oyster fishermen who might be found fishing therein. Nonresident Mississippi oystermen were found fishing oysters there, and they were notified that they must stop fishing and move out of those waters. These Mississippians then complained to the Mississippi authorities and a conference ensued between representatives of the parish of St. Bernard and the county of Hancock. In January, 1901, at the instance of the Louisiana Legislative Commission appointed under the act of 1900, and of committees appointed from the police juries of the Louisiana parishes of St. Bernard and Plaquemines, a meeting of the state officials of Louisiana was held in New Orleans to consider the subject of the dispute with the State of Mississippi, and the invasion by non-residents of the Louisiana oyster waters. This meeting resulted in the appointment by the Governor of Louisiana of a commission of five members, and an official communication from the Governor of Louisiana addressed to the Governor of Mississippi requesting the latter to appoint a similar commission to see if it were possible to effect an amicable settlement of the dispute between the two States. This Mississippi commission was accordingly appointed, and the two commissions held a joint conference in New Orleans in March, 1901. Louisiana presented at the conference a map showing the Louisiana contention as to the boundary, which is the map attached to the bill and marked Exhibit E. The Mississippi commission reported that it was impossible to effect an amicable extrajudicial settlement of the dispute, and that the only hope of settlement was a friendly suit in the Supreme Court of the United States. This report was submitted by the Mississippi commission to the Governor of Mississippi and was transmitted to the legislature of that Staté. At this session the State of Mississippi passed a new law controlling her oyster waters and oyster industry. Laws, 1902, c. 58. This act created a state oyster commission, vested with entire control of the Mississippi oyster industry. It took the control of the industry out of the hands of the coast county authorities and centralized it in this state department, which was authorized to establish a

system of patrol of the Mississippi oyster waters and to maintain patrol boats to sustain the oyster laws in her territory. In July, 1902, the State of Louisiana followed the example of the State of Mississippi and adopted an act, Acts 1902, No. 153, creating a state oyster commission of Louisiana as a state department vested with full control of the oyster industry of Louisiana, and authorized to establish patrol boats and maintain an armed patrol on the Louisiana oyster waters to protect her rights in the oyster industry therein. In view of the danger of an armed conflict, the Oyster Commissions of both States, in September, 1902, adopted a joint resolution establishing a neutral territory between the two States "pending the final decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in the boundary suit to be instituted," to remain a common fishing ground. This modus vivendi did not include all of the disputed territory, but the waters of Mississippi Sound between the deep water channel and the north shore line of the Louisiana marshes were embraced by it.

In the following October this bill was filed. Louisiana appeared through her Governor and her Attorney General, and the action of the Governor in instituting the suit was subsequently approved, ratified and confirmed by the legislature.

The facts that the act of Congress admitting the State of Louisiana gave that State all islands within three leagues or nine miles of her coast, and that the subsequent act of Congress admitting the State of Mississippi purported to give that State all islands within six leagues or eighteen miles of her shore, and that some islands within nine miles of the Louisiana coast were also within eighteen miles of the Mississippi shore, furnished the basis for a boundary controversy, although, in our judgment, the apparent inconsistency is reconcilable, as hereinafter explained. And that controversy involved to each State pecuniary values of magnitude, as is shown by the evidence on both sides. We think that there existed between the two States, in their sovereign capacity as States, a controversy affecting the boundary line separating them in the locality in

question of a character to justify the exercise of our original jurisdiction within the rules laid down in Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U. S. 496; S. C., 180 U. S. 208; Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Company, 13 How. 518, 589; Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1; Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125.

2. The State of Louisiana was admitted into the Union by the act of Congress approved April 6, 1812, 2 Stat. 701, c. 50, which commenced as follows:

"

Whereas, the representatives of the people of all that part of the territory or country ceded under the name of 'Louisiana' by the treaty at Paris on the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and three, between the United States and France, contained within the following limits, that is to say: Beginning at the mouth of the river Sabine; thence, by a line to be drawn along the middle of said river, including all islands, to the thirty-second degree of latitude; thence due north to the northernmost part of the thirty-third degree of north latitude; thence along said parallel of latitude to the river Mississippi; thence, down the said river, to the river Iberville; and from thence, along the middle of the said river, and Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the Gulf of Mexico; thence, bounded by the said Gulf, to the place of beginning, including all islands within three leagues of the coast;

Map or diagram No. 1 (ante p. 4), given in the opening statement, shows the limits as thus defined.

By an act of Congress approved April 14, 1812, 2 Stat. 708, c. 57, additional territory was added to the State of Louisiana, described thus:

"All that tract of country comprehended within the following bounds, to wit: Beginning at the junction of the Iberville, with the river Mississippi; thence along the middle of the Iberville, the river Amite, and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the eastern mouth of the Pearl river; thence up the eastern branch of Pearl river to the thirty-first degree of north latitude; thence along the said degree of latitude to the river Mississippi; thence down the said river to the place of be

ginning, shall become and form a part of the said State of Louisiana, and be subject to the constitution and laws thereof, in the same manner, and for all intents and purposes, as if it had been included within the original boundaries of the said State."

This added territory is shown on map or diagram No. 2 (ante p. 5). The eastern boundary of Louisiana was thereby moved eastward from the Mississippi to Pearl river, and Louisiana was given the country south of the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and north of the boundary formed by the river Iberville, the middle of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain and the Rigolets.

The river Iberville is called on this map Bayou Manchac, and is still known by that name. The Rigolets is a gut connecting the waters of Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne, both of which are bodies of salt water and were originally arms of the sea. In order to reach the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico from the middle of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain the line ran through the Rigolets into Lake Borgne, and after the addition to the State by the act of April 14, 1812, the eastern boundary line of Louisiana entered Lake Borgne to the south by Pearl river as well as the Rigolets. To get from Lake Borgne into the open water of the Gulf of Mexico beyond Chandeleur Islands and around to the western boundary of Louisiana, it was necessary, as Louisiana contends, to follow the deep water channel north of Half Moon or Grand Island, through Mississippi Sound, and thence by the pass between Cat Island and Isle à Pitre, north of the Chandeleur Islands, into the open Gulf. Many maps are given in the record, some made at dates long prior to the admission of Louisiana as a State, some at that time, and some within a few years thereafter, and all show the St. Bernard peninsula to be geographically a true part of the State of Louisiana, or of an area of country that was to form the State, and that the said peninsula projected itself as a well-defined arm of land out into the waters of the Gulf, branching off as a projection from the main body of land com

posing the State, and forming a part of it. We observe that on many of these early maps the term "peninsula" is applied to this projection, and that designation is sufficiently accurate for the purpose of description.

November 14, 1803, President Jefferson sent a communication to Congress, in which, among other things, he said:

"The object of the following pages is to consolidate the information respecting the present State of Louisiana, furnished to the Executive, by several individuals among the best informed on the subject.

"Of the province of Louisiana no general map, sufficiently correct to be depended upon, has been published, nor has any been yet procured from a private source. It is, indeed, probable that surveys have never been made upon so extensive a scale as to afford the means of laying down the various regions of a country which in some of its parts appears to have been but imperfectly explored.

"St. Bernardo.

"On the east side of the Mississippi, about five leagues below New Orleans, and at the head of the English Bend, is a settlement known by the name of the Poblacion de St. Bernardo, or the Terre au Bœufs, extending on both sides of a creek or drain, whose head is contiguous to the Mississippi, and which flowing eastward, after a course of eighteen leagues, and dividing itself into two branches, falls into the sea and Lake Borgne. This settlement consists of two parishes, almost all the inhabitants of which are Spaniards from the Canaries, who content themselves with raising fowls, corn and garden stuff for the market at New Orleans. The lands cannot be cultivated to any great distance from the banks of the creek, on account of the vicinity of the marsh behind them, but the place is susceptible of great improvement, and of affording another communication to small craft of from eight to ten feet draught, between the sea and the Mississippi."

"Country from Plaquemines to the sea, and effect of the hurricanes: