II. Lines or avenues of direct communication have been devised to connect the separate and most distant objects with the principals, and to preserve throughout the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same time. Attention has been paid to the passing of those leading avenues over the most favorable ground for prospect and convenience.
III. North and south lines, intersected by others running due east and west, make the distribution of the city into streets, squares, &c., and those lines have been so combined as to meet at certain points with those diverging avenues so as to form on the spaces “first determined,” the different squares or areas which are all proportioned in magnitude to the number of avenues leading to them.
MR. ELLICOTT “DOES BUSINESS.”
Every grand transverse avenue, and every principal divergent one, such as the communication from the President’s house to the Congress house, &c., are 160 feet in breadth and thus divided:
| Ten feet for pavement on each side, is | 20 | feet |
| Thirty feet of gravel walk, planted with trees on each side, | 60 | feet |
| Eighty feet in the middle for carriages, | 80 | feet |
| 160 | feet |
The other streets are of the following dimensions, viz.:
| Those leading to the public buildings or markets, | 130 |
| Others, | 110-90 |
In order to execute the above plan, Mr. Ellicott drew a true meridian line by celestial observation, which passes through area intended for the Congress house. This line he crossed by another due east and west, and which passes through the same area. The lines were accurately measured, and made the basis on which the whole plan was executed. He ran all the lines by a transit instrument, and determined the acute angles by actual measurement, and left nothing to the uncertainty of the compass.
REFERENCES.
A. The equestrian figure of George Washington, a monument voted in 1783 by the late Continental Congress.