34 THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OE CECIL COUNTY 



in 1660 and Herrman soon after began to fulfil his part of the contract. 

 He was engaged in this work for about ten years, and the map which 

 he finally produced indicates that he had considerable talent, not only 

 as a surveyor but also as a draughtsman. This map was published in 

 1670 and embraced the territory from the southern half of New 

 Jersey to southern Virginia and westward to the limit of tide-water. 

 The configuration of the shore about the head of Chesapeake Bay is 

 fairly well represented. The principal estuaries, including the Sus- 

 quehanna, Northeast, Elk and Sassafras rivers are shown and their 

 relative proportions well represented. " Ocktoraaro " (Octoraro), 

 " Canoonawengh " (Conowingo) creeks and Northeast River also' find 

 a place in the map. Numerals are placed in the waterways to 

 indicate the relative depths of the streams. A number of settlements 

 are indicated and the map, as a whole, shows that Herrman had repre- 

 sented with considerable ability a large amount of information which 

 he had been instrumental in gathering. 



The account of the development of the geography of Cecil county 

 will not be complete without a notice of the excellent work done by 

 Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in running the historic Mason 

 and Dixon Line. Their commission was dated the 9th of December, 

 1763, and their work was completed a little less than -five years later, 

 on the 9th of November, 1768. No map appears to have been pub- 

 lished as a result of these works, though one was prepared 1 in manu- 

 script and many notes of interest were recorded in their field books. 

 When Col. Graham, equipped with refined instruments and assisted 

 by a full corps of engineers, made his survey in 1849-50, his work did 

 not show a deviation of two inches on either side of the center of the 

 post erected by Mason and Dixon at the termination of the line run- 

 ning due north, thus proving the extreme accuracy of the original 

 work. 



At about the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary "War, 

 Anthony Smith published a chart of Chesapeake Bay on a scale of 3^ 

 miles to the inch. This chart was intended for a guide to navigators, 

 and such information as shoals, channels, islands and the various 

 depths of water were represented. 



1 Manuscript copies still exist and these have been reproduced. 



