From the imperfect knowledge of this remote country at the date of
the treaty of peace, some of the descriptions in that treaty do not
harmonize with its natural features as now ascertained. "Long Lake" is
nowhere to be found under that name. There is reason for supposing,
however, that the sheet of water intended by that name is the estuary
at the mouth of Pigeon River. The present treaty therefore adopts that
estuary and river, and afterwards pursues the usual route across the
height of land by the various portages and small lakes till the line
reaches Rainy Lake, from which the commissioners agreed on the extension
of it to its termination in the northwest angle of the Lake of the
Woods. The region of country on and near the shore of the lake between
Pigeon River on the north and Fond du Lac and the river St. Louis on
the south and west, considered valuable as a mineral region, is thus
included within the United States. It embraces a territory of 4,000,000
acres northward of the claim set up by the British commissioner under
the treaty of Ghent. From the height of land at the head of Pigeon River
westerly to the Rainy Lake the country is understood to be of little
value, being described by surveyors and marked on the map as a region
of rock and water.

From the northwest angle of the Lake of the Woods, which is found to be
in latitude 45° 23' 55" north, existing treaties require the line to be
run due south to its intersection with the forty-fifth parallel, and
thence along that parallel to the Rocky Mountains.

After sundry informal communications with the British minister upon the
subject of the claims of the two countries to territory west of the
Rocky Mountains, so little probability was found to exist of coming
to any agreement on that subject at present that it was not thought
expedient to make it one of the subjects of formal negotiation to be