Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/137

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No. 38]
Mason and Dixon's Line
109

the end of five degrees of longitude, the western bounds of the Province of Pennsylvania, but the Indians would not permit us. And that we have marked, described, and perpetuated the said west line, by setting up and erecting therein stones at the end of every mile, from the place of beginning to the distance of one hundred and thirty-two miles, near the foot of a hill, called and known by the name of Sideling hill; every five mile stone having on the side facing the north, the arms of the said Thomas Penn and Richard Penn graved thereon, and on the side facing the south, the arms of Frederick Lord Baltimore graved thereon, and the other intermediate stones are graved with the letter P on the north side, and the letter M on the south side ; and that the country to the westward of Sideling hill, being so very mountainous as to render it in most places extremely difficult and expensive, and in some impracticable, to convey stones or boundaries which had been prepared and marked as aforesaid, to their proper stations, we have marked and described the said line from Sideling hill to the top of the Alleghany Ridge, which divides the waters running into the rivers Potowmack and Ohio, by raising and erecting thereon, on the tops of ridges and mountains over which the said line passed, heaps or piles of stones or earth, from about three and a half to four yards in diameter, at bottom, and from six to seven feet in height, and that from the top of the said Alleghany Ridge westward, as far as we have continued the said line, we have set up posts at the end of every mile, and raised round each post, heaps or piles of stones, or earth of about the diameter and height before mentioned.

J. Thomas Scharf, History of Maryland (Baltimore, 1879), 147-409.