Page:Alaskan boundary tribunal (IA alaskanboundaryt01unit).pdf/70

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
60
ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

shall be determined that the mountains contended for in the British Case do not fulfill the conditions of the treaty? If it shall he deter- mined that there are no such mountains within ten marine leagues of the coast, how can the point on the fifty-sixth parallel he fixed? Man- ifestly according to the proposition laid down, the point can never be determined, unless mountains such as are contemplated by the treaty shall be found within ten inarine leavnes of the coast, with a crest coincident with the fifty-sixth dewree of hititude.

But the point was to be determined, whether or not, there was a mountain crest within ten murine learues of the coast. The second paragraph of the fourth Article provides:

(jue partout of la crete dee montaynes qui s'ttendent dans une direction paralléle ila Cote depuis le Sime degre’ do latitude Nowl au point ‘intersection du 141me degré de longitude (lest, se tronyverait a la distance de plus de dix leaes marines de POetm, ete.4

This provided for the contemplated condition that, from the point fixed on the 56th degree, there might be no mountains alony the crest of which the line shonld be drawn, In such event the point was none the less to be fixed, and from it the line was to be drown parallel to the coast. The boundary delimitation was not to fail if there was no crest of mountains parallel to the sinuosities of the coast, and within ten marine lengues of the oeein. The treaty was to be capable of being carried into effect, whether such mountains us those contemplated by it existed within the ten marine leagues or not, and also whether or not any mountains whatever existed in that region.

If the tribunal, from the Jangunve of the treaty can determine where the point on the 56th degree should be, in the event that they shall find against the British contention as to the crest along the coast mountains being west of the head of Porthind Channel, it is mianifest that finding “*the point from which it is possible to con- tinne the line along the crest of the mountains” from the 56th par- allel. is not a condition precedent to determining where the line drmwn from the head of Porthind Channel shall meet the fifty-sixth parallel, and that it has nothing whatever to do with fixing that point,

The proposition when tested by the result, as worked out in the British Case, is wholly inadmissible, The line as drawn cuts off a

aU. 8 G App., 13.