The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-03-14
GEOGRAPHICAL PECUlIARITlES OF
THE UNITED STATES
BY FREDERIC j. HASKIN

httle grl who was taking her first
lesson in geography inquired of hel
mother: What makes the lines be
tween the States so crooked Why are
some States shaped so oddly?' Nc
wonder that the mother had to get help
10 explain, There are few grownups
who could answer these questions salts
factorily. Our forcfathers used such
crude methods of defining many of the
State divisions that some boundary
lines are as hard 10 dccipher as n maze
in kings garden,
Take the old eastern boundary of
New York for an example The line
was described as starting Mt ga rock
IN the ancient road or wading place IN
Byram river following a direction
that would lead bv "bunch OF horn
beam saplings' and a tree which was
either ga red oak or white oak. -
touching another tree on the Nland
occupied by Thomas Wilsey in 1914, ~
and finally falling IN with a certain
farm fence. Land was so plentiful IN
those days that a few miles one way or
another did not make much difference.
The line separating Tennessee from
Georgia, which was surveyed III 1919,
was defined quite as lucldlv This was
said 10 begin at ga rock due south of
lne OH lUuldn Town OF NlCNa.dck,
passing due east in such a manner as
TO "leave old d. Ross two miles and
eighteen yards in the State OF Tcnnes.
see. -
A tiny parcel of land in Southwest
Massachusetts was given TO New 1ork
IN 1856. 1t was a small cove that was
practically inaccessible from the cast,
and because Of this it became n most
desirable place for prize fights, the OF
tenders being able TO slip back from
New York easier than the officers could
get In from Massachusetts So to
break up this interesting game of hide
snd-seek between the law-breakers and
the law-enforcers, the bit of land was
lice 1T.
In the earliest surveys of the United |
States, rivers and like natural bounda-
ries were pressed into service To deter
mine the limits of the different terri |
tories or grants, and much trouble has
resulted from the shifting habits of
these kinds Of boundaries. Had not !
the commission that fixed the division
between the United States and Mexico
decided upon certain channel of the
Rio Grande, where that river is used
as the line. the citizens in that part of
the world would have n hard time de-
'hIUS NUtiHcI lUfN dlt AIltlItdHS bI
Mexicons, because the river changes its
course so often.
The people of California and Nevada
may still be living IN ono another S
territory for all they know, as the
line was hard to establish
and may vary half a mile. just where
the elbow-likc bend comes in the line Is
Lake Tahoe, and il is almost in the
l., . l,l, IL.
,ipal measurement for the angle of the
Inrn had 10 be taken. While the bound
'ry thus established has been accepted,
and is generally recognized as being
correct. there may be a dispute over
It's eXactncss some day.
For many years the Northwest boun
larry bne of the United States was lust
about as easy TO locate as the famous
Is Seven Cities of Cibola,' for which
,he early explorers searched so futilely-
The old treaty states that the line
should be due wesr from the Lake of
he Woods to the Mississippi This
night have been fairly approximated
f the Mississippi had lived up to the
of the trcaty-makers, but
t continued to wander through the
State after its own independent fash
on, fully two counties to the southeast
he hne was made more definite though
he point finally chosen as the "north-
Western point is now well under the
waters of the lake
1t was not until 1872 that Maine
NEW just how much territory she had :
II her northeast corner. The old treaty
f 1888 defined the boundary as ''fol-
owing the st. CroS river to its ,
ource, thence north TO the highlands
hat divided the waters of the Atlantic
rom those OF the St Lawrence. As
10. one knew which of two rivers emp '
ying fifty miles apart was the ST. ,
,roix, or which set of highlands was :
meant, or whether the Bav of Fundy
night be considered an arm of the At Z
antic, early Maine geography was rath
I mixed When Lord Ashburton and {
)anlel Webster Strengthened the mat c
er out tifty.nine years later, they gave q
even-twefths of the disputed land to +