420                           THE COUNTIES OF MARYLAND

This importance of a county is not of recent development for it may
be detected among the earlier records of the first settlers along the
Potomac. Yet, in spite of the prominent place which the counties occupy
in the popular parlance, there are few subjects regarding the origin of
which there is more uncertain knowledge on the part of the local inhabi-
tant. The date of erection of the home county and the manner in which
it was set apart are alike but vaguely known. This ignorance is doubt-
less due in great measure to the age of the counties and the many modes
of incorporating or erecting them which have been employed. These
have varied from the personal announcement of the Proprietor, as in
the case of old Worcester County, to formal legislative enactment or the
insertion of new sections in the constitution of the State by the dele-
gates at constitutional conventions. The original limits of the counties
are often vaguely known or actually undeterminable, while in several
instances, such as Baltimore County, there exist no extant records indi-
cating exactly the manner or time of their erection. The nearest it is
possible to come to the date of the formation of some is based upon the
finding of the name or the reference to some county official in the con-
temporaneous legal records.

The preparation of large scale maps of the counties of the State by
the MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY has necessitated the exact delimitation
of the counties and this in turn has called for the careful study of the
legal records relating to them and their boundaries from the settle-
ment of the State in April, 1634, to the present day. The results of
these investigations are summarized in the following pages.

TIME OF ERECTING COUNTIES.

Among the first impressions received from a study of the records
dealing with the origin of the individual county is the fact that there
has been apparent no single well established mode of procedure by
which the counties have come into being and that the great majority of
the twenty-three counties, with Baltimore City, which now constitute
the State of Maryland, were already erected prior to the Eevolution and