Geographic Notes 



83 



THE BRAZIL-FRENCH GUIANA 

 BOUNDARY DECISION. 



BY the award of the Swiss Federal 

 Council, the arbitrators in the dis- 

 pute as to the frontier line between 

 Brazil and French Guiana, Brazil has 

 obtained the main points for which 

 she contended. Brazil obtains 147,000 

 square miles of the disputed tenitory 

 and France not more than 3,000 square 

 miles. The dispute dates back to 16SS, 

 when France claimed to the Araguary 

 River, which is parallel to the Amazon 

 The boundary as determined by the 

 award is the River Oyapoc and, from 

 the head source of this river to the fron- 

 tier of Dutch Guiana, the line of the 

 Tumuck-Humack range. 



The decision of the Federal Council 

 of Switzerland is a follows: 



" I. That the Japoc or Vincente Pin- 

 5on of article 8 of the Treaty of Utrecht 

 is the Oyapoc that debouches to the 

 -West of Cape Orange, as has been estab- 

 lished b3^ the documents which Brazil 

 has submitted to the tribunal, and that 

 the thalweg of that river, from its mouth 

 to its source, definitively constitutes the 

 first of the frontier lines between Brazil 

 and French Guiana. 



"2. That the other frontier line, 

 from the source of the Oxapoc to the 

 point of junction with the Dutch terri- 

 tory, will be that which article 2 of the 

 treaty of arbitration indicated as an in- 

 termediate solution — that is to .say, the 

 line of division of the waters in the 

 Tumuc-Humac Mountains, forming the 

 northern limit of the Amazon basin." 



arctic commerce. Although north of 

 the arctic circle, it is free of ice the year 

 round, as it is reached b}^ an offshoot of 

 the Gulf Stream. 



A dam nearly 500 feet in length has 

 been built to protect the harbor, which 

 is deep enough for the largest ships. 

 The town has now some 250 inhabit- 

 ants, mostly officers and laborers, boasts 

 50 houses, a hotel, and several shops, 

 and is lit by incandescent and arc lamps. 

 The government does not expect the 

 town to grow much larger, but it serves 

 as an outlet for the trade of inland 

 northern Russia, and is a clearing point 

 for the considerable traffic of hides 

 that come down the Obi and Yenisei 

 Rivers. 



A CORRECTION. 



MR. LITTLEHALES has called 

 attention to an erroneous state- 

 ment in the note appearing in the Jan- 

 uary number of this Magazine, entitled 

 ' ' The Principles Underlying the Survey 

 of the Bottom of the Ocean for an All- 

 American Trans-Pacific Cable to the 

 Philippines and the Orient." The cor- 

 rect equation to the curve which, by 

 revolution around a vertical axis, would 

 generate the theoretical form of an iso- 

 lated submarine peak in which the crush- 

 ing strength at any cross-section is equal 

 to the combined weight of the portion of 

 the formation above that section and of 

 the .superincumbent body of water is 



s 



ALEXANDROWSK. 



AEEXANDROWSK,the httle arctic 

 harbor built by the Russian Govern- 

 ment on the Murraan coast two years 

 ago, is becoming a modest center of 



in which ; represents the base of Na- 

 perian logarithms, /c the coefficient of 

 crushing strength of the materials com- 

 posing the crust of the earth, the aver- 

 age density of these materials, and S' the 

 density of sea water. 



