Still this mistake might have been rectified had the British government in 1835 been sufficiently alive to British interests in America to have accepted a proposal made to them by President Jackson to ascertain the true north-western angle of Nova Scotia, or the exact position of the highlands, in accordance with certain well-understood rules in practical surveying which have been always considered obligatory in that continent. It was proposed by the United States to discard the due north line, to seek to the west of that line the undisputed highlands that divide the rivers which empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to find the point in the 'watershed' of these highlands nearest to the north line, and to trace a direct course from it to the monument already established. "If this principle had been adopted," says Sir Sandford Fleming, the eminent Canadian engineer, "a straight line would have been drawn from the monument at the head of the Chiputnaticook to a point which could have been established with precision in the 'watershed' of the highlands which separate the sources of the Chaudière from those of the Penobscot,--this being the most easterly point in the only highlands agreeing beyond dispute with the treaty. The point is found a little to the north and west of the intersection of the 70th meridian west longitude and the 46th parallel of north latitude." Had this proposal been accepted England would have obtained without further difficulty eleven thousand square miles, or the combined areas of Massachusetts and Connecticut. [Illustration: MAP OF THE NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY AS ESTABLISHED IN 1842.]