affect any rights of jurisdiction of the United States in and over the islands and waters" of the Potomac.

Below are given extracts from an opinion by the Attorney General dated January 16, 1912, relating to the high-water line on the south bank of the Potomac as the boundary line between the District of Columbia and Virginia.

In the Potomac River there is a high-water line due to freshets at 13 feet above mean low tide. There is a high-tide line not influenced by freshets or caused by high winds at 8.8 feet above mean low tide. There is a mean high tide at about 5 feet above mean low water, and that is the elevation along which drift, trash, etc., remain as an indication; and there is a mean tide line at 3 feet above low water.

High water mark in a river or stream is "the point to which the water usually rises in an ordinary season of high water" (Johnson v. Knott, 13 Oreg. 308). "High-water mark is to be determined not from human records but from the records which the river makes for itself," and the true line is "that which the river impressed upon the soil as the limit of its dominion" (Hougton v. The Chicago D. & M. R. Co.: 47 Iowa, 370-373).

"High-water mark is coordinate with the limit of the bed of the water; and that only is to be considered the bed which the water occupies sufficiently long and continuously to wrest it from vegetation and destroy its value for agricultural purposes" (Carpenter v. Board of Commrs. Hennepin County: 56 Minn. 513).

Farnham (Waters and water rights, v. 2, p. 1461), gives the following as to high-water mark:

"But the definition which best meets all requirements of the case and which has in fact been adopted by the weight of authority is that 'high-water mark is the point below which the pressure and action of the water are so common and usual and so long continued in all ordinary years as to make upon the soil a character distinct from that of the banks with respect to vegetation as well as with respect to the soil itself.'" 3

If the mean high tides at the 5-foot elevation above low-water mark appear to be the most usual line reached under all ordinary circumstances when the river is undisturbed either by freshets, unusual winds, and high tides, or unaffected by droughts, which condition is usually evidenced by drifts and other deposits, and to which line the rise is most constant, the pressure and action of the water upon the soil making the line more definite than at any other point, then the 5-foot mean high-tide line established by the action of the water above mean low water is legally the high-water mark or high-tide line, and consequently the boundary line.

In a Supreme Court decision rendered November 7, 1921, involving the question whether the boundary between the District of Columbia and Virginia runs from "headland to headland," as the Maryland-Virginia boundary does, or follows the meanderings of

The following cases are in harmony with the authorities quoted above: Howard v. Ingersoll, 13 Howard, 415-423; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 12.

• Marine Railway and Coal Co. v. United States of America: 257 U.S. 47.

the river, the latter course was accepted. The court also decided that the United States is entitled to the possession of land in the District that has been reclaimed by filling in below low-water line on the Virginia side. Jurisdiction and sovereignty over the tract in dispute in this case, comprising an area of 46.57 acres adjoining Alexandria, were transferred to Virginia by United States act approved February 23, 1927 (44 Stat. L., pt. 2, p. 1176).

The District Court of Appeals, in a decision rendered November 6, 1922, recognized the claim that high-water mark on the south bank of the Potomac is the boundary between the District of Columbia and Virgania. This location of the boundary was reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court May 4, 1931 (283 U.S. 348).

The District of Columbia was planned to be exactly 10 miles square, but it has been found that the northeast side measures 263.1 feet and the southeast side 70.5 feet more than 10 miles. The lines do not bear exactly 45° from the meridian, but the greatest variation is only 134 feet (Baker, 1894, p. 149-165). The entire boundary of the District of Columbia was surveyed in 1791 and was marked with sandstone mileposts in 1792. These posts, except those at the four corners, were numbered from 1 to 9, counting clockwise, for each of the four boundary lines (Shuster, 1909, v. 20, p. 356).

In 1915-1921 each of the original boundary stones was surrounded by an iron fence, erected by the District of Columbia and Virginia chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

By a bill approved March 3, 1903 (32 Stat. L. 961) funds were provided for additional marks on the District of Columbia-Maryland boundary line, to be placed at road crossings and at other prominent points. The work was completed the same year, but without the formal cooperation of any Maryland representative. The new marks are of cut granite, 6 inches square on top, and project 12 inches above ground.

The latitudes and longitudes of the north, east, and south cornerstones of the District of Columbia are as follows:

These positions are on 1927 North American Datum.

The south corner stone at Jones Point, below Alexandria, which was the first one established, was set with appropriate ceremonies April 15, 1791.

By act of February 21, 1871 (16 Stat. L. 419), the entire area within. the boundary of the District was made a distinct government with the

title of the District of Columbia and constituted a "body corporate for municipal purposes." 5

The initial point of several of the original land grants upon which the city of Washington is founded was a mark on a large rock commonly called the "Key of all keys," which was then at the edge of the Potomac River. According to tradition, Braddock's army landed at this place on its way to Fort Duquesne. This rock has been covered with dirt and the river bed filled in so that the concrete pier and tablet established in 1910 over the mark are now more than 1,000 feet from the river's edge. The new mark is in the Naval Hospital grounds about 300 feet west from the corner of Twenty-third Street and Constitution Avenue NW.

The zero milestone, from which public highways of the United States are supposed to radiate, authorized by joint resolution of Congress June 5, 1920 (41 Stat. L. 1062), and dedicated June 4, 1923, is a granite pier 24 by 24 inches in section, mounted on a concrete base and projecting 4 feet above ground, standing on the north edge of the Ellipse, 900 feet south of the White House, in lat 38°53'41.99'' N., long 77°02′12.66" W. The tablet in the base is 28.65 feet above mean = sea level.

VIRGINIA 6

In 1606 King James I of England granted the "first charter" of Virginia. The boundaries therein described are as follows (Thorpe, 1909, v. 7, p. 3783):

situate, lying, or being all along the Sea Coasts, between four and thirty degrees of Northerly Latitude from the Equinoctial Line and five and forty degrees of the same Latitude, and in the main Land between the same four and thirty and five and forty Degrees and the Islands thereunto adjacent, or within one hundred miles of the coast thereof.

In 1609 a new charter was granted, called the "second charter" of Virginia, which defines the boundaries in the following terms (see fig. 14) (Thorpe, 1909, v. 7, p. 3795):

situate, lying, being in that part of America, called Virginia, from the point of Land, called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the Sea Coast to the Northward, two hundred miles, and from the said point of Cape Comfort, all along the Sea Coast to the Southward, two hundred Miles, and all that Space and

5 See 174 U.S. 196–359 for land history of the area covered by the District of Columbia from the time of the King's grant to Lord Baltimore, June 20, 1632; includes reproductions of several old maps. This case gives many references to former decisions relating to

riparian rights.

"The Commonwealth of Virginia" is the full legal name for this State. For a brief history of cessions to Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia and of boundary-line surveys between them from 1606 to 1821, see Haywood (1891, p. 15-37). For reference to old Virginia charters, abstracts of boundary descriptions, and descriptions of boundary marks, see Code of Virginia (1919, v. 1, p. 10-22, Richmond).

Circuit of Land, lying from the Sea Coast of the Precinct aforesaid, up into the Land, throughout from Sea to Sea, West and Northwest; And also all the Islands lying within one hundred Miles along the Coast of both Seas of the Precinct aforesaid.

In 1611-12 the "third charter" of Virginia was granted, which was an enlargement of the second. It gave the following territory

(Thorpe, 1909, v. 7, p. 3804) :

all and singular those Islands whatsoever, situate and being in any Part of the Ocean Seas bordering upon the Coast of our said first Colony in Virginia, and being within three Hundred Leagues of any of the Parts heretofore granted to the said Treasurer and Company in our former Letters Patent as aforesaid, and being within or between the one-and-fortieth and thirtieth Degrees of Northerly Latitude.

The charter of 1609 gave Virginia a strip of land bordering on the coast for 200 miles northward from Point Comfort and for the same distance southward and extending inland west and northwest to the South Sea. A point 200 miles due north of Point Comfort would fall in lat 39°54′ N., or about 13 miles north of the present south boundary of Pennsylvania. An irregular line 200 miles long, measured along the coast from Point Comfort, would reach about as far north as the Pennsylvania boundary. A point 200 miles due south from Point Comfort would fall in lat 34°06′ N. The territory included within these boundaries comprised, wholly or in part, the present States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina and the vast region stretching west and northwest to the Pacific Ocean.

The area covered by the charter of 1611-12 included the Bermuda Islands.

In 1625 the colony was changed to a royal province, the three charters having been canceled by judgment of the Court of Kings Bench in the preceding year (Donaldson, 1884, p. 33), but Virginia still claimed the boundaries fixed by the charters.

The description "west and northwest" left the northern boundary of the colony poorly defined, but it was more definitely fixed when reductions in area were made by the charters to Maryland in 1632 and to Pennsylvania in 1681. The Connecticut charter of 1662 practically made the parallel of 41° the northern boundary. (See p. 108.) The charters of Carolina in 1663 and 1665 changed the southern boundary to its present statute position.

The area of Virginia was still further reduced by the French treaty of 1763, which made the Mississippi River the west boundary, by the cession to the United States of the territory northwest of the Ohio

Mar del Sur (South Sea) was the name given to the Pacific Ocean by Balboa in 1513, when he first saw it at a place where the shoreline runs nearly east and west.