yikes good going & hardly sad or unfortunate
but only more fascinating & challenging now
for one thing it means your hypothesis was anticipated by & worthy of no less than
cadastral engineers
whatever they are
& it also means even such experts as these guys were couldnt find his mound number 24
so you are saved in advance from any disappointment or frustration etc
it could also mean they were only looking for a post rather than any mound there & had no
idea the post they sought was moldering within the funny bump they were standing on
or gazing at right beside them
in my hysterical historical reenactment anyway
& it could also mean ellicott was deadheading or goldbricking & feathering back on the
construction of the more remote mounds too
hence not much of a bump or no bump at all after a couple of centuries
but it most probably means our quest for any bump on lams
if not the oldest bump or a multibump
will be so much the more demanding now
& i agree your hypothesis is still intact for purposes of near missed localizations
which could still be our best line of approach
& also for leading us to perfectly or imperfectly coincident ellicott mound tripoints
like say on the side hill of a mound but not necessarily at its exact vertex
for i think you have positively demonstrated that all of that is still highly possible even if
no longer so likely any more
& that the game is definitely worth the candle
& that a methodical & careful & patient search should eventually pay off
--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus" <mcmanus71496@m...>
wrote:
>
> I have heard from John Shankland of the Principal Meridian Project, who confirms
> that the initial points of the Washington Meridian and the St. Helena Meridian
> are identical (one unique point on LAMS).
>
> He has sent me PDF's of two pages from White's book, in which the Washington
> Meridian is discussed. These pages focus on unsuccessful 20th-century efforts
> to recover the meridian's initial point on LAMS, which, sadly, remained unmarked
> as of 1988.
>
> The task was assigned in 1945 to "cadastral engineers" Walsh and Crawford, who,
> White writes, "searched for but could find no evidence of the Initial Point nor
> of Mile Post No. 24 on Ellicott's Line of Demarcation... Walsh and Crawford
> mistakenly assumed that the Washington Meridian Initial Point was the 24
> milepost of the Ellicott Line of Demarcation."
>
> I have asked John to send me the beginning of the discussion of the Washington
> Meridian, where White presumably tells how the location of the meridian was
> chosen and how much it differs from Ellicott. It can't be much! It was
> supposedly close enough to have fooled Walsh and Crawford." If we know how much
> and in which direction, the public land survey on the Mississippi side would
> still provide excellent clues to the locations of any surviving Ellicott mounds.
>
> Unfortunately, the mismatch, however slight it is, rules out the conjunction of
> any modern tripoints with Ellicott's mile mounds along LAMS. Therefore, we must
> enjoy any that we find for their historicity only. Since the St. Stephens
> Meridian is most definitely surveyed from Ellicott's Stone, hope might remain
> farther east.
>
> Lowell G. McManus
> Leesville, Louisiana, USA
>