July 19, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



79 



SPECIAL AIITICLES 



AKOTHER WORD ABOUT THE NORTHERN 

 BOUNDARY OF MINNESOTA 



In examining a series of old maps of the 

 "Hill records" of the Minnesota Historical 

 Society, new light has been thrown on the 

 northern boundary of Minnesota, as it was 

 first proposed by the commissioners of the 

 United States and Great Britain. 



The first use of the term "most north- 

 western point of the Lake of the Woods " was 

 in the proposed articles of a treaty of peace 

 between the United States and Great Britain, 

 November 25, 1782. The definition and the 

 proposition came from Mr. Oswald, the British 

 commissioner, who was in Paris in conference 

 with the American Plenipotentiaries. It was 

 adopted only five days later in the provisional 

 articles of peace as signed and finally approved 

 by both governments. It is the conclusion of 

 that part of the section which defines the 

 boundary line from Lake Superior to the Lake 

 of the Woods. Mr. A. J. Hill has exhaustively 

 discussed the complicated question which was 

 raised by the attempt to extend the boundary 

 " thence on a due west course to the river 

 Mississippi " : this interesting and long-drawn 

 discussion, with the various phases of diplo- 

 macy which the error in the treaty entailed, is 

 published in the appendix of Vol. VII. of the 

 Collections of the Minnesota Historical So- 

 ciety. Mr. Hill also gives the steps taken by 

 the two governments to determine the exact 

 location of that point, but records his belief 

 that the place contemplated by the treaty of 

 1783 was at the outlet of the Lake of the 

 Woods, that is, at Eat Portage. This belief 

 he based on the shape of the lake as repre- 

 sented on the " Mitchell map " used by the 

 joint commission when they drew up the terms 

 of the treaty. The sagacity of this opinion is 

 fully demonstrated by the designations on an 

 English map which I have recently had the 

 ■opportunity of examining, through the cour- 

 tesy of Hon. N. P. Langford, president of 

 the Historical Society. This map was pub- 

 lished in London, in 1794, by Laurie and 

 Whittle, 53 Fleet Street. Therefore its 



date was between the signing of the first 

 treaty and the discovery of the fact that the 

 Mississippi did not rise so far north as the 

 Lake of the Woods. It was evidently an im- 

 portant map, covering a large area and extend- 

 ing from Spain westwardly to a meridian in 

 the Pacific 25 degrees west from Cape Men- ■ 

 docino, and from the equator to Hudson's 

 Bay. It has no individual title nor author's 

 name. It seems to have come from an atlas, 

 on the cover of which the date and the pub- 

 lisher's name are expressed. I have not seen 

 the wliole atlas, and these details are on the 

 authority of Mr. Charles A. Heath, of Chi- 

 cago, who owns the map. 



I was at once struck by the fact that the 

 international boundary, which is distinctly 

 shown by a heavy red line, does not follow the 

 route for canoes which was finally settled upon 

 as the boundary. At Saganaga Lake it runs 

 toward the northwestward instead of south- 

 westward, thus passing to the north of 

 Hunter's Island, following the course of drain- 

 age from Saganaga Lake. In order to take a 

 canoe southwestward from Saganaga Lake it 

 is necessary to make a short portage into Oak 

 Lake, and thus to put the canoe into a different 

 water-course. Dr. U. S. Grant has called at- 

 tention to this departure from the real water- 

 course and to the consequences resulting in 

 loss of territory to the United States, in a 

 paper published in the eighth volume of the 

 Collections of the Historical Society. He has 

 also mentioned several other instances of 

 portaging from the direct and usual route to 

 other waters lying to the south ; and Dr. A. N. 

 Winchell, in his article in Vol. VIII. of the 

 same publication, has given the history of the 

 negotiations which resulted in the present 

 boundary line. 



What is singular is, not that the red line of 

 the map invariably follows the regular and 

 continuous water-course after leaving Saga- 

 naga Lake, as far as to Rainy Lake, but that 

 it strikes the north end of Rainy Lake, and 

 thence passes to the north end of the Lake of 

 the Woods, at the outlet of that lake. It thus 

 puts within the territory of the United Statei 

 the whole of Rainy Lake, and the most of th» 

 Lake of the Woods. 



