Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/354

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
306
Lewis A. McArthur

The position of the 6-foot juniper post is not quite clear from the report, but apparently it is concentric with the stone monument, because about 1922 a retracement was made of a section of the boundary in the vicinity of the Initial Point and a juniper post within a stone monument was recovered and described.

The only important boundary difficulty that has as yet involved the state of Oregon has to do with the ownership of Sand Island, in the mouth of the Columbia River. Here the dispute is with the state of Washington to the north.

In November, 1915, the United States coast and geodetic survey issued a bulletin giving the length, in statute miles, of the various shore lines of the United States, as represented on the best available maps, including the shore lines of bays and other bodies of water the width of whose entrance is greater than 1 mile, to points where these waters narrow to 1 mile, and also including the shore lines of bodies of tidewater more than 1 mile wide which lie close beside the main waters, even though the width of the entrance is less than 1 mile. The published figures indicate that the tide shore lines of Oregon are 429 miles for mainland, and 60 miles for islands, making a total of 489 miles. Information concerning figures for other states may be found in the United States geological survey bulletin 817, by Edward M. Douglas, page 248. There are seven counties in Oregon that border on the Pacific Ocean. These are, from north to south: Clatsop, Tillamook, Lincoln, Lane, Douglas, Coos and Curry.

The length of the south boundary of Oregon may be computed with reasonable accuracy, although it must be assumed that the boundary and the 42nd parallel of north latitude are the same for the purpose of the computation. In fact, however, the lines are not exactly the same, as the actual boundary diverges in several places. The United States coast and geodetic survey has a triangulation station near the west end of the south boundary and one near the east end. By computation, they are 7° 10' 45".73 apart. This difference of longitude, at the 42nd parallel, amounts to 594,832.343 meters, or 369.61 miles. The westerly station is about 792 feet east of the Pacific Ocean and the easterly station is about 897.60 feet west of the southeast corner of the state, so to the length in miles between triangula-