Nizzle,
"Does the second answer have anything to do with Satan's Square? I know all the numbers add to 666."
Correct again! Darn, I thought this would last a bit longer. I guess we have some fairly knowledgeable people around here.
I've never heard of this referred to as "Satan's Square" but that does make a certain amount of sense. And you are also correct about all of the numbers adding up to 666. I've always known it as a "magic square", of which there are hundreds or thousands:
http://mathforum.org/alejandre/magic.square.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MagicSquare.html
OK, heres the story as was told to me by one of my Civil Engineering prof's way back when.
CMan recognized a portion of this when he said, "The numbers are in order, they just zig zag." They do zig zag (this is called serpentine) but notice that the numbers start out backward (with one being at the top right corner). If this were a "normal" square one would think the one would be at the top left and run consecutively left to right.
The "magic" of the square is that if one adds up all of the vertical columns you'll find that each column adds up to 111. Multiply 111 times 6 = 666!
Why in the world would the "devils number" be used to define virtually all of our property descriptions?
Here's the story as I understand it.
The founding fathers had a significant problem concerning apportioning land. At that time the primary method for defining a piece of land was the "metes and bounds" method. Basically, this means that someone would define their land as, "start at a particular rock, go west for a certain distance to another rock, then north for a certain distance to a bend in the river, then east for a certain distance to a blaze in a tree (or whatever), and then south for a certain distance to the point of beginning."
As one can imagine, this method creates major headaches for everyone involved. Rocks and rivers move, trees die or are cut down, etc. Sometimes (as in the case of Daniel Boone in Kentucky and Tennessee) these parcels would encompass hundreds of thousands of acres so a particular marker could be miles from the last marker. Even today, if you live in any of the 13 colonies or Kentucky or Tennessee, you can run into problems with your property if there is a dispute about a particular original marker.
So, what to do? As is well known, both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were surveyors and thus very familiar with the problem. What is less well known is that 13 of the original signers of the Constitution were freemasons. Washington and Franklin definitely were but there is some question if Thomas Paine and Jefferson were.
I don't want to get into a big debate about freemasonry as I really don't know much about them other than they do exist and are believed to hold information thought to be lost during the dark ages.
The signers had another problem with the religious right (primarily the followers of Cotton Mather) that wanted the US to be a totally christain nation. As noted by others in this thread, the founders well remembered that many had fled religious persecution in Europe, so the idea of a totally christain US was abhorrent (particularly to Paine).
So, as I understand the story, the founders decided to kill two birds with one stone. They developed the PLSS and decided to use this square as the basis of it. Why this square? Why not use a normal square? The founders knew that, once implemented, this square would be with us for as long as the US lasts (all of todays property descriptions are based on it). They also knew that people like Mather would always be around giving us a hard time. So, the founders left us a message, although not overt, that they recognized the problem and had done something that would always be a thorn in the christains sides. Even if they didn't recognize it.
Can any of this be proven? Some yes and some no. It is a story told to me by an engineering prof. that should know something about the subject.
