I have just now received from BP this Wednesday night this message that I posted
Tuesday afternoon. Of course, we HAVE heard from Mr. Schenck by now, etc., but
please read my original proposition of the bizarre compound curve projection
theory, which I admit is far-fetched, but I can't think of anything better.
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lowell G. McManus" <mcmanus71496@...>
To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: [BoundaryPoint] Re: possible explanation for undermeasurement of
12mile arc
>
> Still no word from Mr. Schenck.
>
> Whatever the reason is for the under-measurement of this particular arc of the
> twelve-mile circle, it seems purposeful. We just don't yet know the purpose.
>
> The Supremes consistently uphold Delaware's right to:
>
> ...the 12-mile circle (that is, within the circle the radius of
> which is 12 miles, and the center of which is the building
> used prior to 1881 as the courthouse at New Castle...
>
> However when they arrive at a description of that short and detached part of
> the
> circle's lower crossing of the left half of the Delaware River, they give us
> "the arc of a circle, the radius of which is 18,216.16 meters or 59,764.2
> feet."
> This is a very precise measurement, but it is off by more than two-thirds of a
> mile!
>
> The elusive explanation for this purposeful under-measurement should be found
> in
> the report of the Special Master appointed by the Supremes in 1930. Once
> again,
> we are foiled by lack of on-line access to the reports of Special Masters in
> these state boundary cases.
>
> I want to propose one possibility, upon which I would stake nothing:
>
> The badly under-measured arc was the SECOND previously unsurveyed arc of DENJ
> in
> the Court's 1935 decree. The first was "the extension southeastward of the
> eastern arc of the compound curve of the boundary between Delaware and
> Pennsylvania" (specified as surveyed by Hodgkins of the USC&GS in 1893) from
> DENJPA in the middle of the Delaware River to the mean low-water line on the
> left bank. While the Special Master was projecting Hodgkins's "compound
> curve"
> beyond DENJPA, he might have mathematically projected its last demarcated
> segment on around to the lower crossing of the river many miles away. Any
> inherent irregularity in Hodgkins's curve might have been compounded by
> distance
> to result in the significant under-measurement. While this hardly seems fair
> to
> Delaware, it might have been put forward on the grounds that Delaware had
> accepted Hodgkins's demarcation.
>
> I realize that this is far-fetched.
>
> Lowell G. McManus
> Leesville, Louisiana, USA