He then filed his report with the Supreme Court recommending that all of the disputed area be declared part of the State of Tennessee.

Nordbye heard evidence and was presented exhibits and maps which showed that the migration of the Mississippi River northward and west continued until about 1912.

Nordbye found that, thereafter, because of the avulsion, the water in the thalweg became stagnant, and erosion and accretion no longer occurred.

The Supreme Court affirmed this finding, quoting from its opinion in an earlier dispute between the same states where it had held: It is settled beyond the possibility of dispute that, where running streams are the boundaries between States, the same rule applies as between private proprietors, namely, that, when the bed and channel are changed by the natural and gradual processes known as erosion and accretion, the boundary follows the varying course of the stream; while, if the stream from any cause, natural or artificial, suddenly leaves its old bed and forms a new one, by the process known as an avulsion, the resulting change of channel works no change of boundary, which remains in the middle of the old channel, although no water may be flowing in it, and irrespective of subsequent changes in the new channel.

[2]Nordbye was then further authorized to engage surveyors to determine the exact line of the boundary, with the states to split the cost.