APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 289 
than ours is, for that gulf, insignificant in extent compared with Behring’s Sea, is 
actually inclosed by B ritish territory, and has only three channels of communication 
with the Atlantic! 
260 There is a story of a naval captain who, on being overhauled by his superiors 
for not returning a salute fired in honour of his flag, replied that he hada 
whole number of good 1 reasons for the omission, to wit: firstly, having no powder, 
and who was thereupon immediately cut short by the remark, ‘That will do!” You 
may say the Attor ney of the United States himself has rested his case on the ground 
that Behring” s Sea is a landlocked and inland sea. The contrary has now been 
demonstrated ; consequently the matter is settled, and nobody cares to hear any 
more on so tedious a subject. 
But there are always plenty of good people in the world to whom that would not 
be conclusive by any means, and who can only be convinced by having every one of 
the other allegations, however hopelessly involved in the preceding, or however 
absurd or irrelevant in themselves, disproved separately and distinctly. ‘These alle- 
gations are, partly in express terms, partly by implication, that (1) Behring’s Sea and 
the Pacific Ocean are separate and different seas; (2) that Behring Sea is not a part of 
the Pacific, and Behring’s Sea was the only interior sea of the North American coast, 
and was held by Russia; (3) that Russia by the Treaties of 1824 and 1825 (with the 
United States and Great Britain respectively) abandoned her prior claim to jurisdic- 
tion over the Pacific, but did not surrender jurisdiction over Behring’s Sea, and that 
consequently such jurisdiction descended to the United States through the cession 
to us of all Russia’s rights by the Treaty of 1867. 
In support of these assertions, the ‘‘argument” asks triumphantly if there was a 
challenge of Russia’s jurisdic tion over Behring’ s Sea, why was it not settled in the 
Treaties? Why was a ten years’ limit of mutually free navigation in the interior 
seas, gulfs, harbours, and creeks of each other on the North American coast accepted 
by the United States and by Great Britain, if Behring’s Sea—declared by the argu- 
ment to be the only interior sea—was part of the Pacific or belonged to the high 
seas, and, therefore, free to all? Why was the term inland sea used? 
The answer to it all is the same as that to so many other conundrums—‘‘ The boy 
lied.” 
Behring’s Sea was and is a part of the Pacific. 
The terin Behring’s Sea was unknown at the time the Treaties of 1824 and 1825 
were made, and, therefore, was not, and could not be, used in them. When a dis- 
tinctive name was employed for that sea, they called it in those d: vys ‘‘The Sea of 
Kamtchatka”—the argument itself admits this by saving ‘‘formerly known as the 
Sea of Kamtchatka.” The term Behring’s Sea is absent not only from these Treaties 
but from all the prior diplomatic correspondence and from all contemporaneous 
writings. I could fill a page with the mere titles of the encyclopedias, gazetteers, 
and geographical reference books, &c., published up to 1825, and for many years after, 
in which I have looked, and looked i in vain, for Behring’s Sea. The name Beliring, in 
a variety of spellings, occurs in all, as that of a navigator, of a bay on our coast 
(but far to the east of Behring’s Sea), of an island, of a strait, but never, until long 
after 1825, as that of the sea, now so called. The present application of that name 
is of much more recent origin, and its general adoption has been gradual and slow; 
but that this separate name should or could divest this sea of its old quality of form. 
ing part of the Pacific Ocean is an idea unknown to the scientific world. Look into 
any old or modern reference book, under ‘‘ Behring’s Sea” and ‘‘ Pacific Ocean,” and 
you will always find the first defined as a part of the Pacific Ocean, and this as begin- 
ning at Behring’s Strait, thus including the first. I found but one exception to this, 
viz., the second edition of ‘““Appleton’s Encyclopedia,” (1873), which says that the 
Pacific is bounded on the north by the Aleutian Islands (Behring’s Sea not being 
properly oceanic in its character), and this is in contradiction to the definition of 
Behring’s Sea, in the same edition, that being said to be part of the Pacific. How- 
ever, the earliest edition of the same work (1858) makes the Pacific extend from Behr- 
ing’s Strait to the Antarctic circle, and it again proves my assertion. Our own early 
official Charts, viz., Pilot Charts of Lieutenant M. F. Maury, United States Navy 
(United States Hydrographic Office, 1850), sheets Nos. 2 and 3, series “A,” covering 
the present Behring’s Sea, are entitled “North Pacific;” the name Behring’s Sea 
does not occur in them; but on No. 2 the names of “Sea of Ochotsk” and “Sea of 
Sachalien” are given to those divisions of the Pacific. In the official documents and 
in the Congressional debates about giving aid to Perry McD. Collins (February 1862, 
et seq.) for his telegraph between Asia and America via Behring’s Straits, enacted the 
Ist July, 1864, Pacific Ocean is the term generally, if not exclusively, used when refer- 
ence is made to the sea now known as Behring’s. But to make assurance doubly 
sure, I applied for an opinion on the question to the most eminent livin g authority 
in matters geographical, Professor Dr. H. Supan, editor of “‘Petermann’s ; Mitteilun- 
gen,” who likewise says that all geographers consider Behring’s Sea a part of the 
Pacific. I can submit the correspondence if desired. 
BS, PL 19 
