File:BarrosArana.jpg

"This is a reproduction of the original manuscript map located in the Chilean National Library. This map was handed to the Chilean Minister in Buenos Aires, Diego Barros Arana, by the Argentine Foreign Minister, Rufino de Elizalde, attached to a comunication dated 30 March 1878, containing a proposal for a 'compromise boundary line'. The map bears the signature of the Argentine Minister. In the extreme southern region the 'compromise boundary line', after reaching the Beagle Channel would continue 'following it, pararell to 55° latitude South until the Atlantic Ocean', as textually set out in the Minister's communication of 30 March 1878. As may be seen, the 'compromise boundary line' proposed followed the Beagle Channel and continued as far as the South of Isla de los Estados. Navarino, Picton, Nueva and Lennox Islands, together with all the others stretching southwards as far as Cape Horn, were attributed to Chile by the Argentine proposal. If Minister Elizalde's proposal was inacceptable for Chile, because it deprived Chile of a great part of the Magellan Strait, it is interesting because explains the sense of the expression 'Beagle Channel' as a waterway wich runs rectilineal along the southern coasts of Tierra del Fuego Island, determining as such which was the waterway that was proposed as a boundary line between Chile and Argentina in that region. It is important to point out that this map and the proposal of compromise of the Argentine Minister-as informed as the same Señor Elizalde- were approved by the President of Argentina, its cabinet, the former Minister Dr. Irigoyen and other competent persons.