Opinion of the Court. Prairie Dog Town Fork of Red River crosses that meridian, or whether, as contended by the State, it goes northwestwardly up the North Fork of Red River until that river crosses the 100th meridian many miles due north of the initial monument established by the United States in 1857. Upon this point the evidence is very voluminous. Much of it, we feel constrained to say, is of little value, and tends only to confuse the mind in its efforts to ascertain what was within the contemplation of the negotiators of 1819. It is a matter of regret that the question now presented, involving interests of great magnitude, should not have been determined, in some satisfactory mode, before or shortly after Texas was admitted as one of the States of the Union. It has remained unsettled for so long a time that it is not now so easy of solution as it would have been when the facts were fresh in the minds of living witnesses who had more intimate knowledge of the circumstances than any one can now possibly have upon the most thorough investigation. Before looking at the Melish map of 1818, it will be proper to inquire as to the general course of Red River, so far as any information had been given to the public prior to the making of that map. Probably the most trustworthy publication on the subject is Pike's "Account of expeditions to the sources of the Mississippi and through the western parts of Louisiana to the source of the Arkansaw, Kans, La Platte and Pierre Juan Rivers, performed by order of the government of the United States, during the years 1805, 1806 and 1807; and a tour through the interior parts of New Spain, when conducted through these provinces by order of the Captain General in the year 1807." This work was copyrighted in 1808 and published at Philadelphia in 1810. It was illustrated by numerous charts, copies of which are found on pages 44, 45, 46, 47, post- one of them being "A Chart of the Internal Part of Louisiana," the other, "A Map of the Internal Provinces of New Spain." Those charts show a large river called Red River, extending from a point near Santa Fé between latitude 37° and 38° across what is now the State of Texas, passing Natchitoches, Louisiana. Both show a chain of mountains |