SKETCH No. 1.

[Copied from Vancouver's chart, with line denoting vessel's track northward.] [W. Long. from Greenwich.]

-49

Angelos

[E. Long, from Greenwich.]

what indeed they would possess without any special confirmation, the right freely to use and navigate the strait throughout its extent.

Both despatches having been written almost immediately after the "nature of the proposition" to be submitted to the United States had been fully and freely discussed, it may seem strange that the description of the boundary line contained in them is not identical. But an examination of the maps which were most probably before Mr. McLane and Lord Aberdeen in describing the line will show the difference between them to be only apparent.

I enclose a traced copy of Vancouver's chart, which, Captain Prevost officially informed me, he had "not the least doubt" was the map used by his government when the boundary line was under consideration. (See sketch No. 1, p. 59.) I also send a traced copy of so much of Captain Wilkes's " Map of Oregon Territory" as is necessary to show the boundary channel between the continent and Vancouver's Island, which, I have every reason to believe, is the map which was principally relied on by Mr. McLane at the same time. (See sketch No. 2, p. 61.) There can be little doubt that both Lord Aberdeen and himself had also in their possession, the Spanish Admiralty chart of Vancouver's Island, Greenhow's, De Mofras' and other maps of the northwest coast.

None of the maps extant at that day present a perfectly correct idea of the space between the continent and Vancouver's Island at, and immediately south of, the forty-ninth parallel. The Straits of Fuca and the archipelago east of the Canal de Haro are fairly enough represented; but between the Haro Archipelago and the forty-ninth parallel the space is inaccurately represented as free from islands, and, consequently, with but a single channel between the continent and Vancouver's Island. The surveys made subsequently to the conclusion of the treaty show that what was laid down by the early Spanish navigators, by Vancouver and by Wilkes, as the eastern coast of Vancouver's Island is in fact the coast of an extensive archipelago skirting the shore of the main island between latitude 48° 47′ and 49° 10'. The actual space between the coasts of the continent and Vancouver's Island is nearly twice as great as it appears on the enclosed sketches from Vancouver's chart and Wilkes's map. A glance at the Coast Survey chart which I deposited in the department with my report of last February will give some idea of the true position of the coast of Vancouver's Island; but as that part of the chart is only copied from a sketch furnished Captain Alden by the Hudson's Bay Company, it is by no means reliable. I send herewith a tracing from the last admiralty chart of Vancouver Island and the Gulf of Georgia," showing the same change in the coast of Vancouver's Island on a smaller scale. The British surveying steamer Plumper has recently completed the survey and chart of the greater portion of this space hitherto so little known except to the Hudson's Bay Company. As soon as I obtain a tracing of it from Captain Richards I will have a copy of the Coast Survey chart corrected by it and forwarded to the department.

The claim of the British government, made by their commissioner, that the "channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island" is the channel nearest the continent, or that through which the track of Vancouver's vessel is traced, makes it important to examine Vancouver's chart in connection with the line described by Lord Aberdeen, and at the same time to trace on Wilkes's chart the line described by Mr. McLane.

Mr McLane, in tracing on the map the forty-ninth parallel "to the sea, that is to say the arm of the sea called Birch's Bay," evidently supposed that the space between the continent and Vancouver's Island at the forty-ninth parallel was designated as Birch Bay. And from the conspicuous position given to the name of Birch Bay on Wilkes's map, and even on Vancouver's chart, such an error might very naturally occur. In reality, however, Birch Bay is only the small indentation on the mainland at the extreme right of the name, and is a few miles south of the forty-ninth parallel. The name of the Gulf of Georgia is intended by Wilkes to extend from the parallel of 50o as far south as the