24
Opinion of the Court
to one State against the other, that authority being reserved for jurisdiction exclusive to this Court. Mississippi v. Louisiana, 506 U. S. 73, 77-78 (1992); see also 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a). We remanded the case so the complaint filed by Louisiana could be dismissed in the District Court and for the Court of Appeals to determine what further proceedings were necessary with respect to the claims of the private parties.
Upon remand, Louisiana asked the District Court to stay further action in the case to allow Louisiana once again to seek permission to file a bill of complaint in this Court. The District Court agreed, noting that our decision on the boundary issue would solve the District Court's choice-of-law problem and would be the fairest method of resolving the fundamental issue for all parties.
Louisiana did file a renewed motion in our Court for leave to file a bill of complaint. We granted it, allowing leave to file against Mississippi and persons called the Houston Group, who asserted ownership to the disputed area and who supported Mississippi's position on the boundary issue. Louisiana asked us to define the boundary between the two States and cancel the Houston Group's claim of title. After granting leave to file, we appointed Vincent L. McKusick, former Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, as Special Master. The case is now before us on Louisiana's exceptions to his report, and there is no jurisdictional bar to our resolving the questions presented.
We deem it necessary to do no more than give a brief summary of the law and of the Special Master's careful and well-documented findings and conclusions, for Louisiana's exceptions have little merit and must be rejected.
The controlling legal principles are not in dispute. In all four of the prior cases that have involved the Mississippi River boundary between Louisiana and Mississippi, we have applied the rule of the thalweg. Louisiana v. Mississippi, 466 U. S. 96, 99 (1984); Louisiana v. Mississippi, 384 U. S. 24, 25-26, reh'g denied, 384 U. S. 958 (1966); Louisiana v.
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