said of the efforts of Russia and Britain to agree on a frontier between their American possessions:

"Thus we wish to retain and the British companies wish to acquire."

Mr. Balch gives proof that for more than fifty years Great Britain did not challenge the interpretation placed upon the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825 by Russia, and later by the United States, that Russia, and the United States, after the cession of Alaska in 1867, became entitled to a strip of mainland, following the indentations or sinuosities of the coast, from the Portland channel northward to Mount Saint Elias, "so as to cut off absolutely the British possessions from access to the sea above the point of fifty-four degrees forty minutes."

Such was the status until August, 1898, when England claimed, at the Quebec Conference, that the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825 gave to Canada the upper portion of nearly all the estuaries between Portland canal and Mount Saint Elias. The British claim made in 1898 was that the Alaskan boundary from the top of Portland canal should run directly to the coast, "and then along the mountains on the mainland nearest the shore and across all sinuosities of the sea that advance into the continent up to Mount Saint Elias."

Mr. Balch traces with great care and precision the important negotiations negotiations leading up to the signing of the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825. England, as he shows, wished to get from Russia a disclaimer of the ukase of 1821 that Bering sea and certain portions of the Pacific were to be held as Russian waters exclusively. Russia would not yield until the boundary line was so fixed as to give Russia the unbroken

strip along the coast from Portland canal to Mount Saint Elias, "and on this last point England, after a long and stubborn resistance, finally yielded."

With regard to the eastern boundary of this strip, England, as Mr. Balch shows, insisted that should the mountain summits prove to be more than ten marine leagues from the shore at any point "the line of demarcation should be drawn parallel to the sinuosities of the shore at a distance of ten marine leagues. This ten league limit to the eastward was inserted to guard England against a possibility of having her territory pushed back to the eastward a hundred miles or more from the sea in case the crest of the mountains was found in reality to lie far back from the coast instead of close to it, as was then supposed.'

*

Mr. Balch says, and shows by map reproductions, that the American contention is supported by the maps of the best cartographers of the world, "including those of England and Canada." The fac similes of these maps are certainly as convincing as anything in the text. One of these shows a British admiralty chart, published June 1, 1877, and corrected to April, 1898; showing that up to that date the British admiralty itself upheld the territorial claims held and maintained by both the Russian and the United States governments!

The author shows also that the Canadian and British governments have recognized by certain acts the title of the United States to the strip under contention, shutting Canada off from the sinuosities of the coast. In 1876 the Canadian authorities liberated a prisoner convicted in the Canadian courts for an of

fense committed at a place within the Alaska strip claimed by the United States. The release was made on the ground that the Canadian courts had no jurisdiction over the place where the offense was committed. For his painstaking and successful effort to clear up this subject, which is of international importance, and of very great importance to the United States, Mr. Balch deserves great credit. He has cleared up the subject in the small compass of forty-five pages. It is hoped that he has sent a copy to the Department of State at Washington.

[The Alasko-Canadian Frontier was referred to with approval either in editorials or reviews in 1902 in The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, March 15; the Army and Navy Journal, New York, March 29; The Register, New Haven, Connecticut, April 3; The Times, Philadelphia, April 6; The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, April 8; The Record, Philadelphia, April 11; The Times, Pittsburg, Pa., April 12; The Times, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 14; Freeman's Journal, New York, April 19; The Herald-Transcript, Peoria, Illinois, April 23; The Conservative, Nebraska City, Nebraska, April 24; The News-Tribune, Detroit, Michigan, May 4; The Chronicle, Chicago, Illinois, May II; The Light, San Antonio, Texas, May 19; The Legal Intelligencer, Philadelphia, June 13; Our Times, August 15; and the whole article was reprinted by the PostIntelligencer of Seattle, Sunday, May 25. In an editorial in The Evening Sun, New York, March 6, 1903, attention was called to the pamphlet.-EDITOR.]

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL EMBASSY,

WASHINGTON.

[Received March 1, 1901.]

Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.

SIR: I have been informed that you had in preparation a book entitled, "Boundaries of Alaska." I would like to have two copies of this book as soon as it will be published and would be very much obliged to you if you would kindly let me know when it will be published.

Very truly yours,

P. ROGESTVENSKY,

No. 82.

Secretary, Russian Embassy.

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL EMBASSY.

11/24, March 1902.

Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.

SIR-I beg to acknowledge the receipt of two copies of your preliminary paper on on the Alaskan Boundary question, which I did not fail to forward to the Imperial Foreign Office with the request to present it to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia.

Thanking you for your courteous remembrance of my request, I am, Sir,

Very truly yours,

COUNT CASSINI,

Ambassador of Russia.

No. 162.

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL EMBASSY.

WASHINGTON, 1/14, May 1902.

Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.

SIR: Your preliminary paper upon the Alaskan Boundary question was duly forwarded to the Imperial Russian Foreign Office and was presented by His Excellency Count Lamsdorff to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia. His Majesty was most graciously pleased to order me to convey to you His gratification in receiving this interesting document.

Taking great pleasure in informing you about this decision of my August Sovereign, I am, Sir,

Very truly yours,

COUNT CASSINI,

Ambassador of Russia.

MISSION OF THE BALCHES."

PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY MEN IN ST. PETersburg Getting InformaTION ABOUT ALASKAN BOUNDARIES.

Information from St. Petersburg, Russia, announces the arrival of Edwin Swift Balch and his brother, Thomas Willing Balch, of this city, who have been travelling in Europe, and gives as the purpose of their visit the collection of information and material regarding the boundaries of Alaska.

14 The Times, Philadelphia, June 30, 1902.