This is news likely to interest the readers of this blog who think Georgia should consider taking water from the Tennessee River:
The Camak Stone is missing. The stone is famous for being in the wrong place. Its now located where Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama meet, but the 19th century surveyors who placed the stone made a mistake … it should have been located in the middle of the main Tennessee river channel. That would give Georgia the right to Tennessee River water.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press has background on the stone and a video report:
“CAMAK STONE
The United States Congress in 1796 established the state of Tennessee and designated its southern border as the 35th parallel. In the spring of 1818, Georgia mathematician James Camak camped near Nickajack Cave and used the stars and rudimentary surveying tools to calculate where the parallel and state line would be.
In 1826, Mr. Camak returned for a second calculation, moving the line and the marker named for him, the Camak Stone, nearer to the Tennessee River but still about a mile south of the real 35th parallel.
Had the line been designated correctly, it would fall about in the middle of the main river channel near Nickajack Cave.”
{flv}camak{/flv}