228 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



appearance ; and he kindly loaned it to us for examination and copy, by 

 the heliotype process, for this report. 



Holi.and's Map. 



In 1773 and 1774, Capt. Samuel Holland made a survey of the prov- 

 ince at the public expense. Owing to the disturbances, which commenced 

 immediately afterwards, the map was not engraved till 1 784, in London, 

 and by the direction and at the expense of Paul Wentworth, Esq. 

 Belknap says of it, in the third volume of his history, bearing date of 

 1792, in the preface: "Those parts which were actually furnished by 

 Holland, or his assistants, are laid down with great accuracy. The 

 eastern boundary line and the parts connected with it were not surveyed, 

 but taken from such materials and information as could at that time be 

 collected." Belknap has compiled a smaller map from Holland's for his 

 work, upon which he placed a few improvements, including the straight 

 line finally agreed upon by the assembly to take the place of the con- 

 spicuous "Masonian curve," appearing both upon Holland's and Carri- 

 gain's map. I quote Belknap's account of the final settlement of the 

 matter.* 



It was observed, in the course of the preceding work, that the Masonian proprietors 

 claimed a curve line as their western boundary, and that under the royal government 

 no person had controverted that claim. When the war with Great Britain was termi- 

 nated by the peace of 1783, the grantees of some crown lands, with which this line 

 interfered, petitioned the assembly to ascertain the limits of Mason's patent. The 

 Masonians at the same time presented a petition showing the pretension which they 

 had to a curve line, and praying that a survey of it, which had been made in 1768 by 

 Robert Fletcher, might be established. About the same time the heirs of Allen, 

 whose claim had long lain dormant for want of ability to prosecute it, having consulted 

 council and admitted some persons of property into partnership with them, entered 

 and took possession of the unoccupied lands within the limits of the patent, and, in 

 imitation of the Masonians, gave general deeds of quit-claim to all bona fide purchasers, 

 previously to the first of May, 1785,— which deeds were recorded in each county, and 

 published in the newspapers. They also petitioned the assembly to establish a head 

 line for their patent. 



After a solemn hearing of these claims, the assembly ordered a survey to be made of 

 sixty miles from the sea, on the southern and eastern lines of the state, and a straight 

 line to be run from the end of one line of sixty miles to the end of the other. They 



* Hist. N. H., vol. 3, p. 13. 1812. 



