The manuscript's condition was so bad that restoration, comparison, and verification were done under solar light reflected by mirrors and with the aid of magnifying glasses and colored screens.

An exact tracing of the manuscript as it existed when it was received was carefully prepared by Coast Survey cartographers. Features not distinguishable on the original were omitted from the restored manuscript. This accounts for breaks in some of the lines and incomplete features on the present-day litho-printed reproductions.

The original drawing was done in blue, green, yellow, and two shades of red. The water areas tinted blue on L'Enfant's map had faded, hut their extent remained apparent.

Fifteen areas, originally shown in yellow, were proposed sites for memorials which States might choose to build in memory of individuals "whose achievements rendered them worthy of being invited to the attention of the youth in succeeding generations." The yellow tint had faded from the original plan, but the areas were restored according to the description contained in the marginal notes.

In the restoration of the manuscript, three well-defined figures were interpreted as representing areas set aside for churches. The locations were colored light red to conform with the manuscript notation.

Faded green-tinted areas identified "the well-improved fields" referred to in the marginal notes as green plots. These were set aside for parks and included the areas now known as the Mall, adjacent areas in southwest Washington, and the White House grounds. A dark red tint was believed to identify buildings existing in 1791 on either side of the Mall.

The evolution of a permanent seat for the Nation's Capital began when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson took an active part in its development. By an Act of Congress of July 16, 1790, provision was made for the selection of a "Permanent seat on the bank of the Potowmac" for the Federal City of the United States. The next year, after the choice had been made and planning initiated, the term Federal City was officially changed to "The City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia."

Three commissioners were appointed by President Washington on January 22,1791, to take charge of the newly created territory, to supervise its survey, and to attend to the business growing out of its condemnation for public use. More than a month before the Commissioners took up their work, President Washington appointed Andrew Ellicott to survey the bounds of the territory. The French engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant was chosen to prepare the plan of the city.

While Ellicott surveyed the boundaries of the District of Columbia, L'Enfant began planning the future city. On the tract of land where the city was to arise, there was only one established community, Georgetown, which had been in existence some 35 or 40 years.

In order to provide geodetic control for the L'Enfant plan, Ellicott located by celestial observation a true meridional line passing through the area intended for the Capitol building. The meridian was given the value of Zero and established as the prime meridian of the newly created United States. The value of latitude for the point was 38 and 53' north. These lines were accurately measured and became the bases upon which the whole L'Enfant plan was executed.

The Plan of Washington, designed by L'Enfant, was originally referred to as "a mode of taking possession of and improving the whole district to leave to posterity a grand idea of patriotic interest which promoted it."

In his initial discussions with General Washington, L'Enfant stimulated the President's interest to enlarge the size of the area to make it, in his words, "proportioned to the greatness which...the Capitale of a powerful Empire ought to manifest." For the future site of the Capitol, he urged the choice of a high knoll known as jenkins' heights, "which stands as a pedestal waiting for a monument." For the President's house, he selected a lower position with a broad sweeping view southward toward the Potomac.

For the streets, L'Enfant rejected the rectangular grid as lacking in imagination and inappropriate for the grand design he envisioned. of the street design, he wrote: "I... made the distribution regular with streets at right angle, North-South and East-West, but afterwards I opened others on various directions, as avenues to and from every principal place."

Although L'Enfant asked Jefferson for plans of various European cities for reference, he emphasized that it would be his endeavor to delineate a new and original plan. However, there can be no doubt that he was greatly influenced by the plan of the City of Versailles, then the capital of France. The Capital corresponded in position to the palace, the President's house in the Grand Trianon, the Mall to the Parc. The street patterns also had a remarkable likeness in design, such as East Capitol Street, Pennsylvania, and Maryland Avenues on the east to the Avenues de Paris, de Seeaux, and de St. Cloud. On the West, Pennsylvania Avenue was very similar to the Avenue de Trianon. L'Enfant refrained from forcing this analogy, and took into account the nature of the ground.

The plan established the width of streets and provided for "passing the leading avenues over ground most favorable for prospect and convenience." Five grand fountains were included in the plan, and due consideration was given to the existence within the city limits of 25 good springs and excellent water, abundantly supplied even during the driest season of the year.

By June 22, 1791, the historic plan was ready. L'Enfant set to work with great energy and determination to clear the principal sites and avenues, eager to establish their full extent as soon as possible and to begin the public buildings. Soon after this enthusiastic beginning, difficulties arose because of his unwillingness to submit to the authority of the Commissioners of the federal District or, for that matter, to the President himself. One source of disagreement was L'Enfant's opposition to the immediate sale of lots within the Federal City. Before the plan had been legally adopted or even completed on paper, he forcibly tore down a building that a powerful landowner was building within a projected street.

In his ultimate rebellion against the authorities, L'Enfant withheld the detailed plan he had prepared for the City of Washington. The plan was to have been engraved in Philadelphia but L'Enfant, instead of sending his large completed manuscript, released for engraving a very sketchy type plan which the engravers found unsuitable. President Washington was informed of the situation, and he at once instructed Andrew Ellicott to finish the plan.

Major Andrew Ellicott, surveyor and mathematician, was officially appointed by President Washington in 1792 to complete the L'Enfant manuscript with the necessary data for preparing the engraving. Ellicott, the son of a prosperous miller whose family had founded Ellicott City, Maryland, in 1775, was a natural choice since he had already been surveying the ten-mile-square tract ceded by Maryland and Virginia as the permanent seat of the government.

In correcting and completing the engraver's copy, Ellicott introduced no appreciable changes. The most important alterations, which the President instructed him to make, were in the names and designations of city streets and the numbering of city blocks. East and west streets designated by letters, starting from East Capitol Street and the center of the Mall, extended to Florida Avenue on the north and to the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers on the south, representing the northern and southern limits of the street plan. The streets running north and south were identified numerically starting with 1st Street and numbered consecutively eastward and westward from North Capitol and South Capitol Streets. The avenues were named for the 13 original states.

Three weeks elapsed from the time Ellicott started the corrections until the plan was completed for submission to the engravers. The speed with which Ellicott prepared the plan for the engravers and the similarity of the engraved map to L'Enfant's manuscript clearly indicate that Ellicott did not devise any new scheme, but filled in some of the details lacking in L'Enfant's drawing.

As a reward for completing the first official plan, the Commissioners of the City of Washington presented Ellicott with a pair of silver cups. Only a few months later, Ellicott -- like L'Enfant before him -- was at odds with the Commissioners and withdrew entirely from the historic project. The Commissioners then attempted to discredit him in a highly critical letter to President Washington, dated March 23, 1794.

Two engraver's copies of the original manuscript were prepared by Ellicott; the first was sent to Boston for engraving and the second to an engraving firm in Philadelphia. Proofs from the Boston Plate received in Philadelphia in July 1792, revealed that this plate did not show depths in the Potomac River and the Eastern Branch. At the request of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, depth soundings were added to the Philadelphia engraving. This plate was regarded as the authoritative scheme of the city.

The major difference between the original plan of Washington and the same area of the city today lies in the south-western portion. There, Tiber Creek has been eliminated, and Potomac Park and the Tidal Basin area created by reclaiming land from the Potomac River.

The original copperplate, engraved by Thackara and Vallance of Philadelphia in 1792, is now in the possession of NOAA. Lithographic reproductions of this early map of the Federal City are available at nominal cost.