



THE FUR-SEALS AND THE BERING SEA AWARD 



BY treaty of March 30, 1867, in consideration of the sum 

 of 17,200,000, Russia ceded to the United States all her pos- 

 sessions in North America. These included the present ter- 

 ritory of Alaska, the Aleutian chain, and some isolated 

 groups of islands in the Bering Sea. The western boun- 

 dary of the territory so transferred to the United States was 

 described in the first article of the treaty as follows: 



The western limit within which the territories and dominion 

 conveyed, are contained, passes through a point in Bering's 

 Straits on the parallel of sixty-five degrees thirty minutes north 

 latitude, at its intersection by the meridian which passes midway 

 between the islands of Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of 

 Ratmanoff, or Noonarbook, and proceeds due north, without limi- 

 tation, into the same Frozen Ocean. The same western limit, be- 

 ginning at the same initial point, proceeds thence in a course 

 nearly southwest, through Behring's Straits and Behring's Sea, so 

 as to pass midway between the northwest point of the island of 

 St. Lawrence and the southeast point of Cape Choukotski,. to the 

 meridian of one hundred and seventy -two west longitude ; thence, 

 from the intersection of that meridian, in a southwesterly di- 

 rection, so as to pass midway between the island of Attou and 

 the Copper island of the Komondorski couplet or group, in the 

 North Pacific Ocean, to the meridian of one hundred and ninety- 

 three degrees west longitude, so as to include in the territory con- 

 veyed the whole of the Aleutian Islands east of that meridian. 



An unusual example was here presented of a divisional 

 line between two empires passing almost midway through a 

 great ocean. The boundary in question marks the western 



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