APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 601 
in the waters of Behring’s Sea.” It will be seen, therefore, that the 
Senate declined to compromise itself by any such declaration as was 
proposed by the House of Representatives. 
This is not surprising, considering the politico-physical geography 
of Behring’s Sea. An eminent American jurist, President Angell, in 
an article in the “‘ Forum” of November 1889, demonstrates with oreat 
force the fallacy of treating that sea as mare ’elausum. He points out 
that it measures 1,100 miles from east to west, and 800 miles from north 
to south, and that its area is more than twice that of the North Sea, 
and at least two-thirds as great as the Mediterranean. As regards its 
entrances, he remarks that it is open to the north by the straits, 36 
miles wide, which form a passageway to the Arctic Ocean; and to the 
south by more than 300 miles of sea intervening between the most 
westerly island of Alaska and the Asiatie shore. 
Another eminent American jurist, Professor Rayner, writing in the 
same sense to the “New York Hvening Post” of the 27th June, 1889, 
observes that the narrowest of the channels between the western 
extremity of the Aleutian belt of islands belonging to the United 
States and the Russian territory of Kamtchatka ‘‘ would admit of a 
fleet of 100 vessels sailing abreast in a single line, even if deployed 
with a quarter of a mile between each two vessels.” 
But even if Behring’s Sea were “land-locked” within the meaning 
of a close sea, tlhe severance in the unity of territorial possession which 
took place in 1867 by the cession of Alaska to the United States 
deprived it at once of one of the indispensable conditions of a “close 
sea.” 
Russia, by the Ukase of 1821, undoubtedly claimed that part of the 
Pacific Ocean as mare clausum, although she did not attempt to exclude 
foreign vessels entirely from it. As explained by M. Poletica, in his 
note to Mr. Adams of the 28th February, 1822, Russia, while claiming 
the right to do so, preferred only asserting her “essential rights” by 
prohibiting foreign vessels from approaching the coasts or islands 
within less than 100 Italian miles. It is clear, therefore, that Russia 
based her right to impose this lesser restriction on foreign vessels upon 
the larger right of total exclusion under the doctrine of mare clausum., 
tft correctly understand the contention of the United States Gov- 
ernment, it is this: 
They are willing to discard the doctrine of mare clausum as applied 
to Behring’s Sea, but they insist on the more limited right claimed by 
Russia to exercise jurisdiction over foreign vessels within 100 miles of 
the coasts and islands. Itis obvious, however, that the Russian claim 
of jurisdiction within 100 miles disappeared with the larger claim of 
mare clausum from which it was derived, and that it cannot now be 
revived with any semblance of right, and for any purpose whatever. 
Such an appropriation of open sea, to use the language of Dr. Dana (7th 
edition of Wheaton, note to paragraph 187), “however long acquiesced 
in, is inadmissible in the nature of things. Whatever may be the evi- 
dence of the time or nature of the use, it is set aside as a bad usage 
which no evidence can make legal.” 
Hitherto the credit has been ascribed to the United States of having 
been the first nation to vindicate the freedom of the sea in respect of 
this very portion of the Pacific Ocean by the vigorous protest of Mr. 
J. Q. Adams against the whole of the claims, maritime wand territorial, 
asserted by the Emperor Alexander I in his ‘famous Ukase of 1821. 
I think it will be a matter of general surprise to learn that, in the 
view of the United States Government, that protest was not intended 
