the long elusive & then long awaited mathews & nelson 1928
mdva report
once believed indispensable for determining true mdvawv
& later believed indispensable for determining true dcmdvan
& subsequently lost en route from denver for so long that all
hope of its arrival was abandoned last week
finally reached me from out of the blue here today on cream hill

but this document isnt at all what we imagined it was

its purpose was simply to correct some minor mistakes the
usgs cartographers had made circa 1897 in interpreting the
meaning of the 1877 mdva arbitral award
mainly at the mouths of tributaries & at some other embayments
but all situated without exception
downriver
from the district of columbia
yikes

so
the report & maps completely ignore the upper potomac sector
from dcmdvan to mdvawv

hahahahaha

which marks easily the second if not the third bubble burst by
this single document

& to add to the irony
even if it had been the right stuff
as i once so confidently believed & predicted
& actually not just once but once for each of these tripoints in turn
the scale is still too small to produce a state line any finer than
about 10 or 15 feet wide

meaning
it would not have refined but only confounded our tries for both of
these tripoints
even if the data & maps it provides had been relevant to either of
them
hahahahahaha
which i can now confidently conclude they definitely arent

the report does however reconfirm & underscore the fact that
dcmdvan
is indeed at the
low water mark
properly so called

whatever that may mean

& wherever it may lie

for of course one never actually sees a low water mark per se

& that is so not only because low water doesnt normally leave a
mark
but also because a water level even lower than low water would
be needed to reveal a low water mark as an impression on land
rather than as just the surface of the water running past it
which might not normally be called a mark

strictly speaking
the waters edge could produce a water line
but not really any mark at all

in any case the challenge now shifts from learning exactly where
to learning first exactly when
low water occurs

i think i would accept the official zero stage for that
if indeed it ever occurs

otherwise i suppose the average yearly low water stage

but anyway what does anybody think of that

for at the same time
just as all these surprising truths are setting us free
it is most liberating to realize that the low water determination
will be left entirely to our own judgment now rather than handed
down to us on a platter by any authority
for i believe we have now completed all the research diligence
we can hope to do for both mdvawv & dcmdvan

but i must also report a final bubble that is likely also burst by the
report
namely
our belief that the 1877 award changing the high water line of the
original maryland charter to the low water line applied only to
mdva & not at all to mdwv

for there is appended to the report a 1910 supreme court opinion
in 217us577 apparently extending the award of low water mark
to mdwv also
yikes

& on top of that
the 1877 award does clearly state
true mdva begins at a point on the potomac where vawv strikes it
at the low water mark

which if correct
as i believe is now inescapable
means
back to the drawing board for mdvawv too
given that the official border blueprint showing a vawv terminus
at the high water mark must therefore be incomplete

& after such a beguilingly close encounter with closure by mere
measuring tape
the question there
in the absence of any data whatsoever
reverts back again to
what is the true bearing & length of the missing tripointing stitch

which is exactly where i thought it stood when last i visited

but anyway the more lost illusions the better