The Survey of the first Meridian. 161 
Thus I infer that L’Enfant planned to have the first meridian 
pass through a point exactly one mile east of the Capitol; that 
President Jefferson planned to have the first meridian pass 
through the President’s house, about one and one-half miles 
west of the Capitol, whereas the meridian afterward adopted 
by Congress was that of the Capitol itself. 
The meridian through the President’s house was, as already 
indicated, run out in 1804 by Nicholas King. Setting up his 
transit at the northern door of the White House and pointing to 
the star “in the tail of the constellation Ursa Minor at its eastern 
elongation,” he then depressed the telescope to sight a mark at 
the intersection of Sixteenth and north I streets. This mark 
was an Argand lamp placed on a very low stand. Over the 
lamp was a tin cylinder with a slit init. The offset or distance 
from this mark westward to the true meridian line was then 
calculated and very carefully measured, and the meridian “line 
marked on the head of a post firmly driven into the ground” 
at the intersection of Sixteenth street with the northern side of 
north I street. No surface marks now show the place of this 
historic post. Is it or its decayed remains still in place beneath 
the pavement or was it removed long ago? The telescope was 
now elevated and pointed due north “to the top of a hill near 
two miles north of the President’s house, on the lands of Mr 
Robert Peter, where temporary posts were fixed and the line 
marked upon them.” 
Early in September of 1804 Mr King, with the consent of Mr 
Peter, “planted a small obelisk of freestone, prepared by Mr 
Blagden, on the height where the stakes (or posts) had been 
fixed.” The apex of this stone was in the true meridian from 
the center of the northern door of the White House. 
The line was extended southward across Tiber creek and two 
stones planted near the site of the future Washington monu- 
ment. It was planned to set a stone exactly south of the center 
of the President’s house and exactly west of the center of the 
Capitol. The surveyor, on reaching this spot and finding the 
Capitol invisible, prolonged the line and set a stone at the inter- 
section of the meridian and a line due west from the southern 
end of the old Capitol. This stone was standing when I came to 
Washington, some twenty years ago; I have seen it many times. 
It was a rough brownish sandstone or freestone about 10 inches 
square and 3 to 4 feet high. I do not remember any marks or 
