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70 PATTERSON v. M'CAUSLAND.
Fought and Dear Bought, which was laid out on the 21st of April,
1788, laid to the northward of them both, and extended entirely
from the one to the other; and that the tract called Jolly's First
Attempt, which was laid out in the year 1791, laid to the south-
ward of them; and, in like manner, extended from the one to the
other. The certificate of Jolly's First Attempt, calls for a black
oak, at one point, a white oak at another, and a white oak at a
third; which calls having been shewn and proved by witnesses,
the lines of that tract were extended to those boundary trees ac-
cordingly, as the law required, whereby that tract has not only been
made to border upon, but, to some extent, to interlock with the
tract called Long Fought and Dear Bought, so as to leave not the
least vacancy contiguous to Litten's Fancy, over which a resurvey
could be extended from it, so as to embrace any part of M'Caus-
land's First Attempt.
But Patterson and Ellicott, to impeach the testimony of the wit-
nesses produced by M'Causland to prove the call for the marked
black oak, the going to which brings those two elder tracts
together, and closes the access to M'Causland's First Attempt,
shew, that the black oak, of which the witnesses speak, is that
which is designated as a marked black oak in the certificate of
Jolly's First Attempt, bearing date in the year 1791; and that in
a block, so cut out of that tree as to include the whole of the only
chop mark upon it, there appears to have been added, by natural
growth, only twelve concentric layers of wood outside of, and since
the chop mark was made. They exhibited this block to the court
as evidence; alleging, that, according to the regular and uniform
course of nature, there is in all trees one such concentric layer
of wood always formed every year. And, therefore, they con-
tended, that the irresistible presumption was, that the black oak,
shewn by those witnesses, upon the resurvey, could not have re-
ceived the chop mark so long ago as the year 1791, when the tract
called Jolly's First Attempt was laid out; and, consequently, could
not be the marked black oak called for in the certificate of that
tract; and that call being thus clearly disproved, the lines of that
tract must, so far, be laid down by course and distance; and in
that mode of locating it, there would be left a considerable space
of vacancy along which the resurvey of Litten's Fancy might be
extended, as it had been, so as to take in the whole of the tract
M'Causland's First Attempt.
3d December, 1830,—BLAND, Chancellor.—This case standing
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