Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
when assessing prescriptive acts, see, e. g., Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U. S., at 614-615; Indiana v. Kentucky, 136 U. S. 479, 510 (1890); it is undisputed that by 1904 the United States held title to all of the Island. Nor was there the normal opportunity for a claimant State or its agencies to meet the normal governmental responsibility for public protection, as in providing police and fire protection to the disputed area. The National Government had its own firefighting equipment and security force and rarely received any help from New York; the State showed that it furnished assistance on only three isolated occasions, in 1897 when the immigration depot burned to the ground, in 1905, when a cheating federal employee working in the telegraph office was sent off to the Ludlow Street jail in New York City, and in 1916, when German saboteurs set fire to barges that floated to Ellis Island and ignited the Island's seawall.13
13 Not only are these incidents spotty, they are also consistent with New York's jurisdiction over the harbor waters granted by Article Third of the Compact and with New York's undisputed authority over the original Island. The fire of 1897 involved buildings that were almost entirely on the original Island, and the telegraph official arrested in 1905 was working in the main immigration building, which was also located on the original Island. Finally, as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recognized in 1991, "[t]he City of New York has historically provided fireboat protection for the waterfront areas of the New York Harbor." N. Y. Exh. 917 (letter to Norman Steisel, First Deputy Mayor, dated Apr. 12, 1991). Accordingly, putting out the fire on the seawall of the Island in 1916 was not an apparent act of prescription; it was in keeping with New York's exclusive jurisdiction over waters of the harbor. But even leaving New York's harbor jurisdiction aside, the act of one sovereign in helping a neighboring government put out a fire would hardly suggest that territorial aggrandizement was afoot.
There is also evidence that two criminal complaints were filed in New York City Municipal Court involving Ellis Island residents, but, as New York admitted, "it is not clear from those complaints whether the criminal acts occurred on Ellis Island." New York's Response to New Jersey Request for Admission 35 (Request No. 82).
In stating that "[i]n 1942, the New York City Police Department formed a special squad to assist federal officials in questioning immigrants arriv-
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