THE NOiyrHWESTERX BOUNDARY - LINE. 213 



.Ijetween tliem in the same quarter by a line wliicL, 

 beginning in 54° 40' at the southernmost point of 

 Prince of Wales Island, was made to run obliquely to 

 strike the main-land at latitude 56°, and then to pro- 

 ceed parallel to the windings of the coast at the dis- 

 tance of not exceedino; ten marine leas^ues therefrom 

 alone the summit of the coast mountains to its inter- 

 section with the 141st degree of longitude at Mount 

 St.Elias, and thence due north along that meridian to 

 the Frozen Ocean. 



It has been too much the practice of British navi- 

 gators and British map-makers to affix English names 

 to j^laces previously visited and named by other 

 Europeans, and to found thereon claims of discov- 

 ery. English names are scattered along the coast of 

 Russian America, — such as Cook's Inlet, Prince Wil- 

 liam Sound, King George III. Archipelago, Prince 

 of Wales Archipelago; — but no British claims of 

 pi'ior exploration could prevail here against the 

 claims of possession as well as discovery presented 

 by Russia. 



In this treaty, each Government speaks as the pro- 

 prietor and sovereign of the respective territories ; 

 and it is this treaty which defines and marks out the 

 Territory of Alaska, as now held by the United States 

 under recent cession from Russia. 



In this condition stood the title for more than 

 twenty years: the United States claiming from the 

 latitude of 42° to that of 54° 40', in virtue, first, of 

 their own discoveries and settlement, and of the right 

 of the extension of Louisiana until it should reach the 



