of the fact that the artificial 

 and imaginary line cuts across the heads of bays and inlets. The 

 natural coast line, as known to physical geography, exists primarily 

 for the purposes of boundary. The artificial coast line, as known to 

 international law, exists only for the purposes of jurisdiction. That 

 obvious distinction is well illustrated by Rivier in his /V/Vv/>r.v <1 n 

 Droit des Gens. Speaking of " La mer littorale" he says : " The 

 name territorial sea is applied to all the seas or portions of the sea 



See Maine, in Nouveau Dictionnaire de Geographic uniferseUe, Saint Martin, 

 vol. iii, p. 559. 



