MDDM Chapter 48 Summary

[CyrusGeo at netscape.net]

Chapter 48 Summary

The team works eastward, “going against [the Sun]”. This is supposed to contradict Diurnal Rhythms, which may be the reason why Mason is *trying* to wake up and is in a cranky mood, speaking the f-word, and “stumbling out of the Tent trying to get his Hair into some kind of Queue.” Coffee is made, and thus starts a rather comic exchange about coffee and tea or, should I say, coffee vs. tea.

Then we are presented with a discussion about lines and borders and measurements and proprietorships. It’s the “enigmatick Area 'round the Tangent Point, seeking to close the Eastern boundaries of Pennsylvania and Maryland [...]” Despite laborious measuring in the dark (an opportunity for yet another comic exchange between the two surveyors), a slight error occurs, “resulting from the failure of the Tangent Point to be exactly at this corner of Maryland, but rather some five miles south, creating a semi-cusp or Thorn of that Length,” forming the “notorious Wedge” or “small geographick Anomaly.”

Anyway, the North Line is completed, and the surveyors go back to continue the West line. Darby and Cope pretend to be, alternately, Mason and Dixon. In another comic scene, Mason and Dixon realize the pranksters must be Darby and Cope. When confronted, they confess and reveal they haven’t been too accurate in their measurements. Comedy continues incessant. What are Darby and Cope? Chain-men or Chinamen?

As the team prepares to cross the Susquehanna river, a package arrives containing Fr.
Boscovich's De Solis et Lunae Defectibus, with a note from Maskelyne advising Mason and Dixon that the the magnetic attraction of the mountains may have implications on  their measurements. Which means our surveyors will have to “take symmetrickal readings readings on the opposite sides of the Crests, and hope that the two errors will cancel out.”

Cyrus



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