35 ° Mr. Robertson’s Observations on the Permanency 
The old estates have been often re-surveyed, and plans of 
them made, and usually annexed to deeds of conveyance, or 
mortgage, which must be enrolled, within a limited time, in 
the office of the Secretary of the Island ; where, also, all the 
patents, and diagrams annexed to them, are recorded. In all 
disputes at law about boundary lines, where the keeping up 
of the old marked lines on earth has been neglected, surveyors 
are appointed to make actual re-surveys of all the old marked 
lines on earth, ( preserved in the manner before mentioned, ) 
and to extract from the Secretary of the Island’s office, cor- 
rect copies of all such diagrams annexed to patents, and to 
deeds of conveyance, or mortgage, of lands in the neigh- 
bourhood where the disputed boundary is, as they may think 
necessary for the investigation thereof. They then compare 
the lines, and meridians, of these original diagrams with those 
in their diagrams delineated from their own re-surveys re- 
cently made ; when it is always expected that the lines, and 
meridians, of the former will coincide with those of the latter. 
It is evident that this coincidence could not happen if any 
variation of the magnetical needle had taken place in the 
intermediate time elapsed between the making of the first, 
and of the last, survey. My business being very extensive, I 
was frequently applied to in disputes at law about boundary 
lines, and I had, besides, abundance of opportunities, on 
other surveys, to ascertain this fact satisfactorily. From all 
which I have discovered that the courses of the lines, and 
meridians, delineated on the original diagrams annexed to 
patents, from 1660, downwards to the present time, and of 
the re-survey diagrams thereof, annexed to deeds, coincide 
with, and are parallel to, the lines and meridians delineated 
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