Office of the Historian

Sir Mortimer Durand to Mr. Loomis.

British Embassy,
Lenox, Mass., October, 1, 1904.
No. 176.]

Sir: I have the honor to inform you that I have received a dispatch from the Marquess of Landsdowne forwarding the recommendations of Messrs King and Tittmann, the commissioners appointed to carry out the delimitation of the Alaska boundary in so far as it was left undefined by the London Tribunal.

A copy of the report drawn up by Messrs. King and Tittmann is inclosed herewith.

The Canadian government are satisfied with the proposed line, which they consider follows sufficiently closely the straight line joining the points designated as “T” and “P” in the Alaska boundary award and on the maps accompanying it, and which is approximately parallel with the coast; and they have expressed the wish that the United States Government should be approached with a view to obtain their formal agreement to that line as an international boundary.

I have therefore been directed by the Marquess of Landsdowne to inform you that His Majesty’s Government are read to accept this line as satisfactory and at the same time to inquire whether the United States Government also agree to it.

In the event of your Government’s concurrence it will apparently be necessary to arrange for a formal agreement between the United States and Great Britain, either by means of a convention or by an exchange of notes. I should be glad to know the wishes of the State Department on this point.

I have, etc., etc.

H. M. Durand.
[Inclosure.]

We, the undersigned Commissioners on behalf of His Britannic Majesty and of the United States, respectively, having met to discuss the demarcation of the boundary line between Alaska and Canada, have considered the part lying between the points P and T mentioned in the award of the tribunal of 1903.

We respectfully recommend that the boundary between these points be marked by the summits whose geographical coordinates are given in the attached table, with the proviso that between the points 7 and 8, and 8 and T, where the distances between the peaks given in the table exceed the probable limit of inter-visibility, power be granted to the commissioners after they have secured sufficient data, to select additional and intermediate peaks, no such peak to be more than twenty-five hundred meters from the straight line joining peaks 7 and 8, or 8 and T of the attached table.

  • W. F. King,
    His Britannic Majesty’s Commissioner.
  • O. H. Tittmann,
    United States Commissioner.

Washington, D. C., April 12, 1904.

Table showing the positions and, distances of peaks.

The latitudes and longitudes are taken from maps Nos. 10 and 12 of the surveys made by the British commission under the convention of 1892. The successive peaks are designated by consecutive numbers counting southward from point P.

[Page 326]
Point. Latitude. Longitude. From— To— Distances.
º ʹ ʺ º ʹ ʺ Meters.
Sheet 1 58 36 29 133 41 55 P 1 15,840
Sheet 2 58 31 01 133 33 14 1 2 12,800
Sheet 3 58 24 40 133 26 09 2 3 13,680
Sheet 4 58 22 35 133 27 09 3 4 4,000
Sheet 5 58 16 10 133 21 08 4 5 13,200
Sheet 6 58 13 24 133 16 48 5 6 6,960
Sheet 7 58 09 07 133 11 10 6 7 9,700
Sheet 8 57 29 47 132 32 52 8 T 36,800
Sheet 10 7 8 81,440