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482 Correspondence of Governor Sharpe.
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Letter Bk. IV
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Error had been committed & that the Line instead of de-
scribing a Segment of a Parallel of Latitude or being a due
East & West Line is really the Segment of a Great Circle
continually deviating from its Point of Beginning towards the
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p. 156
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South. If the Gentlemen who may be consulted should be
clearly of Opinion that the best Method of finding the Point
from which the North Boundary must be run will be to take
Observations, I believe it will be better for His Ldp & the
Messrs Penns to have a good Instrument made in London at
their joint Expence for the purpose & on its Arrival we can I
believe get the Mathematical Master from Williamsburg to
go up & together with Dr Smith Provost of the Philaa Academy
(whom I presume the Pennsylvania Commissioners will engage)
take such Observations as may be thought expedient. The
Surveyors have likewise represented to me that they will want
& cannot well do without such an Instrument as is described
in the inclosed Paper marked A: & we also want a Two foot
brass Sector accurately made & proved in the Tower to be a
true Standard Measure otherwise we must be content to
measure the Chains &c with such a Sector as the Pennsylvania
Gentn may produce — If the Mathematicians who may be con-
sulted should think that the Lines can be best measured with
some Instrument which they perhaps may invent; it will be
better & cheaper to have it made in London than for us to
have one made in America. As we were not sure when we
left the Surveyors below at the Middle Post that they would
be able to run the North Line (which they had begun) exactly
true agreeable to their Instructions, the Commissions as you
will see by our last Minute agreed to meet again at Chester
Town the 25th of March in order that if the Surveyors should
then report that it is impracticable to run the Line so true &
accurately as they were required, the Commissioners may then
give them such farther Instructions as they should think exped-
ient but as the Surveyors now they have made an Experiment
are persuaded that they can run the Line without committing
any Error, I apprehend it will be thought sufficient by the
Pennsylvania Gentln as well as by us that Three of each should
just meet at Chester Town on the Day appointed & adjourn to
some Day in June or July by which Time it might be expected
that the Surveyors will have run the two Lines mentioned in
the first Article of their Instructions. The Commissioners
being unanimously of Opinion that the several Lines men-
tioned in the Articles of Agreement cannot possibly be run
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p. 157
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within the Time limitted as there are at least four Months in
a year that the Surveyors cannot work we agreed when we
were together the 9th of Decemr to represent the same to our
respective Constituents which I have accordingly done in my
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