FUR-SEAL FISHEEIES OF ALASKA. 151 



also stipulates with us that she will form no establisbmeuts on the 

 northwest coast south of latitude 54^ N., yet her title to the Aleu- 

 tian chain, extending- way below that point, as far south as 51° N. 

 latitude, is not disputed or invalidated. 



Thus the reader observes that the Russians held everything against 

 us that they claimed in 1821 except the extension of their landed ter- 

 ritory on the northwest coast from 54^ 40' down to 51° N. latitude, 

 and their assumption of control over the "great ocean," "commonly 

 called the Pacific Ocean or South Sea." These two points they surren- 

 dered, and them only, in their treaty with us of 1824. 



In the Russian treaty with Great Britain (February, 1825), which 

 quickly followed ours, Ave notice that the Slavonian terms of settlement 

 are much more binding than upon us. The English are tied down firmly 

 to that strip of the northwest coast which extends up from the foot of 

 Prince of Wales Island to the base of Mount St. Elias. To the westward 

 of 141° of west longitude they are not permitted by articles 3 and 4 

 to go. But Sitka is made a free port of entry to the British, and the 

 right to them is granted of navigating "forever," free and unmolested, 

 those rivers which take their rise in British soil and flow down to the 

 Pacific through that "SO-mile" strip between Mount St. Ellas and the 

 southern extremity of Prince of Wales Island. These streams are 

 the Stickeen the Tahko, and the Chilkaht Rivers. The first named is 

 the only navigable one.* In this treaty the British, like the Americans, 

 make no objection to the reservation of the Aleutian Islands and the 

 Kamchatkan (Bering) Sea, which Russia secured by it. 



Therefore, in the bright light of this unquestioned authority of Russia 

 over the waters of Bering Sea from 1745 up to the hour of its partial 

 cession to us in 1867, the Government of that empire drew in explicit 

 terms a fine line of pelagic i)artitiou — that division of these waters which 

 stands upon our maps to-day of Alaska officially recorded as the " west- 

 ern boundary of the United States." It is the lawful line of separa- 

 tion between the Siberian-Kamchatkan shores of Russia and ours of 

 Alaska ; without its binding legality we would have no title to the isl- 

 ands in Bering Sea or those of the Aleutian chain. 



We turn to that treaty of cession, our deed of Alaska from Russia, and 

 we find that this pelagic boundary runs through Bering Sea in a south- 

 westerly direction from its initial point in Bering Strait to a point mid- 

 way between the extreme western island of the Aleutian chain, Attoo, 

 and Copper Island of the Commander group of Kamchatka, t We ac- 

 cepted that i>artition of Bering Sea as a matter of course ; for when this 

 treaty of 1867 was under discussion in the Senate, Senator Sumner said, 

 speaking then of the western boundary of our new territory to be pur- 

 chased : 



Starting^ from the frozen ocean, the western boundary descends Beriuo- Straits 

 midway between the two islands of Kruseustern and Katmanov to the parallel of 65^ 

 '.W, jnst below where the continents of America and Asia approach each other the 

 nearest ; and from this point it proceeds in a course nearly southwest through Bering 

 Straits, midway between the island of St. Lawrence and Cape Choukotski, to the 

 meridian of 172° west longitude, and thence, in a southwesterly direction, travers- 

 ing Bering Sea midway between the island of Attoo on the east and Copper Island on 

 the west, to the meridian of 173*^ east longitude, leaving the prolonged group of the 

 Aleutian Islands in the possessions now transferred to the United States, and making 

 the western boundary of our country the dividing line which separates Asia from 

 America, t 



'Several writers, in touching upon this subject, have hastily assumed that the Yu- 

 kon River came within the scope of this permit. The least study will dispel such 

 an error. 



f Article I. Treaty of cession, ia(i7. 



tEx. Doc. No. 177, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 125. 



