= 
The first Meridian. 159 
awaited with interest.* It is proposed to number the sheets con- 
secutively from 1 to 100. If the original District of ten miles 
square be subdivided into 100 square miles there will be one 
atlas sheet to each square mile. Beginning at the northern 
corner of the District and running southeastward, the sheets will 
be numbered 1, 2,3, etc, up to 10; thence returning to the north- 
western side, the next row will be numbered 11, 12, 13, etc, to 20, 
and so on to complete the entire District. 
The First Meridian.—Old residents of Washington and some of 
the modern ones also know the term Meridian hill. The story 
of this name is a story of surveying and thus a part of our theme. 
A hundred years ago it was the custom of various nations to 
reckon longitude from their own capitals—a bad custom not yet 
quite dead. Our grandsires, proposing to follow this practice, 
gave early attention to establishing a first meridian. Joined to 
it was the idea of a national observatory and American ephem- 
eris, to the end that the young republic might in these respects 
as well as in all others be quite free from dependence on foreign 
nations. The complete story of this first meridian seems to be 
still unwritten. 
On L’Enfant’s plan for the Federal city the letter b appears 
on the site of the Emancipation statue in Lincoln park, about a 
mile east of the Capitol. A marginal note indicates the plan 
proposed for this place, to wit: 
An historic column; also intended for a mile or itinerary column, from 
whose station (a mile from the Federal house) all distances of places 
through the continent are to be calculated. 
This appears to indicate that L’Enfant planned to have the 
primary meridian of the United States pass through a point ex- 
actly one mile east of the Capitol. Still this is not certain, as 
the only evidence discovered is the marginal note just cited. On 
the same map the longitude of the Capitol is given as 0° 0, 7. e., 
according to this note the first meridian was to pass through the 
Capitol, or Congress house, as it was then called. As a first 
meridian could not at the same time pass through the Congress 
house and a point one mile east of the Congress house, it seems 
likely that the eastern one never got beyond the suggestion or 
proposal on the original plan. 
*Since this was written and while this article is in press the Coast 
Survey has issued a map of the District of Columbia in five sheets. It is 
a black photolithograph ; scale, 1:9600, or 800 feet to an inch. 
