A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 235 
sometimes hasten progress; wars, rumors of wars even, some¬ 
times make possible the seemingly impossible. 
The northern boundary of the United States, from Maine 
to the crest of the Rocky mountains in Montana, as we now 
see it on the maps, was definitely settled in 1842. For more 
than half a century prior to that date this frontier had been 
in dispute between Great Britain and the United States. 
Repeated attempts to settle it had met with repeated failure. 
Boundary disputes, as we know, are ever long-lived and 
bitter. In April of the year 1842 Lord Ashburton arrived in 
Washington with full power to negotiate a treaty for settling 
this old and irritating controversy. Webster was then Secre¬ 
tary of State in the cabinet of President Harrison. Before 
the year had ended a treaty, now known as the Webster- 
Ashburton treaty, had been drafted, agreed to, signed, ratified, 
and proclaimed as the law of the land. Webster regarded 
this settlement as “ the greatest and most important act of his 
eventful life.” That the settlement was just may be inferred 
from the fact that it displeased both parties, and both Web¬ 
ster and Ashburton were criticised at home for sacrificing 
the interests of their respective countries. 
But this treaty line stopped at the crest of the Rocky moun¬ 
tains, and immediately there arose the Oregon question. 
That question was whether Great Britain or the United States 
owned the territory which now comprises western Montana, 
Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Much 
bitterness and angry contention followed before the 49th 
parallel was, in 1846, finally agreed upon as the boundary. 
The debates in Congress and in Parliament during* the years 
1842-1846, and articles in leading journals and reviews, after 
generously discounting their partisan overstatement, clearly 
portray the then prevailing knowledge, or rather, should I not 
say, the prevailing ignorance, as to the whole region west of 
the Mississippi. 
Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, in 1844 in the House of 
Representatives, cited with approval these words spoken by 
Benton, in the Senate, in 1825: 
