OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT. 9 
tions and calculations with the triangulations previously made. 
Meridian lines were then run and mapped from points where town 
division lines touched high water mark, to the division line be- 
tween New York and Connecticut. Thus the whole field, subject 
to the Commissioners’ care, was clearly defined and mapped. 
The next step was to explore, survey and map the natural beds 
within the field which were reserved by law for public use, and 
were perpetually exempt from designation. The details of most 
of this work will be found in previous reports of the Commis- 
sioners and especially of Engineer Bogart. Allthe work of the 
Commissioners that required confirmation has been approved 
and confirmed from time to time by the Legislature. 
Thus an area was presented of three hundred and thirty- 
five thousand acres of water extending from east to west about 
ninety-six miles, and from the Commissioners’ line on the north 
to the New York boundary line on the south, in width varying 
from three to ten miles. Hidden under this water were the lots 
to be mapped, a great multitude of them, held or claimed by as 
great a multitude of owners, who in many instances, were quite 
as hard to find asthe lots themselves. Some of the grounds were 
marked by buoys and some found only by reference to objects on 
the shore, wholly unlike land lots with their metes and bounds, 
fences and walls. There was but little visible to the eye which 
enabled one to discover a lot or determine its outline or extent. 
Searches were made for designations in the records of the sev- 
eral towns, but it was found that these in many cases had not been 
recorded, and of those recorded the descriptions were often incon- 
sistent and obscure. Copies, however, were taken of the written 
designations as made by the several Town Committees, and they 
are on file in the Commissioners’ office. Without the aid of own- 
ers these records afforded but little help in making correct maps. 
But some kind of a map was necessary at once, for a law had 
been passed providing for a tax upon oyster grounds and it was 
imperative that it should be promptly enforced. ‘The only prac- 
ticable course open to the Commissioners seemed to be that 
which they have pursued. By diligent inquiry in each town and 
with the aid of the town maps and designations, a list of owners 
and of their clams was made out ; and each owner of grounds 
was called upon to accompany the Commissioners’ Engineers and 
aid them in finding and surveying the grounds asclaimed by him. 
In the progress of this work other owners were discovered and 
