Telluric Texts, Implicate Spaces, Mattessich

[David Morris]

--- KXX4493553 at aol.com wrote:
> Is it right that the "Mason-Dixon-Line" was later the border between the 
> northern and the southern states?
> 
> Kurt-Werner Pörtner

http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/usa_can/usa/mas_dix.htm
In any discussion of the Mason-Dixon Line it is vital to distinguish between
the two very different meanings of the term, as follows: 
On the one hand, the original Mason-Dixon Line, as surveyed by Charles Mason
and Jeremiah Dixon in 1763 to 1767, which is precisely defined and restricted
to the Pennsylvania/Maryland border (which runs east-west) and that part of the
Maryland/Delaware border which runs approximately north-south. On this page I
will call this "the original Mason-Dixon Line as surveyed by Mason and Dixon". 

On the other hand, the later various colloquial meanings given to the term
"Mason-Dixon Line", such as the border between the free states and the slave
states in the first half of the eighteenth century, or the border between the
Union states and the Confederate states during the American Civil War. These
meanings are inconsistent with each other and with the course of the original
Mason-Dixon Line as surveyed by Mason and Dixon. Opinions vary considerably as
to the precise route of the Line under this meaning. On this page I will call
this "the colloquial Mason-Dixon Line". 


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