Message from the Governor of Maryland: Transmitting the Reports of the Joint Commissioners and of Lt. Col. Graham in Relation to the Intersection of ... States of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1850 Excerpt: ... These distances of Messrs. Mason and Dixon form no part of their measurement for determining the length of a degree of latitude in North America. This last-mentioned operation was performed with a very different apparatus in the year 1768, under the auspices of the Royal Society of London, after they had finished the marking of the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, and were discharged from the service of the commissioners. It will be noted more fully in my forthcoming report to Colonel Abert, chief of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. The first discrepancy to be investigated was in regard to the length of the chord of the arc cut off by the due north line. We, therefore, retraced it by running a straight line from the tangent stone to the stone set by the old commissioners to mark the intersection. In addition to the first measurement of this chord, already given, two others were carefully made. The following is a statement of the results of the three, viz:--By the first measurement,-7,743.7 feet. By the second measurement,--7,742.2" By the third measurement,---7,743.1" Mean of the three,...-7,743. Length of this chord, given by Mason and Dixon, is one mile, thirty-six chains and five links, equal to--7,659.3 Our measurement is greater than the length given by Mason and Dixon by 83.7" Again: Mason and Dixon state the meridian distance from the tangent stone to the marked or third stone on the arc of the circle to be one mile, or-5,280 feet. Our measurement gives this distance,-5,150" Our measurement is less than the dis-tance given by Mason and Dixon, by 130 These differences not only cast, at the moment, strong suspicion upon the present positions of the tangent and the intersection stones, but they also affect, in a very important degree, t...