INTRODUCTION. 
3 
But it appears from the operations of the United States Coast Survey, at 
both ends of the line, that the point of beginning on Currituck Inlet, in- 
stead being, as so constantly assumed, in latitude 36° 30' or as deter- 
mined by the surveyors in 1728, 36° 31' is 36° 33' 15" and the western 
end, (of “the Walker line” of 1779, at Bristol, Tenn.), 36° 34' 25.5". 
It is stated in Byrd’s Journal that the variation of the compass was ascer- 
tained to be a little less than 3° W. (The magnetic chart of the United 
States Coast Survey would make it £.) And no account is given of any 
subsequent correction ; and if none was made, at the end of the line sur- 
veyed by him, the course would have been in error by nearly 3°, as the 
amount of the variation in this State changes a little more than 1° for 
every hundred miles of easting or westing. So that the northern boun- 
dary of the State as run, is not only not the parallel of 36° 30' but is far 
from coincident with any parallel of latitude, and must be a succession 
of curves, with their concavities northward, and connected at their ends 
by north and south offsets. 
The southern boundarj 7 , between this State and South Carolina 
and Georgia, was first established by a joint colonial commission in 
1735 to 1746. The commissioners run a line from Goat Island on the 
coast, (in latitude 33° 56', as supposed), FT. W. to the parallel of 35° 
according to their observations, and then due west to within a few miles 
of the Catawba river, and here, at the old Salisbury and Charleston road, 
turned north along that road to the southeast corner of the Catawba Indian 
Lands. This line, re-surveyed in 1764, was afterwards (in 1772,) continued 
along the eastern and northern boundaries of the Catawba lands to the point 
where the latter intersects the Catawba river, thence along and up that 
river to the mouth of the South Fork of the Catawba, and thence due 
west, as supposed, to a point near the Blue Ridge. This part of the line 
was re-surveyed and confirmed by commissioners underacts of Assembly 
of' 1803, 4, 6, 13, 14 and 15, and continued west to and along the Saluda 
mountains and the Blue Ridge to the intersection of the “ Cherokee 
boundary” of 1797, and thence in a direct line to the Chatooga river at 
its intersection with the parallel of 35°. From this point the line was 
run west to the Tennessee line, between this State and Georgia, in 1807, 
and confirmed and established by act of 1819. 
The boundary between this State and Tennessee was run, according to 
the courses designated in the act of 1789, entitled “ An act for the purpose 
of ceding to the United States certain western lands therein described,” 
(the State of Tennessee), that is, along the crest of the Smoky mountains, 
from the Virginia line to the Cataluche river (in Haywood county), in 
1799, under act of 1796. It was continued from this point to the 
