Mr. BOGGS. Very definitely. The CHAIRMAN. But there is a line on the west coast of South America shown on this map in your article which seems to designate the 200 nautical-mile line seaward from the coast. Mr. BOGGS. Those are claims asserted by Chile and Peru; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. There is no such claim by Canada; no such claim by the United States, no such claim by Mexico, is that right? Mr. BOGGS. That is right. The CHAIRMAN. How about Central America? Mr. BOGGS. In the case of El Salvador and Honduras such claims have been made; Honduras on the Caribbean coast, and El Salvador on the Pacific coast. Senator CORDON. You mean the 200-mile claim? Mr. BOGGS. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. I observe in Asia that there appears to be very little Continental Shelf around India, or am I mistaken? Mr. BOGGS. That is right on the east coast; on the west it widens toward the north. The CHAIRMAN. How about Arabia? Mr. BOGGS. On the Indian Ocean coast, it is narrow. In the case of the Persian Gulf, it is not strictly Continental Shelf, although it is all less than 100 fathoms deep, and in the Red Sea it is relatively narrow. The CHAIRMAN. Malaya and Indochina and Thailand? Mr. BOGGS. That, I would say, is quite wide. The CHAIRMAN. On the Pacific coast of China? Mr. BOGGS. It is relatively wide. The CHAIRMAN. How about Japan? Mr. BOGGS. The inland sea, yes; but generally not wide along the outer coasts. The CHAIRMAN. How about Australia? Mr. BOGGS. It is wide there, particularly in the Coral Sea, and to the north of Australia it is quite wide. Senator LONG. And to the south of Australia, however, it would be an average of 50 to 75 miles, at least! Mr. BOGGS. Yes; that is right. The CHAIRMAN. I remember very well how interested I was several years ago in making a cruise on the America, when it was first put into operation, to find from the Coast and Geodetic officers who were aboard, that the line of the Hudson River appeared to extend under the ocean out through the Continental Shelf for a substantial distance. Mr. BOGGS. Known as "the canyon of the Hudson River." The CHAIRMAN. There was clearly an indication from the soundings that had been made that this canyon of the Hudson River extended seaward a very long distance under the sea. Mr. BOGGS. That is an area in which there has been such precise submarine soundings at so many thousands of positions that the submarine topography is mapped almost like the maps of the dry-land surface; and in some cases ships know their position in latitude and longitude by their soundings and the topography underneath. They will say, "We have come to this ridge, or this canyon, or this gorge, or this isolated peak." The CHAIRMAN. Has that given rise to theories by oceanographers and geographers with respect to what the cause is? Mr. BOGGS. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What are those theories? Mr. BOGGS. Very much undecided; I am not an oceanographer, but I do know something of the theories. There is no agreement on this whatever, as to how those originated. I could easily suggest persons who are competent to testify in that field, but I cannot go into that in detail. The CHAIRMAN. I was just trying to develop the fact that there are theories, and that one of them apparently is that there was a sinking of the land, or a rising of the water Mr. BOGGS. That is right. The CHAIRMAN. Due to some unknown cause. Mr. BOGGS. They are trying to ascertain the actual amount of underwater currents and erosion and so on, but nobody has been able to measure those satisfactorily as yet. Some of the best work is being done off the coast of California at the present time. The CHAIRMAN. Are you aware of any distinction in the minds of those who are working on this problem with respect to what the national claim should be with respect to areas not more than 100 fathoms deep, and areas which are beyond the traditional seaward boundary? Mr. BOGGS. Well, Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would say that in what I have written recently, I have been permitted, I may say not discouraged in any sense, in writing my own recommendations and ideas in the matter, and they are something of this character: That the right of the coastal state or nation should be established—this is my personal point of view-to develop subsoil and seabed resources. Petroleum is at the present time the only practicable resource of that sort; and apparently the coastal state should be permitted to develop that anywhere where it is technically feasible to do so, at any distance out. The difficulties of doing it increase more rapidly than the depth of the water; and in some parts of the world, of course, the storms, and so on, make it impracticable to go very far out at all; make it definitely so. The best opinion in that field, I believe, is that of Mr. Wallace E. Pratt. The prospects of exploitation out on the Continental Shelf are quite limited, simply from the technical point of view, in the waters which are very deep. Senator CORDON. That is a practical recommendation- Senator CORDON (continuing). That the State which happens to adjoin the area should exploit it. It has not anything to do with its legal right to do that. Mr. BOGGS. There is no established legal right whatever. Senator CORDON. And you gave no thought to that question in that recommendation? Your recommendation was based on the practical proposition that if there are values there the adjacent littoral state should develop it. Mr. BoGGs. I think so; I think there should be established some method of extending boundaries through the waters from the coast out to the edge of the Continental Shelf, if there is any practical point or desirability of going that far; in any case, all boundaries should be extended out to the edge of the territorial sea and as much farther as there is any practical or immediate desire. Senator CORDON. Does your recommendation go one step farther and cover the proposition of exclusive development or right of development? Mr. BOGGS. Personally, yes. Senator CORDON. The exclusive development or right of development that rests in the littoral State? Mr. BOGGS. Yes; that is my own opinion, I would say. I am not speaking for the Department, of course, in the matter. The CHAIRMAN. You have written an article, the proof of which has been handed me, entitled "Delimitation of Seaward Areas Under National Jurisdiction." Where was that published? Mr. BOGGS. That will be published, presumably, late this month, in the American Journal of International Law here in Washington, and in that there are proposed techniques for extending boundaries from the coast out across the Continental Shelf to the very limit of it, and by way of illustration, I have taken the case of the Gulf of Venezuela and the problem of boundary between the country of Colombia on the left and Venezuela on the right. The CHAIRMAN. What page is that? Mr. BOGGS. Page 261. It happened to be a problem that was put up to me by an engineer from one of those countries who was attached to one of the embassies here some years ago: "How would you carry out such a boundary?" I thought he was talking about another -boundary at the moment, but it is an interesting, fascinating, difficult technical problem, for which I hope I have made the most reasonable suggestion. Senator LONG. Mr. Chairman, might I suggest that both of these articles could well be made a part of the hearings. The CHAIRMAN. One of them has not yet been published. I do not know whether we ought to put it in the record. Senator LONG. If that checks, Doctor, with the journal in which you intend to publish it, I think the journal will be out by the time the committee hearings are made available. Senator LEHMAN. This one has been published. Mr. BOGGS. Yes, sir; this one has; and the other they expect to have out by the time of the annual meeting on the 26th, 27th, and 28th of this month. The CHAIRMAN. What is your desire? Mr. BOGGS. At the present time I believe the second article should not be introduced, because I know minor typographical changes were made before it went to press The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, we will make the first one a part of the record. (The article entitled "National Claims in Adjacent Seas" is carried in full in the Appendix.) Senator LONG. I would like to have both inserted, assuming that Dr. Boggs would consent to having them made part of the record. I believe they would be helpful. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. (NOTE.-Reprint of article, Delimitation of Seaward Areas Under National jurisdiction, the American Journal of International Law, April 1951, is carried in full in the appendixes.) The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Boggs, you have already told us there is a great deal of variance among the nations of the world Mr. BOGGS. That is right. The CHAIRMAN (continuing). With respect to the seaward bound aries. Mr. BOGGS. Right. The CHAIRMAN. Does this article on the delimitations concern merely the technique of determining what boundaries are, or does it deal Mr. BOGGS. Yes. The CHAIRMAN (continuing). With the basic claims of the nations? Mr. BOGGS. That is right. The CHAIRMAN. That is completely set forth in that article? Mr. BOGGS. That is right. The two articles are really twins to tackle the unsolved aspects of these problems. The CHAIRMAN. Have you any idea why no international conference has as yet developed any uniformity with respect to seaward boundaries? Mr. BOGGS. May I say this off the record, Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. (Discussion was had off the record.) Mr. BOGGS. The desirable approach to the solution of these problems, it seems to me and I suppose there is considerable agreement in this field-is to make progress by a few countries coming to agree-. ment who look at it in the larger aspect, and then to draw others into the agreement. Senator LONG. Mr. Chairman, if I might suggest, I realize the difficult problem involved here in speaking and discussing international problems with our own committees, which might be enlightening and helpful to someone urging a point of view against what we regard as the immediate best interests of the United States, but I believe the statement Mr. Boggs just made off the record is one statement that every Senator and Congressman should have when he attempts to work out a proper solution of this problem. Senator CORDON. Senator, could he not present it, in any event, in his own conclusion? It seemed to me to be perfectly apparent that if you had information in advance with respect to one nation there is a wide continental shelf, and with respect to the other it is very narrow, self-interest, after all, is the activating motive all the way through, and the one that does not have the shelf would not be inclined to agree that the one that has could exploit it. The CHAIRMAN. Obviously, the nation with a large continental shelf would not want some other nation, under the theory that the national boundary is only 3 miles from the low-water mark, to undertake to move in and try to recover the deposits in the submerged lands. Senator CORDON. That is the corollary of my statement. The CHAIRMAN. Surely, and that brings into focus the statement that Dr. Boggs made at the very outset, that there is a great distinction between a fishing ship at sea moving about without any fixed point, and an island that may be constructed by oil operators to enable them to go into the submerged lands, or a well drilled there, which becomes immediately a fixed point, and can be defined, so that when you are confronted with the problem of exercising jurisdiction and control over a vessel which moves about, you have one set of conditions; but when you are dealing with the jurisdiction and control over a fixed point under the ocean, you are dealing with utterly different considerations. Mr. BOGGS. I should be glad to make this point, Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of the committee if it would help: I have been trying, ever since 1930 when I began to get into these problems in a very active way, to maintain a practical point of view, not of the office-desk official who would like to see broad lines drawn way out from the shore on his country, but of the practical operators, whether they are fishermen or petroleum operators or anyone else, and navigators at sea. When I was in South America last fall I went off the beaten path, at my own expense, to go from Panama over to Lake Maracaibo and observe the operations there, as the best illustration of petroleum operations out in the water areas, to talk with their principal geologist, and so on. And last summer I also went out with some Coast and Geodetic Survey vessels off our own coasts, when these articles were in draft form, to discuss with the officers in charge of the surveying operations of quite different kinds, the ideas I had-to test them practically, so that I have been trying to maintain a thoroughly practical point of view all the time, and also the viewpoint of the United States interests. Senator LONG. Dr. Boggs, is it not likely that the actual international agreement, if it is ever worked out, an agreement that all nations would recognize, would probably be the result of nations that have substantial assets in their territorial seas proceeding to develop those assets, and over a period of time a general acceptance on the part of all nations that that was probably the fair way to go about developing them and maybe at some future date those nations that had no assets in their coastal seas might be, in order to obtain some understanding on a completely different matter to their best interests, willing to recognize the rights of the coastal states which had some assets? Senator ECTON. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the United States could not possibly gain anything by even negotiating an international agreement on this phase of it, and I think that we would all be willing to agree that each and every nation concerned had jurisdiction, or could assume jurisdiction, out to the Continental Shelf or to the deep ocean; it would have jurisdiction over its Continental Shelf bordering its own territory. The question that is before this committee, it seems to me, is whether we are going to permit the Federal Government jurisdiction over that portion of the Continental Shelf which is contained in the boundaries of these bordering States that are a part of this country. We all believe, I think, that this country has jurisdiction of its Continental Shelf; but are we going to permit the States to go out to the three-mile limit, or are we going to permit the States to include in their boundaries that other portion of the Continental Shelf? That is the question that this committee has to decide it seems to me. The CHAIRMAN. I think the Senator has raised one of the very fundamental issues. It may be appropriate for the chairman to remark at this point that when the last quitclaim bill was passed in the Senate, |