MDDM The Protagonists

[jbor]

from _Chambers Biographical Dictionary_:

MASON, Charles (1730-87) British astronomer, employed at Greenwich, with
Jeremiah DIXON (of whom little is known except that he was reputed to have
been born in a coalmine) he observed the Transit of Venus at the Cape of
Good Hope in 1761. From 1763 to 1767 Mason and Dixon were engaged by Lord
Baltimore and Mr Penn to survey the boundary between Maryland and
Pennsylvania and end an eighty-year old dispute. They reached a point 224
miles west of the Delaware River, but were prevented from further work by
Indians. The survey was completed by others, but the boundary was given the
name Mason-Dixon Line.

Not unique in the _Chambers_ to see a single biographical entry which covers
two people (Laurel and Hardy another), but certainly significant. The "Line"
itself, and that ampersand joining the two names (and, on the cover art, the
name of the author as well), are as much a part of their story as the
"story" itself, it seems.

Online biographies

Mason:

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/extra/mason_bio.html

Dixon:

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/extra/dixon_bio.html

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/extra/dixon.html

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