has been reproduced as authoritative, by the authors of Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania, published in 1895 by the state of Pennsylvania.[1] The embankments are described thus by Mr. Veech on the basis of his collaborator's survey: "It [Fort Necessity] was in the form of an obtuse-angled triangle of 105 degrees, having its base or hypothenuse upon the run. The line of the base was about midway, sected or broken, and about two perches of it thrown across the run, connecting with the base by lines of the triangle. One line of the angle was six, the other seven perches; the base line eleven perches long, including the section thrown across the run. The lines embraced in all about fifty square perches of land on [or?] nearly one third of an acre."
This amusing statement has been seriously quoted by the authorities mentioned, and a map is made according to it and published in the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania without a word as to its inconsistencies. How could a triangle, the sides of which measure six, seven, and eleven rods, contain fifty square rods or one-third of an
- ↑ Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania, vol. ii., p. 32.
