THE NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARY -LINE. 213 
between them in thé same quarter by a line which, 
beginning in 54° 40' at the southernmost point of 
Princé of Wales Island, was made to run obliquely to 
strike the main-land at latitude 56°, and then to pro- 
ceed parallel to the windings of the coast at the dis- 
tance of not exceeding ten marine leagues therefrom 
along the summit of the coast mountains to its inter- 
section with the 141st degree of longitude at Mount 
St. Elias, and thence due north along that meridian to 
the Frozen Ocean. 
It has been too much the practice of British navi- 
gators and British map-makers to affix English names 
to places previously visited and named by other 
Europeans, and to found thereon claims of discov- 
ery. English names are scattered along the coast of 
Russian America,—such as Cook’s Inlet, Prince Wil- 
liam Sotind, King George HI. Archipelago, Prince 
of Wales Archipelago; ;—but no British claims of 
prior exploration could prevail here against the 
claims of possession as well as discovery presented 
by Russia. 
In this treaty, each Government speaks as the pro- 
prietor and sovereign of the respective territories ; 
and it is this treaty which defines and marks out the 
Territory of Alaska, as now held by the United States 
under recent cession from Russia. 
In this condition stood the title for more than 
twenty years: the United States claiming from the 
latitude of 42° to that of 54° 40’, in virtue, first, of 
their own discoveries and settlement, and of the right 
of the extension of Louisiana until it should reach the 
