session, when nearly half of the season during which working parties can be kept in the field had elapsed; and although no delay took place in the appointment of commissioners to carry it into effect, the organization of the board was not effected, in consequence of the refusal of one of the commissioners and the agent to accept of their nomination.  The commissioners, acting under these disadvantages, have done all that lay in their power to accomplish the greatest practicable extent of work, and have obtained many results which can not but be important in the examination of the vexed and important question which has been committed to them; but after having fully and maturely considered the subject and interchanged the results of their respective operations they have come to the conclusion that it would be premature to embody the partial results which they have attained in a general report for the purpose of being laid before the political and scientific world.  The meridian line of the St. Croix has not been carried to a distance of more than 50 miles from the monument at the source of that river, and the operations of the other commissioners, although they have covered a wide extent of country, have fulfilled but one part of the duty assigned them, namely, that of exploration; while even in the parts explored actual surveys will be necessary for the purpose of presenting the question in such form as can admit of no cavil.  In particular, the results of the examination of the most northern part of the line appear to differ in some points from the conclusions of the late British commission.  Satisfied that the latter have been reached in too hasty a manner and without a sufficient time having been expended upon comparative observations, they are cautioned by this example against committing a like error.  In respect to the argumentative part of the report of the British commissioners, the duty of furnishing a prompt and immediate reply to such parts of it as rest upon the construction of treaties and the acts of diplomacy has been rendered far less important than it might at one time have appeared by the publication of the more important parts of the argument laid before the King of the Netherlands as umpire.  This argument, the deliberate and studied work of men who well understood the subject, is a full exposition of the grounds on which the claim of the United States to the whole of the disputed territory rests.  It has received the sanction of successive Administrations of opposite politics, and may therefore be considered, in addition to its original official character, as approved by the whole nation.  To this publication your commission beg leave to refer as embodying an argument which may be styled unanswerable.

The operations of the parties under the command of the several commissioners were as follows: