LIR: Geographer to speak on locating Indian boundary point

Learning in Retirement (LIR) will host geographer Louis De Vorsey, PhD, for two lectures on locating a critical boundary line checkpoint between the colony of Georgia and the Cherokee and Creek Indians.

This site was the Great Buffalo Lick, first identified by William Bartram, the well-known Philadelphia naturalist who best described ecologic and geographic conditions in the southeast before the Revolutionary War. The lick was a conspicuous landmark where buffalos, horses, and cattle licked the clay soil which was, in this case, not salty but alkaline, thus having a beneficial effect on digestion - a sort of Tums for cattle.

De Vorsey is Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Georgia with degrees from Indiana University and University College, London. His PhD is in historical geography. He served in the United States Navy in many capacities, finally having a position with Pacific Air Intelligence Training and retiring from the Naval Reserve as Commander.

Among De Vorsey's several college textbooks, his The Georgia- South Carolina Boundary, a Problem in Historical Geography, might be of local interest. He has served as witness both for the United States and for Georgia in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He also served as consultant for a U.S. litigation team in a case before the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

He will lecture on locating buffalo lick on March 12 at 2 p.m. in the Parish House of the Church of the Mediator. On March 19 he will lead a field trip to the buffalo lick site off SR 22 between Philomath and Lexington. The meeting place for this trip will be announced on March 12.

Learning In Retirement invites guests for these events.

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