Mr. Rittenhouse was appointed the Commissioner for this purpose, on the part of the then province of Pennsylvania, by Gov. John Penn, on the 24th of October, 1774; and Samuel Holland, Esquire, was the Commissioner on the part of New-York, appointed by Lieutenant-Governor Colden. As Captain Holland’s[171] commission was not made out until the 8th of November, these Joint-Commissioners could not proceed on the business of their appointment, before that late period. It appears, however, by the duplicate returns made by these gentlemen to their respective governments, under the date of December the 14th in the same year, that they “ascertained and fixed the beginning of the forty-third degree of North latitude on the Mohawk or Western branch of the Delaware; and there, in a small island of the said river, planted a stone, marked, &c.”[172]—“but that the rigour of the season prevented them from proceeding further in running the said line, &c.”[173] ----- Footnote 171: Mr. Holland was an able engineer in the British service, and held the military rank of captain. Footnote 172: The Marks, &c. are particularly described in the Pennsylvania Act of Assembly, passed the 29th of Sept. 1779, entitled “An Act to establish and confirm the Boundary Line between this state and the state of New-York.” Footnote 173: The Law, referred to in the preceding note, states the extent of their further progress in the business at that time, which was inconsiderable. ----- In September 1772, the Philosophical Society announced in the public prints, the receipt, by them, of sundry communications: among which were various astronomical observations, made in Canada, by this gentleman and two other military officers, from June 1765, to May 1770, (captain Holland being, at that period, surveyor-general of the district of Quebec.) These observations were communicated to the society by Mr. Rittenhouse; but, having been received after the first volume of the Society’s Transactions was published, their publication in the subsequent volumes was by some means omitted.