Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 7 · column 1 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
dy lion Audette
Special to the Rappahannock News
Say “meridian” and most people become quiet. So quiet you could hear a mouse pee on a blotter. Their eyes glaze over. But if you own land in Rappahannock County, then a meridian, the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England, to be precise, is of interest. It was used, in part, as a source in defining your property.
Figure 1 helps explain things. You can define any place on earth by its latitude from the equator and its longitude from the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England. Thus, Point P in Figure 1 is 40?? North latitude (40??N), and is found by zipping up from the equator. The 30?? West longitude (30??W) in found by zipping around from the long north-south line, the Prime Meridian, at Greenwich, England. Everyone has agreed that zero longitude is at Greenwich.
But this series of articles is concerned with two other meridians. A Prime Meridian the United States created in 1804 by running a true northsouth line through the middle of the President’s House (now called the White House), in effect saying who needs Greenwich? And a meridian created in 1896 in Washington, VA, right here in Rappahannock County, in effect causing surveyors to annually recalibrate their compasses to adjust everchanging magnetic north to
88.4%