File No. 738.3915/189.
[Untitled]
Washington, February 27, 1913.
My Dear Mr. Minister: Referring to your call at this Department in connection with the Haitian-Dominican boundary question and to your conversation with officers of the Department of [on] this subject, I have much pleasure in informing you that the Secretary of War, in reply1 to a request1 for an expression of opinion, states that it is the opinion of his Department that “the thalweg of the Pedernales or Anse river is indicated by the line representing the boundary between Haiti and Santo Domingo. The representation of the boundary on the eastern bank of the river, as shown on the map of Haiti and Santo Domingo mentioned in your communication, was due to the impraticability of superimposing the convention for the boundary line on the [Page 469] single line representing the narrow bed of the river.” The map in question is the “map of Haiti and Santo Domingo prepared by the Second Military Information Division, General Staff, Washington, 1907, and 1908,” Monte Cristi sheet number 6 and Barahona sheet number 7.
This Department has also invited an expression of opinion from the War Department as to whether, as in the case of the Pedernales river, the thalweg or one of the banks of the rivers Artibonito, Libon, Capotillo and Massacre is indicated by the line shown as the boundary on the before-mentioned map, [and] has in reply1 been informed by the Secretary of War that it is the opinion of his Department that “the thalweg of the Artibonito, Libon, Capotillo and Massacre rivers is indicated by the line shown as the boundary on the map of Haiti and Santo Domingo referred to in your communication.”
I am [etc.]