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STATE PAPER.

TREATY BETWEEN HER MAJESTY AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FOR THE SETTLEMENT

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OF THE OREGON BOUNDARY.

Signed at Washington, June 15, 1846,

[RATIFICATIONS EXCHANGED AT LONDON, JULY 17, 1846.]

ER Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the United States of America, deeming it to be desirable, for the future welfare of both countries, that the state of doubt and uncertainty which has hitherto prevailed respecting the Sovereignty and Government of the Territory on the North-west coast of America, lying westward of the Rocky or Stony Mountains, should be finally terminated by an amicable compromise of the rights mutually asserted by the two parties over the said territory, have respectively named Plenipotentiaries to treat and agree concerning the terms of such settlement, that is to say :

Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland has, on her part, appointed the Right Honourable Richard Pakenham, a Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, and Her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United

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I. From the point on the fortyninth parallel of north latitude, where the boundary laid down in existing Treaties and Conventions between Great Britain and the United States terminates, the line of boundary between the territories of Her Britannic Majesty and those of the United States shall be continued westward, along the said forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island; and thence southerly, through the middle of said channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific Ocean: provided, however, that the navigation of the whole of the said channel and

straits, south of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to both parties.

II. From the point at which the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude shall be found to intersect the great northern branch of the Columbia River, the navigation of the said branch shall be free and open to the Hudson's Bay Company, and to all British subjects trading with the same, to the point where the said branch meets the main stream of the Columbia, and thence down the said main stream to the ocean, with free access into and through the said river or rivers; it being understood, that all the usual portages along the line thus described shall in like manner be free and open.

In navigating the said river or rivers, British subjects, with their goods and produce, shall be treated on the same footing as citizens of the United States; it being, however, always understood, that nothing in this article shall be construed as preventing, or intended to prevent, the government of the United States from making any regulations respecting the navigation of the said river or rivers, not inconsistent with the present treaty. III. In the future appropriation of the territory south of the fortyninth parallel of north latitude, as provided in the first article of this treaty, the possessory rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, and of all British subjects who may be al

ready in the occupation of land or other property lawfully acquired within the said territory, shall be respected.

IV. The farms, lands, and other property of every description, belonging to the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company, on the north side of the Columbia River, shall be confirmed to the said Company. In case, however, the situation of those farms and lands should be considered by the United States to be of public and political importance, and the United States' Government should signify a desire to obtain possession of the whole or of any part thereof, the property so required shall be transferred to the said Government at a proper valuation, to be agreed upon between the parties.

V. The present Treaty shall be ratified by Her Britannic Majesty, and by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof; and the ratifications shall be exchanged at London at the expiration of six months from the date thereof; or sooner if possible.

In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the same, and have affixed thereto the seals of their arms.

Done at Washington, the fifteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-six.

RICHARD PAKENHAM. (L.S.)
JAMES BUCHANAN. (L.S.)

ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES.

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N our volume for the year 1845, and in the 189th page of the CHRONICLE, the reader will find briefly recorded the discovery of a new planet, by M. Henke, of Berlin. This event, sufficiently interesting in itself, and more so from the circumstance that it has verified the scientific suspicions of philosophers, that such a body (being one of the group of small planets situated between Mars and Jupiter, called Asteroids, of which Ceres, Juno, Pallas, and Vesta are the other members) must, should it really exist, in the course of its periodic revolution round the sun pass near the position in which M. Hencke's diligence finally discovered it, has now received an increased degree of importance, by the discovery in this year of another planet exterior to all similar bodies of our system. This latter discovery partakes in no degree of that character of accident which is attached to one part of the discovery of Astræa; for whereas the latter was perceived by M. Hencke while sweeping that part of the heavens with his glass, immediately known by him to be a new body, and suspected to be the planet which the reasoning of astronomers had taught was to be expected in that part of the system, this new and more wonderful discovery was the result of pure reason and calculation, and affords an admirable proof of the truth and accuracy of astronomical science. As has been the case with many other great

discoveries (and in especial in astronomy), the merit has been claimed by at least two parties, and their respective causes have been taken up with great warmth by their friends and countrymen. Without pretending to express any opinion as to whom the chief credit is due, it may be permitted to observe, that had our distinguished countryman, Mr. Adams, been as decided in promulgating his calculations as his French competitor, the honour of the discovery would unquestionably have belonged to England; but as M. Le Verrier had proceeded with his elaborate calculations simultaneously, was the earliest in announcing his theory, and the discovery of the planet resulted more immediately from such publication than from the private communication of Mr. Adams to his scientific friends, the French have very plausible grounds for claiming the honour for their gifted countryman.

The following extracts from the Report of the Royal Astronomical Society will convey the most correct and most scientific account of these important discoveries:

I. Report Jan. 1, 1846. Announcement of the Discovery of the new planet Astræa; with Observations, Elements, &c.

The addition of a new planet to the solar system is a fact so interesting and important in astronomy, as to require that the numerous communications of which it has already been the subject

should be treated and discussed, in the publications of this Society, with a greater regard to classification and arrangement than is necessary, or indeed always practicable, in other cases of less prominent interest. Instead, therefore, of giving an abstract of each separate communication that has been received respecting the new planet Astræa, it is proposed to give, first, a brief historical notice of its discovery, and of the manner in which the search after it was prosecuted; secondly, a tabular statement of the observations of the planet which have been received; and, thirdly, the elements which have been computed. With regard to its history, the first fact that occurs to us, as equally creditable to its discoverer and instructive to amateur astronomers and others who are desirous to extend the bounds of astronomical science, is, that its discovery was by no means accidental, but the reward of long and well-directed search. Perhaps many persons are apt, on occasions like the present, to regard the discovery of any new body in our system as a lucky accident, resulting from a casual or careless sweep among the stars, though the fact with regard to the greater number of such discoveries is directly the opposite of this. The four asteroids which have been for years recognised as belonging to our system were the reward of three or four successive steps of true philosophical inquiry. An obvious analogy existed in the distances of the primary planets from the sun, which, though not the result of any known law of nature, was yet sufficiently evident in fact to draw the attention of astronomers to its equally remarkable failure at one particular distance,

viz. that at which those bodies were afterwards discovered. It was at least worthy of an attempt at its verification; and such was accordingly instituted by several astronomers. Lambert appears first to have suggested the idea of the existence of a yet undiscovered body, and Bode's celebrated empirical law was published by him in 1772; but no serious attempt by means of co-operation was made to effect its discovery till the autumn of the year 1800, when an Association of twenty-four astronomers was formed, having Schröter for their president and Zach for secretary, who engaged to observe thoroughly every star visible within the zodiacal limits. The announcement of the discovery of Ceres by Piazzi, on Jan. 1, 1801, was made to Lalande, Bode, and Oriani on the 24th of January following, very soon after the formation of this Association*, and its planetary nature was soon recognised. This discovery was speedily followed by that of Juno by Harding, and of Pallas and Vesta by Olberst. The last planet, it is well known, was discovered through a search suggested by the curious yet natural hypothesis of the bodies being fragments of a large planet which had been shattered into fragments. Uranus also, to use Sir John Herschel's own words, "was discovered by Sir W. Herschel, in the course of a review of the heavens, in which every star visible in a telescope of a certain power was brought under close examination, when the new planet was immedi

*It is a singular fact that Piazzi was not a member of this Association, and that, in spite of such an organization, the discovery was, in fact, accidental.

+ Pallas was discovered in 1802; Juno in 1804; and Vesta in 1807.

ately detected by its disc, under a high magnifying power."

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Such, briefly, is the well-known history of the discovery of those planets of our system which required the aid of optical resources and of persevering search among the stars for the detection of their existence; and it is interesting to find that we are indebted for our knowledge of Astræa to a similar sagacity and perseverance. The discoverer, M. Hencke, of Driessen in Prussia, is a gentleman who, at one period of his life, was employed in the post-office of that town, but who, being gifted with a taste for astronomical pursuits, has, for the last fifteen years, been rendering himself familiar with the general features of the heavens, for the express purpose of discovering such a body as has now rewarded his exertions. The circumstances which attended the discovery of the other four asteroids rendered it, antecedently, tremely probable that others yet remained to be detected; and the difficulty lay in conducting a search of such a nature. The body to be discovered would be probably of a brightness equivalent to a star of from the 8th to the 10th magnitude, and the only sensible circumstance in which it would differ from the star would be its motion. But the motion of a body can be detected only by comparisons between its situations on different days; and there would be nothing to direct the choice of the objects to be tried amongst the hundreds that one sweep of the telescope would present to the observer. Nothing, then, it is evident, but a complete familiarity with the part of the heavens under review, and a knowledge of the relative positions of all the stars in it, to the limits

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