MARYLAND 27 



who go about with it. Property in land, according to 

 its extent, is indicated in the deeds of sale, reckoning 

 from a certain tree, rock, or other object so many rods 

 by one course of the compass, then again so many rods 

 by another course, continuing thus until the measure- 

 ment comes around to the first land-mark. After some 

 time, during which the needle has varied, .the lines run 

 with it are not to be found again where they were, and 

 the differences between the new angles and the old 

 must, if the tracts of land are large, give all the more 

 considerable results : in this way it happens not seldom 

 that a survey new-made after a good many years cuts 

 off from the neighbor's plantation a piece of arable and 

 tilled land, giving him instead, at some other corner, a 

 piece of woods, it may be, or swamp land or other bar- 

 ren strip. And so arise discords, suits at laws, and 

 agreements, from all which the attorneys draw good 

 use. In other provinces the occasion of such misun- 

 derstandings is avoided through a fixed marking of the 

 lines by suitable land-marks, the boundaries of estates 

 not being governed by the variableness of the mag- 

 netick needle, which however might easily be corrected 

 by exact observations and calculations. The incon- 

 veniences of this system are felt and the necessary 

 changes will be made through statutory ordinances, if 

 the legal gentlemen, (as some people are apprehensive 

 they will) do not prevent it, seeking to keep open this 

 productive source of cases. 



The back road, which leads from Fredericktown be- 

 tween the South and North Mountain to Carolina, was 

 from all accounts not to be travelled at this season of 

 the year without great difficulty; so instead of taking 

 that road, as was our plan, we had to keep on this side 



