Herald Of The Valley

From the National Intelligencer.

GENTLEMEN:

It is well known to the people of this state, that the boundaries of land are generally unfixed, few individuals having established outlines. This is, perhaps, in a great measure, owing to the want of a sufficient number of correct observations, to determine the variation of the magnetic, from the true pole. To establish a uniform system of correction, you may, if you think proper, publish the following:

JAMES B. PLEASANTS.

Brookville, Md.

One degree and 45' thousandths is the present variation, West of North, or seven feet six inches and one half inch on a line of 10 perches in length On the 16th day of October, at 10 o'clock A. M. 1823, the polar star having been observed the night before at 15 minutes after 11 o'clock, at which time it was nearly on the meridian; that there was no local attraction is proved by ten different stations of the compass, all exactly reversing, and agreeing with the first station, by which the direction of the magnetic pole was ascertained. It was also ascertained by a reference of two stones planted in this village in 1795, that the magnetic pole has varied to the left, since that time, one degree and one tenth, leaving three hundred & fifty four thousandths for the variation from that time to the right, before it began to recede to the West, and making an annual variation of four minutes and forty-eight seconds, or about one degree in thirteen years.

B. C.

P. S. Can any person give further information, what is the present variation in Washington, what is the diurnal variation? Any information from any part of the state will be important; but, unless it is ascertained that there is no local attraction. or that it has been corrected at the points of observation, it will be of no use; the ten miles square, will be a good situation to make experiments, as the bearings of the magnetic pole, as shown by the compass, are expressed on each stone