wre less than ten miles. ‘That fact, according to the authorities quoted in the British Connter Cuse, pp. 24-28, places them within the category of territorial waters. Alb of the interior waters touching upon the //sere, such us Belun Canal, Taku Inlet and Lyon Canal ares in the lingnage of Thdll “dakes enclosed within the territory’, aud as such are territorial waters, regardless of their width at their entrances when imeasured from headland to hendtand.
Physical geography simply reproduces the ietual coast lines of Inaritime steutes. as they ure defined by nature ut the point of con- tact of the sen with the land, The following deseription of the voust of Maine, from an eminent geoeraphical authority, may be taken as an apt illustration:
On the Athintie coast Maine presents an mninterrrpted succession of penininias, islands, and bays; aml all these bays are the mouths of nyer—ontlets of valleys having their origin far in the interier. Nothing similar is sven on all the terri- tory of the Union, One must come ta Norway or go to the extreme point of South Amertes to find so Tong a part af the coast—Hi0 kilometers in a straight tine from: the southwest to Che northeast—so deeply ent np that we measure on it more than 4,000 Kilometers of contact with the deep sea, ATL these Imays of Maine are also fierds, hut spacious, and whieh ino spite of their equally necky lank=, of cotupomitively Htthe elevation, feccive the morning and afternoon san, aswell as that of neon, and open to mariners more ports, mare anchorages, jad sale shelters than ali the other vousts ijk Cle three seas of the Union.[1]
It this appears that the actual coast Jine of Maine, as kiown to physical geoeraphy, followiny as it minst the sinuosities defined by the contuet of the sex with the land. is ahout 440K kilometers, while the politicn! coast line. saperiniposed upon it hy operation of international low. is vastly shorter by reason of the fact that the artificial and imaginary dine cuts across the heals of bays and infets, The natural coast line, as kuown to physical geography, exists prinnily for the puvposes of bonndury. The artificial coust line, as known to internationnl law, exists only for the purposes of
jurisdiction, That obyious distinetion is well illustrated by Riyier
- ↑ See Maine, in Nouveau Dictionaire de Géographie Universelle, Saint Martin, Vol. III, p. 559.
