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 acre? It could not contain half that amount. [Illustration: TWO PLANS OF FORT NECESSITY [_A, Plan of Lewis's Survey; B, Sparks's Plan_]] The present writer went to Fort Necessity armed with this two-page map of Fort Necessity in the _Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania_ which he trusted as authoritative. The present owner of the land, Mr. Lewis Fazenbaker, objected to the map, and it was only in trying to prove its correctness that its inconsistencies were discovered. The mounds now standing on the ground are drawn on the appended chart _Diagrams of Fort Necessity_ as lines C A B E. By a careful survey of them by Mr. Robert McCracken C.E., sides C A and A B are found to be the identical mounds surveyed by Mr. Lewis, the variation in direction being exceedingly slight and easily accounted for by erosion. The direction of Mr. Lewis's sides were N. 25 W. and S. 80 W.: their direction by Mr. McCracken's survey are N. 22 W. and S. 80.30 W. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the embankments surveyed in 1816 and 1901 are identical. But the third mound B E runs utterly at variance with Mr. Lewis's figure. By him its direction was S. 59-1/4 E.; its present direction is S. 76 E. The question then arises: Is this mound the one that Mr. Lewis surveyed? Nothing could be better evidence that it is than the very egregious error Mr. Lewis made concerning the area contained within his triangular embankment. He affirms that the area of Fort Necessity was fifty square rods. Now take the line of B E for the third side of the triangle and extend it to F where it would meet the continuation of side A C. _That triangle contains almost exactly 50 square rods or one-third of an acre!_ The natural supposition must be that some one had surveyed the triangle A F B and computed its area correctly as about fifty square rods. The mere recording of this area is sufficient evidence that the triangle A F B had been surveyed in 1816, and this is sufficient proof that mound B E stood just as it stands today and was considered in Mr. Lewis's day as one of the embankments of Fort Necessity. [Illustration: DIAGRAMS OF FORT NECESSITY [_Scale 80 feet to the inch._]]