rces of the
Aroostook, explored by the division of Major Graham, could not be
completed in time to be made use of for this report in the description
of that portion of the line claimed for Great Britain by Messrs.
Featherstonhaugh and Mudge. This delay has been solely caused by
a want of reasonable time to complete this portion of the work, the
commissioner having direction of the division charged with it having
only returned from the field in the month of January.

Sufficient information is known, however, to have been derived from
those surveys to justify the assertion that, instead of the strongly
marked range of highlands represented by the British commissioners as
constituting a part of their "axis of maximum elevation," the country in
the vicinity of the Aroostook lying between its sources and the valley
of the St. John is devoid of the character they have attributed to it.
When properly represented upon a map it will appear as an extended
undulating surface of moderate elevation above the level of the
Aroostook River, sparsely interspersed with occasional detached
elevations rising to heights of 600 to 900 and 1,400 feet above the
level of the sea, but forming no continuous or connected chain whatever
in the direction represented by the British commissioners, or that could
be construed into the character of highlands such as are described in
the treaty of 1783.[35]

[Footnote 35: Since the above was written Major Graham's map and the
computations of the barometric heights above alluded to have been
completed.

This map exhibits in their proper positions the numerous altitudes which
were determined throughout the country watered by the Aroostook and its
principal tributaries, extending laterally to the heights which bound
the basin of that river on either side; along the due west line traced
in the year 1835 by Captain Yule, of the royal engineers, between Mars
Hill and a point near the forks of the Great Machias River; along and in
the vicinity of the road recently opened by the State of Maine from
Lewis's (a point in latitude 46 deg. 12' 20", between the head branches of
the Meduxnikeag and the Masardis or St. Croix of the Aroostook) to the
mouth of Fish River, in latitude 47 deg. 15' 13", being a distance, actually
measured, of 79 miles; and along the new military road, embracing 40-1/2
miles of the distance from Fort Fairfield to Houlton and including the
adjacent heights on either side.

The number of el