TARIATION OF THE COMPASS, 385 



increased. The old estates have been often rc-suryeyed, 

 and plans of them made, and usually annexed to deeds of 

 conveyance, or mortgage, which must be enrolled, with- 

 in a limited time, in the office of the Secretary of the 

 Island ! where, also, all the patents, and diagrams an- 

 nexed to them, are recorded. In all disputes at law 

 about boundary lines, where the keeping up of the old 

 marked lines on earth has been neglected, surveyors are 

 appointed to make actual re-surveys of all the old marked 

 lines on earth, (preserved in the manner before men- 

 tioned,) and to extract from the Secretary of the Island's 

 office correct copies of all such diagrams annexed to 

 patents, and to deeds. of conveyance, or mortgage, of 

 lands in the neighbourhood where the disputed boundary 

 is, as they may think necessary for the investigation 

 thereof. They then compare the lines, and meridians, ^"^ compass 

 of these original diagrams with those in their diagrams shews the same 

 delineated from their own re-surveys recently made ; bearings— 

 when it is always expected that the lines, and meridians, 

 of the former will coincide with those of the latter. It 

 is evident that this coincidence could not happen if any 

 variation of the magnetical needle had taken place in the 

 intermediate time elapsed between the making of the first 

 and of the last survey. My business being very extensive^ 

 I was frequently applied to in disputes at law about 

 boundary lines, and I had, besides, abundance of oppor- 

 tunities, on other surveys, to ascertain this fact satisfac- 

 torily. From all which I have discovered that the 

 courses of the lines, and meridians, delineated on the ori- 

 ginal diagrams annexed to patents, from 1660, downward* 

 to the present time, and of the re-survey diagrams thereof, 

 annexed to deeds, coincide with, and are parallel to^ the 

 lines and meridians delineated on the new diagrams from 

 recent surveys made by the magnetical needle, of the 

 same original marked lines on earth, (preserved as before .^ ^^ ^.j^^ 

 described); so that whatever course is laid down for the ground as were 

 line on the dia«:rara annexed to the patent, (and let it be <ietc^"^'nea 

 supposed, for example, to be north and south, or east years ago. 

 and west,) upon setting the compass in the old marked 

 line on earth, and directing the sights north and south, of 

 east and west^ according, to the magnetical needle, the 



said 



