BOUNDARIES OF TERRITORIAL ACQUISI- 

 TIONS 



THE Report of "a conference upon 

 the boundaries of the successive 

 acquisitions of territor}' b}' the 

 XTnited States ' ' has been published by 

 the Census Bureau.* The conference 

 was appointed, at the request of the 

 Census Oi^ce, as an advisory commit- 

 tee, in the hope that certain discrepan- 

 cies between different branches of the 

 Government might be harmonized. The 

 main conclusions of the conference are 

 summarized bj^ the chairman, Walter F. 

 AVilcox, as follows : 



" I. The region between the Missis- 

 sippi River and Lakes Maurepas and 

 Pontchartrain to the west and the Per- 

 dido River to the east should not be as- 

 signed either to the Louisiana Purchase 

 or to the Plorida Purchase, but marked 

 with a legend indicating that title to it 

 l3etween 1803 and 181 9 was in dispute. 



" 2 . The line between the Mississippi 

 River and the Lake of the Woods, sep- 

 arating the territor}' of the United States 

 prior to 1803 from the Louisiana Pur- 

 chase, should be drawn from the most 

 northwestern point of the Lake of the 

 Woods to the nearest point on the Mis- 

 sissippi River, in Lake Bemidji. 



"3. The western boundary of the 

 Louisiana Purchase between 49° and 42° 

 north followed the watershed of the 

 Rocky Mountains ; thence it ran east 

 along the parallel of 42° north to a point 

 due north of the source of the Arkansas 

 River, and thence south to that source. 



"4. The northwestern boundar}' of 

 Texas as annexed extended up the prin- 

 cipal stream of the Rio Grande to its 

 source and thence due north to the par- 

 allel of 4>° north. 



"5. The southern boundary of the 

 Mexican Cession of 1848 should be 

 drawn from a point on the Rio Grande 



* Census Bulletin No. 74. 



eight miles north of Paso, instead of from 

 one about 30 miles farther north, as is 

 the usual practice at present, west three 

 degrees, and thence north to the fir.st 

 branch of the Gila River." 



The conference report was signed by 

 Walter F. Wilcox, representing the Cen- 

 sus Office ; Andrew H. Allen, repre- 

 senting the Department of State ; O. H. 

 Tittmann, representing the Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey ; Henry Gannett, rep- 

 resenting the Geological Survey, and 

 P. Lee Phillips, representing the Library 

 of Congress. The findings of the con- 

 ference have no official standing, but are 

 entitled to great weight, owing to the 

 distinguished names signing the report. 



The territorial acquisitions concerning 

 the boundaries of which discrepancies 

 had been noted were considered by the 

 conference in chronological order. 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 



The Louisiana Purchase was thus 

 first considered, and the situation dis- 

 covered was, briefly, that the territory 

 came into the possession of the United 

 States through the Treat)' of 1 803 with 

 France, having the same extent as when 

 ceded by France to Spain in 1763, and 

 as when retroceded to France by Spain 

 by the Treaty of San Ildefonso, of Octo- 

 ber I, 1800. To ascertain the extent 

 of this territory eastward, the confer- 

 ence examined the several well-known 

 authorities upon the earh' history of 

 Louisiana — Marbois, Ellicott, Gaj'arre, 

 Darby, Stoddard, and others ; the trea- 

 ties involved ; letters of Monroe, Jeffer- 

 son, and Talleyrand ; certain maps ; the 

 text of the grant toCrozat by Louis XIV, 

 in 1 7 1 2 ; the presentation of the case by 

 the Commissioner of the General Land 

 Office in hisvolume entitled ' ' TheLouis- 

 iana Purchase ; " etc. This examina- 



