--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Flynn, Kevin"
<flynnk@r...> wrote:
> A very interesting what-if regarding this narrow neck of MD:
>
> Before Mason and Dixon set out on their survey, Lord
Baltimore's
> representatives believed the PA-MD line of latitude would be
farther north.
> Once it was established as a line 15 mi (IIRC) south of Spruce
Street in
> Philadelphia
you probably do recall correctly
as it was to be 15 miles south of the southernmost point of
philadelphia at that time
but how did you arrive at spruce street for it
& what part of spruce street if you can say
> (minus the land enclosed by the New Castle arc, of course),
> there was a real concern that the MD-VA line (the right bank of
the Potomac)
> might actually swing so far north that it would extend north of
the MD-PA
> boundary. Now *that* would have been interesting.
>
> So what is the speculation here as to how that situation might
have been
> equitably resolved among VA-MD-PA?
it might have been equitably resolved the same way kymotn was
resolved
which was for the surveyors to just follow the agreed specs
whatever happened
thus producing in that case the kentucky bend exclave
& in our speculation a similarly detached western md exclave
as you anticipate below
> VA was supposed to have the lands south
> of the Potomac; but if the river flowed north of 44 deg latitude,
actually if the river flowed anywhere north of the latitude agreed in
1760 as you describe it above
or in other words mason & dixons 39d43m17s6
aka mdn of today
for example 39d43m15s521 nad27 at mdne
then it would have done as you say here below
> it would
> have punctured PA and cut off eastern MD from western MD,
creating a large
> enclave. How else could this have been resolved?
i suppose a particularly generous & whimsical pa mightve given
to md the part of itself that wouldve fallen south of the potomac
& thus produce a sausage chain of 3 mary lands
connected only by 2 mdmdpava tristate quadripoints
> As noted here, Mason and Dixon breathed a sigh of relief when
the river's
> course again turned to the south before reaching their line.
interesting
can you give the source of this sigh