>From: "Jesper & Nicolette Nielsen" <jesniel@...>
>Reply-To: BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com
>To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: Re: [BoundaryPoint] caus straight or irregular
>Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 22:09:43 +0200
>
>That rises a few questions:
>
>1) Is the CA-US border (Lake of the Woods to Point Roberts) the 49th
>parallel and the markers wrong? Do the local know the actual border?
>
>2) Are the markers right? When and why did they change from the 49th
>parallel? How long is the longest regular stretch?

No, the markers are on the 49th, but because the 49th is not a great circle,
it is not a straight line itself, but a curve concave north. So to overcome
this, as stright line of sight is a nice pragmatic way to have a boundary,
it was defined as the straight line of sight (ie great circle route) through
successive markers. In other words it is a series of straight line segments
between markers. Now the further apart the markers are, the more the line
segment will deviate fomr the 49th, especially in the middle of that line
segment.
So, internediate markers were put in again all on the 49th. The boundary is
still ine segments between markers, but the segments are shorter, so the
deviation is smaller fomr the 49th.

BW
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