434 THE A L ASK AN B UNDAR Y 



In 1792-'95 George Vancouver, under the direction of the British 

 admiralty", made the first accurate and scientific survey of the 

 northwest coast of North America, and his charts were pub- 

 lished in 1798. These charts were for more than a generation 

 the basis and source of information of all maps of that region. 

 His survey was confined to the coast, as he made no exploration 

 of the interior of the mainland beyond what was visible from 

 his vessels. From these he saw at all points in the region under 

 consideration a continuous array of mountains, and upon his 

 charts there appears delineated a regular mountain chain fol- 

 lowing the sinuosities of the coast line around all the inlets 

 (see maps Nos. 2 and 3). We know that the negotiators of the 

 treaty of 1825 had before them Vancouver's charts and two other 

 maps, one issued by the quartermaster-general's department, St 

 Petersburg, 1802* which reproduces the mountains as laid down 

 by Vancouver, the other Arrowsmith's latest map, being the one 

 published in London in 1822, with additions of 1823, and this map 

 omits all mountain features in the region, being entirely blank. 

 The published correspondence frequently shows that as to the in- 

 terior of the mainland the negotiators were in great ignorance of 

 its topography, and we have seen that even the deputy-governor 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company was no better informed (supra, 

 p. 431). Secretary Canning referred to "the mountains which run 

 parallel to the coast and which appear, according to the map, to 

 follow all its sinuosities," but he asks the British plenipotentiary 

 to explain to his Russian colleagues the difficulty had with the 

 United States arising out of the maps of the eastern side of the 

 continent, on which mountains were laid down and which were 

 found afterwards to be quite differently situated, and he adds : 

 " Should the maps be no more accurate as to the western than 

 as to the eastern mountains, we might be assigning to Russia 

 immense tracts of inland territory where we only intended to 

 give, and they only intended to ask, a strip of seacoast." t The 

 British minister's fear was, as we have seen, lest an invariable 

 line of " the summit of the mountains " might carry the Rus- 

 sian line even to the Rocky mountains, and it was to avoid such 

 a contingency that he insisted on a specific limit to the Russian 

 strip of the mainland. The Russian negotiators reluctantly 

 3'ielded to the British view and the treaty was concluded. 

 The correspondence and documents thus reviewed by me 



* Found in Fur Seal Papers, 1893, vol. V, appendix to British ease. 

 t lb., vol. IV, 447. 



