The Alaska Frontier.

A treatise in defense of the United States claim to Alaska against later claims of Canada.

p. 71: "Mr. President: You have just listened to the reading of the treaty by which Russia cedes to the United States all her possessions on the North American continent in consideration of $7,200,000., to be paid by the United States. On the one side is the cession of a vast country with its jurisdiction and its resources of all kinds; on the other side is the purchase-money. Such is the transaction on its face.”

p. 181-82:

POSTSCRIPT.

Just as the book itself is printed, the Public Ledger, Philadelphia, Tuesday, February 17th, 1903, page I, publishes the following article :

"ALASKA BOUNDARY PROOF.

"President and Secretary of War Find it

IN A British Map.

"Washington, Feb. 16. — An interesting discovery was made yesterday by President Roosevelt and Secretary Root in regard to the Alaska boundary. As they were speaking of the labors of the Alaska Boundary Commission, of which Mr. Root is a member, they consulted the large geographical globe that stands near the Cabinet table.

"The globe is so big that the map of Alaska appears on a large scale, and they easily traced the boundary line between that Territory and the British possessions. To their surprise they found that the boundary as shown there sustains the contention of the United States in all particulars, although it was prepared under the direction of the British Admiralty."

The fact that the British Admiralty sustains the United States claim in Alaska, was discovered in London by my brother, Mr. Edwin Swift Balch, who found British Admiralty Chart No. 787, corrected up to August, 1898. I bought the copy from which Map No. 22 is reproduced September 1st, 1901, at Edward Stanford’s in London. This chart was referred to and its importance explained in an article by the writer La Frontiere Alasko-Canadienne, which was printed at the beginning of the first number of the Revue de Droit International at Brussels for the year 1902 (Second Series, Vol. IV., page 17).