Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-01-08
FACTS ABOUT COUNTIES.
Imaginary Lines and Not Natural Boand-
 aries Used to Mark Most of Them.

Imaginary Lines and Not Natural Bound-
 aries Used to Mark Most of Them,
 Few even of the New England states have made use of the natural features for county boundaries. British kings set the fashion in the new world of making political divisions in imaginary lines, and the fashion has been fol- lowed faithfully in states old and new. Its final development is found ill the western states and territories, where natures boundaries, mountain ranges and rivers are neglected for the sake of the parallels and meridians. Maine, whose counties are as irregular in shape as any in the world, has not made use of ass tura1 landmarks to any considerable extent. Vermont and New Hampshire have here and there used mountain ranges and streams for county boundaries. Massachusetts and Connecticut have disregarded natural boundaries in great degree. Even the great Connecticut river flows across counties and is the boundary line only between parts of MiddleseX and New London counties in Connecticut. Rhode Islands chief county boundaries are imaginary lines
 Massachusetts has two island eoun- ties, Dukes and Nantucket. Island counties occur also in New York and Washington. but not elsewhere, though the larger part of Door county, Wis, Is an island in Lake Michigan. Wash ington's island county bears the name ,-I, . I,a waters of Puget sound. Maine's eoun- ties average nearly five hundred square miles each in area, and there are sew eral each of which are larger than the state of Rhode Island.
 New York has few natural county boundaries save in the lake regions along the Hudson. New Jersey has artificial boundaries for many coun= ties. but Pennsylvania has used noun tains and rivers in many instances. Delaware has used small streams to bound her counties and even her town ships or hundreds, as they are called, Maryland, Virginia, and West Vir- ginia, having plenty of streams and mountain ranges, use such natural feat ures for county boundaries. Virginia 8 counties are usually small in both area and population Natural boundaries are usual in the Garolinas, Georgia and Alabama, but Mississippi has many imaginary county lines, and her coun- ties are notched in way to suggest that they were made with view to the production of one of those wooden puzzle maps that are held together by the notches. Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky have the characteristic rectangular county forms with many imaginary boundary lines, though creeks and rivers are used to some extent in Kentucky and Tennessee. Florida has boundary lines of each sort, and so has Texas, save in the northwest, where natural bound- aries are almost entirely disregarded. Buchel county, Texas, is a aright-angled triangle, and perhaps the only one in the United States.
 The states of the middle west have comparatively few natural county boundaries, and those immediately be- yond the Mississippi almost disregard landmarks in the choice of county lines, the counties being piled mathematical ly tier on tier. Even the great river Platte flows across Nebraska much of its way through counties.
 The Rocky mountain states, unable to disregard the stern necessities of great rivers and almost impossible mountain ranges, have accepted these natural features as county lines, though the Missouri flows through one of the North Dakota counties Oregon and Washington have accepted mountain ranges and great rivers for county lines, and so has California, though in many cases imaginary boundaries are used.
 A single county of Montana is about as large as all the New England states together save Maine. Cherry county, Neb., is nearly as large as New Jersey and one county in Arizona is nearly as large as Vermont and New Hampshire One county in Wyoming exceeds by two hundred square miles the area of Vermont, and any one of twenty far western counties is almost double the area of Delawarn5-N N Sl4n