“Your Committee think that the subject of this communication is of great importance and that so large and growing a city as New York, should not longer remain without its latitude being accurately ascertained and that a place of observation should be known and designated; wherefore they recommend,
“1, That the Street Commissioner be directed to ascertain as nearly as possible the site of the Southwest Bastion of Fort George and to erect thereon a monumental stone on which shall be marked the latitude as taken in 1769 and by whom;
“2, That a suitable person or persons be employed under the direction of your committee to find the Latitude of the City Hall and to erect a monumental stone near it with suitable inscriptions from which mileage or distances from the city shall hereafter be computed.
“One other subject connected with the one before your committee, though not in the petition under consideration, they beg to submit to the Board. The City Surveyors frequently differ in their computations of distances and direction in consequence sometimes of the different variations of the magnetic needles used by them. If a place was fixed in some elevated situation, (as the cupola of the City Hall, for instance) from which some permanent object on Long Island or the Jersey Shore could be observed, and the true direction ascertained, it might serve the purpose of regulating surveys and in some measure of correcting errors, as thereby the compasses of all surveyors might at any time be adjusted. Wherefore your committee recommend the adoption of the following resolution:
“Resolved, That the Street Commissioner be directed to ascertain if any proper object can be seen from the Cupola of the City Hall which may be fixed upon as a mark to ascertain the direction of the compass from the said cupola; and that a stone slab be fixed somewhere on the top of the Hall with marks thereon by which the true direction of the magnetic needle of surveyors’ compasses may at all times be regulated and adjusted.
“Respectfully submitted.
Samuel Ackerly,
J. Warren Bracket,
Thomas R. Smith,
John Remmey,