Boundary line

“ The boundary line should now be located according to the middle of that channel as it was at the time the current ceased to flow therein as a result of the avulsion of 1876.
(4) A commission consisting of three competent persons, to be named by the court upon the suggestion of counsel, will be appointed to run, locate, and designate the boundary line between the States at the place in question in accordance with the above principles. ”

“ The commission shall be bound so far as topographical considerations permit to follow the fiftieth parallel of north latitude as the boundary line, and in case any deflections from that line at any points are found to be necessary compensation will be made by correlative deflections at other points. ”

“ We do not want you, and have no designs upon you, but—purely for the sake of argument, and talking as enlightened persons—is it not rather fantastic? Is a boundary-line such an object in itself? May not a good deal that has stood for patriotism in the past be a mere provincial narrowness? ”

“ In law, the exact boundary of land is always a matter of evidence; where no evidence is available, the court acts on presumption. For example, the boundary of land on opposite sides of a road, whether public or private, is presumed to be the middle line of the road. Where two fields are separated by a hedge and ditch the boundary line will run between the hedge and the ditch. ”

“ Artificial changes in the course of the river shall not affect the location of the Inter-Entity Boundary Line unless otherwise agreed. No artificial changes may be made except by agreement among the Parties. ”

“ The advance of a sturdy population carrying westward breadth of views and force of character was deciding the national policy, and the settlement of the boundary line removed a multitude of difficulties which filled the whole period of joint occupancy. Why then should there be longer delay? Action was expected by the people, the needs were growing greater every day.
It is easily explained. The very cause which had gained for the nation the territory, now operated to retard the passage of a bill which would make it a territory in government. ”

“ Accordingly, the middle of the principal channel of navigation is commonly accepted as the boundary. Equality in the beneficial use often would be defeated, rather than promoted, by fixing the boundary on a given line merely because it connects points of greatest depth. ”

“ According to the decree of the Board of Chancery, the boundary line must consist of an east and west line extending from Cape Henlopen to the centre of the Eastern Shore, thence northerly at a tangent to a circle with a twelve-mile radius about Newcastle, Delaware. ”

“ A perusal of the record satisfies us that for many years occupation and conveyance of the lands on the Virginia side has been with reference to the Deakins line as the boundary line. The people have generally accepted it and have adopted it, and the facts in this connection cannot be ignored. ”

“ The Washington and Idaho boundary line.—The contract for the survey of this line was let on the 2d day of June, 1873, but no report of progress made by the contractors has been received.
8. The northern part of the eastern boundary of New Mexico and the eastern part of the southern boundary of Colorado.—Under the appropriation made by act of Congress approved March 3, 1873, the contract for the survey of these lines has been let to John J. Major, but returns have not been received. ”

“ On the hearing, as appears from the opinion, the United States contended that under the treaty of 1819 the boundary line following the course of the Red River westward to the 100th meridian, went along and up the South Fork, as the continuation or principal fork of the River (page 34 (16 S.C.t. 725) ) . ”

“ The Senate, February 9, voted to strike out the fifth article of Rufus King's boundary convention, and to approve the other articles, which provided for fixing the disputed boundary-line of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. ”

“ In arcifinious lands, where the bounds are formed by nature, any gradual change in the course of the river makes a change also in the boundaries of territory, and whatever accession is given by the river to one side, it will belong to the possessor of the land on that side. Because the respective nations are supposed originally to have taken possession of those lands, with an intention of making the MIDDLE of that river, as a natural boundary, the line of separation between them. ”

“ This would give a tract of country of 80 miles by 35, over almost the whole of which our settlements are now scattered.
There are some other objects of importance which might be settled at the time the Indians meet upon the subject of the boundary line. I have before stated to you that none of the roads passing through one settlement to any other in this Territory were made free by treaty, admitting that free ingress and egress were contemplated at the time that the several tracts were ceded to the French. ”

“ It appears to us plain on the face of the agreement that the dominant fact is the establishment of the boundary line. The boundary line is the line of sovereignty, and the establishment of it is not satisfied, but is contradicted, by the suggestion that the agreement simply gives the ownership of the land under water on the New Jersey side to that state as a private owner of land lying within the state of New York. ”

“ In England the southeastern plain and the northwestern uplands have been repeatedly arrayed against each other, from the Roman conquest which embraced the lowlands up to about the 500-foot contour line,79 through the War of the Roses and the Civil War,80 to the struggle for the repeal of the Corn Laws and the great Reform Bill of 1832.81 Though the boundary lines have been only roughly the same and each district has contained opponents of the dominant local party, nevertheless the geographic core has been plain enough. ”

“ There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary, upon which to divide. Trace through, from East to West, upon the line between the free and slave country, and we shall find a little more than one-third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated, or soon to be populated thickly upon both sides ”

“ Where land is described as running a certain distance by measurement to an ascertained line, though without a visible boundary, such line will control the admeasurement and determine the extent of the grant. ”

“ And he shall file with his report the field notes of his survey, showing the method used by him in ascertaining and locating the line of the boundary, and a map showing the boundary line as run and marked by him ”

“ The origin of such a difference of dimensions will be seen if we reflect that each portion of space has a boundary, and is extended both in the direction in which its boundary extends, and also in a direction from its boundary; for otherwise it would not be a boundary. A point has no dimensions. A line has but one dimension,—the distance from its boundary, or its length. A plane, bounded by a straight line, has the dimension which belongs to this line, and also has another dimension arising from the distance of its parts from this boundary line ”

“ In preparing the official plat from the field-notes the meander line is represented as the border line of the stream, and shows to a demonstration that the water-course, and not the meander line, as actually run on the land, is the boundary.' It has never been held that the lands under water, in front of such grants, are reserved to the United States, or that they can be afterwards granted out to other persons, to the injury of the original grantees. ”

“ The boundary zone in nature.
Nature abhors fixed boundary lines and sudden transitions; all her forces combine against them. Everywhere she keeps her borders melting, wavering, advancing, retreating. If by some cataclysm sharp lines of demarcation are drawn, she straightway begins to blur them by creating intermediate forms, and thus establishes the boundary zone which characterizes the inanimate and animate world. ”

“ It has been decided again and again that the meander line is not a boundary, but that the body of water whose margin is meandered is the true boundary. Railroad Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. 272; Jefferis v. ”

“ The position, that by the bay as a boundary is meant, in this case, the line of low-water mark, is equally unfounded. By the common law, the shore of the sea, and, of course, of arms of the sea, is the land between ordinary high and low-water mark, the land over which the daily tides ebb and flow. When, therefore, the sea, or a bay, is named as a boundary, the line of ordinary high-water mark is always intended where the common law prevails. ”

“ Using natural boundary lines, it would be difficult to divide North America into many states. Where such lines do exist, they have not always been utilized. Lake and river, however, form over half the border of Ohio. In general, a water boundary is an asset to a commonwealth ”

“ But bounded on the west by the river called Rio Bravo from its mouth to about the 30° parallel, the line of demarcation stops after reaching this point, and there seems never to have been any agreement in regard to this part of the frontier. The farther we go northward, the more undecided is the boundary. This part of America contains little more than uninhabited forests or Indian tribes, and the necessity of fixing a boundary has never yet been felt there. There also exists none between Louisiana and Canada. ”

“ The last time the words occur is after the direction that the line shall pass up the St. Croix and to the most remote western spring or fountain of that stream, "unde per imaginariam lineam directam quae pergere per terram seu currere versus septentrionem concipietur." Here alone can any doubt exist as to the meaning of the terms, and that is easily solved.
The boundary pointed out in the instrument is "such as may be conceived to go or run toward the north by (per) a direct (directam) line." Now a direct line toward the north can be no other than a meridian line. ”

“ To the intrinsic difficulties of questions of boundary lines, especially those described in regions unoccupied and but partially known, is to be added in our country the embarrassment necessarily arising out of our Constitution by which the General Government is made the organ of negotiating and deciding upon the particular interests of the States on whose frontiers these lines are to be traced. ”

“ This line then became the common boundary of the two states. [2] The bill of complaint was filed in 1940. It alleged that the thread of the stream had shifted frequently, sometimes suddenly, sometimes gradually, and that these changes had caused controversies concerning the true boundary. ”