Dec. 6 , 1013. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
739 
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In 1909, the American Bison Society, under 
the leadership of Dr. W. T. Hornaday, brought 
about the establishment, in the Flathead Valley, 
of Montana, what is known as the Montana Na¬ 
tional bison herd. The society raised $10,500 for 
the purchase of a nucleus herd, and presented 
forty-one animals to the Government, all save 
three of which came from the Conrad Herd, at 
Kalispell. The Montana herd now contains nine¬ 
ty-six head, and is in extremely fine condition, 
without- ever having been fed at the expense of 
the Government. 
Besides the bison ranges in Oklahoma and 
Montana, and the one now being consummated in 
South Dakota, there are two other National 
ranges—one in the Yellowstone National Park 
and the other on the Niobrara Military Reserva¬ 
tion, in Nebraska. 
Washington Survey Gets Government 0. K. 
OVERNMENT surveyors, who have just 
been checking up some of the lines re¬ 
puted to have been run by George Wash¬ 
ington in his days of chain and compass work, 
have found them good. 
About 1751, according to tradition, George 
Washington, then nineteen years old, ran out for 
Lord Thomas Fairfax the line between what was 
then to be Augusta and Frederick counties, Vir¬ 
ginia, this being only a part of a great deal of 
surveying which he is said to have been engaged 
upon at that time. These two counties were sep¬ 
arated from what was then Orange County, and 
the grant to Lord Fairfax was supposed to ex¬ 
tend westward to the Pacific Ocean. Subsequent¬ 
ly these large tracts were further subdivided, so 
that the “Fairfax Line,” as it is generally known, 
runs now between Rockingham and Shenandoah 
counties, with the original Augusta and Frederick 
counties to the south and north respectively. 
In the organic act for the formation of the 
two counties, or “parishes” as they were then 
called, it was required that the line should be a 
straight one from the head spring of Hadgman 
River, one of the sources of the Rappahannock, 
to the head spring of the Potomac. 
Since it was required that the line should be 
straight it was first necessary to get the approxi¬ 
mate course by building large bonfires on the 
intervening high points. Then starting from the 
top of the Massanutten mountains, the line was 
run straight away over intervening mountains 
and rivers toward the northwest. 
The Fairfax Stone. 
Away off across a part of what is now West 
Virginia there is a large rock known today as 
the Fairfox Stone. It is the monument which 
marks the southwest corner of Garret County, 
Md., the southeast corner of Preston County, W. 
Va., and prominent points in the boundaries in 
two other West Virginia counties. A line from 
Orange court house, coinciding with the Shenan¬ 
doah and Rockingham County line, passes 
through this Fairfax Stone, which gives the 
name to a nearby station, Fairfax, on the west¬ 
ern Maryland railroad. It has been assumed that, 
in running this line, a high peak northwest of 
Orange court house was the starting point, and 
that from here it was possible to see a distant 
peak in the North mountain range over the top 
of the intervening Massanutten mountain. 
Washington, of course, used a simple com¬ 
pass, and his line could not be expected to check 
absolutely with that obtained by the Government 
surveyors who have retraced his survey, using 
high-power transits and all the refined and accu¬ 
rate methods which modern instruments allow. 
Nevertheless, the line was run so carefully in the 
first place that but little variation has been found 
in it. Even without instruments it is possible to 
distinguish the course of the line with surprising 
distinctness. 
The Washington compass, now to be seen at 
the United States National Museum in the city 
named for its owner, is presumed to be the same 
one used in running this line more than 160 years 
ago. 
Survey blazes cut into trees, and since grown 
over, have been cut away, and a count of the an¬ 
nual layers of growth over the old wounds shows 
them to have been made at the time Washington 
was surveying. One strange thing about these 
blazes is that they are several feet higher than 
those put on trees by woodsmen of to-day. This 
fact has given rise to a sort of superstition that 
Washington, known to have been very tall, was 
actually a giant. Other authorities have said that 
Washington did much of his work on horseback, 
and made his blazes with a long-handled ax from 
the saddle. 
The town of Whitepost, Clarke County, Va., 
takes its name from a post presumed to have 
been set by Washington as one of his survey 
marks. The post, formerly exposed, is now cov¬ 
ered by a protecting case which shelters it from 
the weather, and from the despoiling hand of 
the vandal tourist. 
