[Footnote 38: The levelings carried along this meridian line by means of spirit levels, alluded to in the note at bottom of page 121, passed Mars Hill at a depression of 12 feet _below_ the level of the base of the monument which stands (except at seasons of extreme drought) in the water at the source of the St. Croix.]
(2) The streams whose title to the name of the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut River is in dispute have been explored, and the line of the highlands has been traced from their sources to the point at which the lines respectively claimed by the two nations diverge from each other.
(3) The line claimed by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, on the part of Great Britain, has been in a great measure explored.
(4) The line of highlands claimed by the United States has, with some small exceptions, been thoroughly examined, and its prolongation as far as the north shore of the Bay of Chaleurs reconnoitered. The parts of the line which have not been actually reached have been seen from a distance, and streams flowing from them crossed and leveled. From the former indication it is probable that the average height of those parts exceeds that of the neighboring parts of the line. From the heights of the streams it is certain that the lowest gaps in the unexplored portion of the line can not be less elevated than 1,000 feet above the level of the sea.
That part of this line of highlands which lies east of the sources of the Rimouski fulfills to the letter the words of the royal proclamation of 1763 and the contemporaneous commission of Governor Wilmot. The first of those instruments defines the mouth of the river St. Lawrence by a line drawn from Cape Rozier to the St. John River (on the Labrador coast), and therefore all to the eastward of that line is "the sea." The height of land thus traced by the commission, rising from the north shore of the Bay des Chaleurs at its western extremity, divides waters which fall into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea, and is the southern boundary of the Province established by the proclamation of 1763 under the name of Quebec. The identity of the line defined in the proclamation of 1763 and the boundary of the United States in the treaty of 1783 has been uniformly maintained on the part of the United States, and is not merely admitted but strenuously argued for in the report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge.