LIBRARY 
 
 ANNEX 
 
 2 
 
 A 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 ON THE 
 
 INDIAN SITEVEYS, 
 
 1875-1890; 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELES E. D. ULAOE. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY ORDEE 01" TIER MAJBSTT's SECRETARY OP STATB FOR 
 
 INDIA IN COIINOII.. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Ljold by 
 
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 1891. 
 
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PS 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 DS 417.I39B62 
 
 A memoir on the Indian surveys, 1875-189 
 
 3 1924 023 945 102 „„,..,. 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023945102 
 
.Mt 
 
 
 '7 ' * -.<i '-!■ 
 
 * ;■ (.% 
 
 RAKIPOSHI, OR "DEVIL'S TAIL" MOUNTAIN (25,560 FEET HIGH) IN HUNZA NAGAR. 
 FROM A PAINTING BY COLONEL H. C B. TANNER. 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 ON THE 
 
 INDIAN SUEYEYS, 
 
 1&75-1890 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELES E. D. BLACK. 
 
 PKINTUD AND JPUBLISH18D BY ORDEIl Ol' H15U MAJESTY'S SECUETAllV OF STATE lOIl 
 
 INDIA IN COUNCIL. 
 
 L ONDO K : 
 
 Sold by 
 
 E. A. ARNOLD, 37, Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. 
 
 AECHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co., 14, Parliament Street, S.W. 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TEENCH, TRtJBNBE, & Co., LIMITED, Paternoster Housk, 
 
 Chaking Cross Eoad, W-C. 
 
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 LUZAC & Co., 46, Great Eussell Street, W.C 
 
 B. QUARITCH, 15, Piccadilly, W. ; 
 
 and 
 
 EDWAED STANFOED, 26 and 27, Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, S.W. 
 
 1891. 
 
 Price Seven Shillings and Sixpence. 
 
5-b 35 (^-rs 
 
 London ■ Printed by Etke and Spottiswoode, 
 Her Majesty's Printers. 
 
0»0 N T B N T S. 
 
 PEErACE - . . . V 
 
 Contents : 
 
 I. Indian Marine Surveys, First Period, 1875-82 - 1 
 
 II. Indian Marine Surveys, Second Period, 1882-90 - 18 
 
 III. Great Trigonometrical Survey of India - - 38 
 
 IV. Topographical Surveys - - - 67 
 v. Revenue Surveys - 100 
 
 VI. Geographical Surveys and Explorations ... 128 
 
 VII. Afghan Boundary Commission - . . , 172 
 
 VIII. Tidal and Levelling Observations - - - . 196 
 
 IX. Geodetic Observations - - 209 
 
 X. Supply of Scientific Instruments - 216 
 
 XI. Head Quarters of Survey Department - 221 
 
 XII. Geological Survey of India - - 236 
 
 XIII. Indian Meteorology - ... 283 
 
 XIV. Statistical Survey of India - 314 
 
 XV. Archaeological Surveys - - 320 
 
 XVI. Geographical Work of the India Office - - . 373 
 Appendix. Return of Scientific Instruments examined at the India Store 
 
 Depot, 1887-1890 - - 379 
 
 Index - - 385 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Feontispieck. — Eakiposhi Mountain (25,550 feet high), in Hunza-Nagar, 
 
 To face Title page. 
 
 Map of India . . , . To face page 1. 
 
 I Y 20321. a 2 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This work was suggested by Mr. Clements R. Markbam's 
 " Memoir on the Indian Surveys,''" in wMcli the geographical and 
 other kindred operations carried out in India from the date of 
 the British occupation were reviewed in a most picturesque and 
 masterly manner. In 1878 a second edition of Mr. Markham's 
 work was published, in which the narrative was brought up to 
 1875, and in some cases for a year or so later. For the last fifteen 
 years I have been accumulating notes in moments of leisure, 
 with a view to the publication of a volume which might serve as a 
 continuation to that by Mr. Markham, and tie kind support 
 given to the project by the Secretary of State for India and the 
 Viceroy has now enabled me to present the work in a more or 
 less complete shape. From unavoidable circumstances the arrange- 
 ment of matter is not identical with that adopted by Mr. Markham, 
 but I believe I have conformed to it sufficiently to make reference 
 easy, and wherever the source of information is not specially 
 mentioned, it may be assumed that it will be found in the official 
 Annual Report for the particular year. 
 
 I have to express my sincere acknowledgments to those friends 
 who have been good enough to read through the proofs and favour 
 me with numerous suggestions, of which I have gladly availed 
 myself. To General J. T. Walker, R.E., O.B., F.R.S., &o., 
 formerly Surveyor- General of India, I am indebted for his careful 
 revision of the Trigonometrical, Geodetic, and other chapters. 
 Colonel H. R. Thuillier, R.B., the present Surveyor-General of India, 
 
 I y 20821. b 
 
VI I'HEPACfi. 
 
 has also supplied mucli useful additional matter in Chapter XI. 
 Mr. "W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., has furnished me with several 
 valuable conments on the Geological Section ; Mr. H. F. Blanford, 
 F.R.S., kindly revised the Meteorology; Sir W. W. Hunter, 
 K.C.S.I., C.I.B., suggested some improvements in the brief chapter 
 on the Statistical Survey ; while Commander A. D. Taylor, late I.N., 
 and Commander A. W. Stiffe, late I.N., Colonel W. Barron, B.S.C., 
 Colonel W. J. Heaviside, R.B., Mr. E. Roberts, F.R.A.S., and 
 Mr. T. Cushing, F.R.A.S., have been obliging enough to give 
 similar aid in respect of the chapters dealing with Marine Surveys, 
 Revenue Surveys, Geodetic Observations, Tidal and Levelling 
 Observations, and the Supply of Scientific Instruments, respectively. 
 Colonel J. Waterhouse, B.S.C., Major H, Raverty, and Mr. KTey 
 Elias, C.I.E., have also given valued assistance in other ways. 
 Last, but by no means least, Dr. Jas. Burgess, CLE., has shown 
 great interest in, and supplied most useful information for the 
 Chapter dealing with Indian Archaeology, a subject in which he is 
 an eminent and acknowledged authority. 
 
 My object has been to supply an outline sketch of the remarkable 
 labours achieved during the last fifteen years by the chief Indian 
 scientific departments, and to facilitate reference to the detailed 
 records of those services. Any possible success that may have 
 attended this effort is greatly due to the kind encouragement and 
 co-operation shown by the above gentlemen. 
 
 CHARLES E. D. BLACK. 
 
 London, October, 1891. 
 
• I. 
 
 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS.* 
 First Period, 1875-82. 
 
 The survey of the coasts of India has ever been a matter of high 
 importance for navigators, and from the days of the old Bombay 
 Marine and its successor, the Indian Navy, the observations of the bold 
 and experienced seamen belonging to those services bore rich fruit 
 in the labours recorded in the pages of the " Memoir on the Indian 
 Surveys." The operations of these Indian officers extended to the 
 Bed Sea, the Persian Grulf, Arabian and African coasts, China Sea, 
 and other regions far beyond the limits of India proper. But in 
 1862 the Indian Navy was abolished, and no arrangement was made 
 for continuing the excellent survey work for which the service had 
 become renowned. After a long period of inaction, a small but 
 efficient and economical department was at length organised in 
 1875, under the superintendence of Commander A. D. Taylor, late 
 I.N., a good start was made, and an encouraging record of work 
 achieved had been shown in the pages of the first report. 
 
 In the spring of 1876 Commander Taylor started on a tour of 
 inspection of the principal ports on the coast of Burma, where two 
 steamers had struck some little time previoasly on rocks unmarked 
 on the existing charts. Akyab, Bassein, Rangoon, Moulmein, 
 Tavoy, Mergui, and the Pakchan river were visited, as well as the 
 ultra-Indian ports of Kopah and Junkseylon on the Siam Coast. 
 From this inspection, after examining the chart of Amherst, which 
 was found most incorrect and incomplete. Commander Taylor 
 arrived at the conclusion that no large port of British India so 
 much required to be carefully surveyed. Navigating Lieutenant 
 Jarrad, R.N., was accordingly despatched in the " Clyde " to execute 
 
 * The spelling of Indian proper names has been assimilated to that adopted in the 
 Imperial Gazetteer of India. 
 
 I Y 20321. I. . A 
 
I INDIAN RFARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 tlie survey during the year 1876-77. The Admiralty chart of 
 Tavoy river was also found to be very erroneous, but during a brief 
 stay Commander Taylor was enabled to take observations and 
 soundings which resulted in a more reliable chart being pro- 
 duced. At Junkseylon he met Captain A. de Richelieu, Siamese 
 Royal Navy, commanding the gunboat " Coronation," from whom 
 an excellent preliminary survey of that island was obtained, and 
 published at Calcutta.* 
 
 In July Commander Taylor proceeded, with Navigating Sub- 
 Lieutenant E. W. Petley, R.N., to False Point to report how the 
 sum of Rs. 30,000, applied for as a loan to the Port Fund, could best 
 be spent in the interests of the port. On this an elaborate report 
 was submitted to Government. In the following March he was 
 deputed to Groa with instructions to visit the harbours of Karwar 
 and Marmagao and report on their relative merits as shelter-giving 
 anchorages during the S.W. monsoon. On careful consideration. 
 Commander Taylor came to the conclusion that Marmagao was 
 superior as a natural harbour, and in some respects as regards the 
 practicability of making improvements quite equal to Karwar. Two 
 officers, Nav. Lieutenant Jarrad, R.N., and Mr. Palle, were sent to 
 survey Madras roadstead, and a careful sectional survey of the 
 part of the roadstead and beach abreast of the native town was 
 commenced by them and continued by Lieutenants Hammond and 
 Pascoe on the scale of 600 feet to 1 inch. 
 
 Lieutenant Jarrad's next work was to connect, astronomically, 
 Diamond Island, Rangoon, and Amherst Pagoda, the three principal 
 stations in the Gulf of Martaban essential to the reproduction of 
 a new chart of that locality. An elaborate sectionally sounded 
 double elephant sheet survey of Moulmein river approaches was 
 excellently carried out, comprising 105 square miles of water 
 closely examined, and 36 miles of coast trigonometrically laid'' 
 down. An important correction of the true bearing of Double 
 Island lighthouse from Amherst point was obtained by Lieutenant 
 Darrad, who discovered the former to be \\ miles westward 
 of its true position, notwithstanding that it had already been 
 shifted a distance of 4J miles to the eastward of the positions 
 shown on the Admiralty charts. His next step was to commence a 
 
 * An interesting article by Captain De Riclielieu on Salang island or Junkseylon 
 will Ije ibund at page 118 of the Geographical Magazine for 1878. 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 3 
 
 survey of the port of Akyab, in tlie vicinity of which several 
 wrecks had occurred, but owing to an outbreak of cholera it was 
 impossible to continue operations, although the necessity for a 
 thorough survey of the pRice was much felt, as it is much frequented 
 by rice traders and as a harbour of refuge. 
 
 Another survey which had to be abandoned through an epidemic 
 of cholera was that of Chittagong (Karnaphuli river), where the 
 encroachment of the sea had necessitated the removal of the lights 
 at Norman's Point to some more suitable place. Lieutenant 
 Hammond had been entrusted with this work, but on the arrival of 
 Commander Taylor most of the party were found to be suffering 
 from fever and dysentery, healthy drinking water being unpro- 
 curable, and heaps of half-burnt or half-buried human corpses 
 encountered here and there by the surveyors in course of their 
 work. Operations were therefore broken off. 
 
 A large number of questions affecting navigation, such as 
 the hindrances to the free navigation of Bassein river, brought to 
 the notice of the Secretary of State by the Liverpool Shipowners' 
 Association, rules affecting emigrant ships (for the better protection 
 against fire), improvements in signalling on Indian coasts, amend- 
 ments of Native Passenger Ships Act of 1876 with reference to 
 long and short voyages and seasons of fair and foul weather, &c., 
 were forwarded for report by the Government to the Superintendent 
 of Marine Surveys. The preparation of a complete list of Indian 
 lighthouses and light-ships, with details of cost of erection and 
 maintenance, their positions, distinctive characteristics, &c., was 
 undertaken, as well as the Annual Return of Wrecks and Casualties 
 in Indian Waters. Hydrographio Notices containing sailing direc- 
 tion for Junkseylon or Salang island, Mergui archipelago, Rangoon 
 river, Moulmein (Salwen) river, Kyouk Phyou, and False Point were 
 published, and Notices to Mariners relating to new lights, buoys, 
 and newly-discovered dangers were also published and issued to the 
 Indian maritime authorities, and to foreign Grovernments, while the 
 English, Spanish, Dutch, American, Chinese, German, and Indian 
 notices were duly embodied and marked (so far as applicable) on all 
 the charts in store. Altogether 3,279 charts were corrected and 
 brought up to date, and a new catalogue of charts was issued. 
 
 In the following year (1877) the Superintendent carried into 
 effect his deferred tour of inspection of the ports of the peninsula of 
 
 A 2 
 
4 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 India on both coasts from False Point round to Bombay. The 
 following were visited and reports made on each : — 
 
 False Point. Oolachel. 
 
 Gopalpur. Cochin. 
 
 Calingapatam. Narakal. 
 
 Bimlipatam. Beypur. 
 
 Vizagapatam. Calicut. 
 
 Coconada. Tellicherri. 
 
 Masulipatam. Cannanur. 
 
 Madras. Mangalore. 
 
 Negapatam. Karwar. 
 
 Tuticorin. Bombay. 
 
 Owing to the special surveying steamer which was being 
 built at Bombay not being completed, the surveying operations 
 during the year were entirely carried on by two boat parties, one in 
 charge of Lieutenant Jarrad, R.N., and the other (a smaller one) 
 in charge of Mr. Morris Chapman, late I.N. The first-named 
 party surveyed the port of Ratnagiri (including Mirya and 
 Kalbadevi bays) in four months, the plotting comprising 38 miles 
 of coast and 21 square miles of water sounded on the scale of 
 4 inches to 1 nautic mile. Yiziadrug, including Rajapur and 
 Ambol Grhur bays, was next taken in hand, and sailing directions 
 for all these parts in the shape of hydrographic notices were also 
 compiled. Both at Mirya and Yiziadrug the large percentage of 
 iron contained in the laterite (which in some places forms a layer 
 of considerable thickness over the igneous rock of which the coast 
 is formed) exercised a very considerable disturbing effect on the 
 compass needle, so it was with considerable difficulty that magnetic 
 observations were made. Both on this account and owing to the 
 inconvenience of working with boats in lieu of a well-found 
 surveying vessel slow progress was made. 
 
 At Paumben, Commander Taylor had found during his tour of 
 inspection that an accurate survey of the pass or channel between 
 India and Ceylon and its approaches was much required ; the only 
 existing chart being on too small a scale. The Government of 
 India further desired that the examination might be complete, so 
 as to enable a time estimate to be formed of the labour required 
 for any subsequent widening and deepening of the channel. The 
 last survey by Commanders Powell and Bthersey, late I.N., 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. O 
 
 had, curiously enougt, been made exactly 40 years before. 
 Several trigonometrical stations had been fixed in the vicinity by 
 Major Branfill at the time of his connecting India with Ceylon in 
 1875, consequently Mr. Chapman was enabled to connect his marine 
 work with ease and accuracy. The whole survey was shown on two 
 sheets, and no fewer than 455 miles of water were sounded over. 
 Navigating Lieutenants Hammond and Pascoe paid a visit to 
 Cochin, Beypur, and Calicut to ascertain what changes had occurred 
 since the last surveys. At the first-named nearly half of Vypeen 
 island was discovered to have been washed away, and other changes 
 had taken place necessitating a re -survey. About 10 years ago 
 the monsoon sea breached through Vypin island at Cruz Milagre, 
 two miles north of the town, and so large was the body of water 
 that great and costly eff'orts were made to close it. These for- 
 tunately succeeded, but during the Uvo years of existence of the 
 gap, the main ebb stream of the Cochin backwater was much 
 weakened, and the sandy ridge of the bar was driven m about a 
 cable's length by the monsoon swell, besides other changes. At 
 Beypur and Calicut minor hydro graphic data were noted, and the 
 recess was utilised by Lieutenant Pascoe in preparing the fair 
 drawings of the extended survey of Madras, which was added to 
 the previous survey by Lieutenant Jarrad in 1876, the whole being 
 shown on one sheet and plotted on the scale of 10 inches to 
 1 nautic mile. It extended from St. Thome on the south to 
 Kasimodo on the north, and comprised 5f miles of coast, while the 
 soundings were carried out to the 10-fathom line, i.e., between 
 two and three miles ofi" shore. 
 
 Some important additions to the hydrography of the Siam coast 
 were received from Captain A. J. Loftus, Topographer and Marine 
 Surveyor to the Siamese Government. The hydrographic work 
 executed by him extended along the west coast of the Gulf of Siam 
 from Hilly Cape to Lem Chang P'ra, a distance of upwards of 
 300 miles, and embraced Singora, Patani, and other anchorages 
 hitherto entirely unsurveyed, and indeed unknown, and filled up a 
 distinct gap in the existing charts of the coast. The work was 
 well produced ; elaborate notes were appended to the sheets 
 explaining how the survey was carried on, as well as a large 
 number of views of various parts of the coast. These sheets were 
 reduced to convenient scale by Mr. K. C. Carrington and published 
 by permission of the Government of India at Calcutta, 
 
6 IXDIAX MAEINE SURVEVS. 
 
 The natural history investigations of the season 1877-78 wore 
 necessarily confined to examining, collecting, and preserving speci- 
 mens of the fauna of the shores near Ratnagiri and Viziadrug. 
 The area examined included the tract from the sea to the Western 
 Ghats. It is only on the slopes of the hills that the various fauna 
 begin to be at all abundant, or to assume any individuality of their 
 own. All the intervening tract of country is parched and barren, 
 and composed of a thin soil overlying a substratum of trap rock or 
 laterite, the latter being apparently detrimental to the development 
 of animal organisms. The want of an efficient surveying vessel 
 hampered Dr. Armstrong's operations, but a list of about 60 
 ornithological specimens collected by him finds place in his report 
 for 1877-78. Among miscellaneous papers submitted to Govern- 
 ment by ofiicers of the Department and printed in the Appendix to 
 the Report for the year were the following : — 
 
 Remarks on some ports of the Madras Presidency, after inspection 
 
 in April and May 1877. By Commander Taylor, late I.N. 
 Report on some harbours, &c. of the Bombay Presidency, after 
 an inspection tour in May 1877. By Commander Taylor, late I.N. 
 Remarks upon the supposed silting up of the upper portion of 
 
 Bombay harbour. By Commander Taylor. 
 On the history of some of the oldest races now settled in Bombay. 
 With reasons for supposing that the present island of Bombay 
 consisted in the 14th century of two or more distinct island.^. 
 By R. X. Murphy, Esq. 
 Extract from report by Mr. Morris Chapman, late I.N., on 
 
 Paumben channel and Rameswaram island. 
 In addition to various useful pieces of work performed by 
 Mr. Carringfcon in the compilation of new charts and of hydro- 
 graphic publications may be mentioned the result of a visit of 
 inspection to Bombay paid by him, on which occasion he examined 
 the whole collection of charts (11,787 in number) stored in the 
 dockyard there. Of these, the vast majority (10,045) proved to be 
 quite obsolete, and had consequently to be cancelled ; the remainder 
 (1,742) were corrected by hand up to the latest date by Mr. Carrington, 
 and retained for issue to masters of vessels. 
 
 One of the first matters to be settled in 1878 was the selection of 
 localities where tide-gauges should be erected, with a view to the 
 determination of the mean sea-level along the Indian coasts. This 
 was settled by Commander Taylor in concert with Captain 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 7 
 
 A. W. Baird, E..E., Superintendent of Tidal and Levelling Opera- 
 tions, visits being paid to False Point, Vizagapatam, Madras, 
 Paumben (^vbere, at Commander Taylor's instance, Mr. Morris 
 Chapman was deputed to extend his survey three miles to the 
 eastward), Beypur, Karwar, and Bombay. 
 
 Later on, Commander Taylor was enabled to carry out a further 
 insj)ection of several harboi;rs in company with Colonel Thomason, 
 and Verawal, Seraia, and Cutch Mandvi were visited. In connexion 
 with the G-ulf of Cambay a petition signed by upwards of 70 
 native shipowners and shipmasters was submitted to the super- 
 intendent, stating that in consequence of the existing lights being 
 insufficient, and of the imperfect state of the chart, a large number 
 of vessels were either wrecked or damaged every year by sand- 
 banks in the gulf. The petitioners solicited that a thorough 
 examination of the gulf might speedily be made in the interests of 
 navigation ; but owing to the want of a steamer, this could not 
 be taken in hand. 
 
 A pressing request was also addressed to the superintendent to 
 cause a survey of Bankote river mouth to be made, as it had the 
 largest traffic of any of the Konkan rivers, and was at the same 
 time very dangerous. The request was supported by Sir Richard 
 Temple, the Governor of Bombay ; but as the survey formed no 
 part of the programme of operations sanctioned by the Government 
 of India, it could not then be undertaken. It was, however, 
 thoroughly surveyed by No. 1 Boat party in the following year. 
 An examination of Quilon roadstead was also asked for in the 
 interests of the Scottish India Coffije Company, who had large 
 investments in South Travancore ; but this could not be undertaken 
 till 1883, when it was completed by Lieutenant Pascoe. 
 
 As in the preceding season, surveying had to be carried on in 
 boat parties, under the command of Lieutenant Jarrad and 
 Mr. Morris Chapman. At the request of Sir R. Temple, Governor 
 of Bombay, the port of Jyghur, a harbour of refuge during the 
 S.W. monsoon, and its approaches were surveyed on the scale 
 of 6 inches to 1 nautic mile. Although small, the harbour was 
 found to possess many natural advantages, and to be easy of access 
 for vessels of 12 feet draught in all weathers. Lieutenant Jarrad 
 reported there was not much traffic, though at Saichor, about four 
 miles from the entrance, a very large number of pattimars were 
 laid up and repaired during the monsoon. The entrance to the 
 
INDIAN iMAELS'E SURVEYS. 
 
 Dabliol or Anjanwil rivei', where the passenger traffic by coasting 
 steamers was rapidly increasing, was next taken in hand and plotted 
 on a double-elephant sheet on the same scale as the above 
 survey, as well as that of Chaul, where the Chaul Kadu and other 
 dangerous reefs and shoals had caused many a wreck to vessels 
 making for Bombay harbour. 
 
 Early in September 1878 Mr. Morris Chapman commenced his 
 survey of Tuticorin roadstead and harbour, the soundings being 
 carried out as far as the 5 -fathom and 7-fathom line to the 
 north and south respectively. The heat was most trying, and the 
 weather so exceptionably bad that a suspension of the work became 
 necessary. Mr. Chapman was deputed to make an examination of 
 the water space eastward of the Shingle islands at Paumben, 
 principally with the object of finding a southern deep entrance to 
 the proposed ship canal through Rameswaram. Forty miles of 
 eoundings were taken, but there proved to be no deep southern 
 entrance, though there are great advantages for one to the north. 
 On the 16th March Mr. Chapman became ill from severe exposure, 
 and though he was granted two months' leave to enable him to 
 proceed to Australia, he unfortunately died before the season closed. 
 He was a painstaking and hardworking surveyor, and his loss 
 was severely felt in the Department. 
 
 On the 4!th December 1878 the building of the new surveying 
 steamer " Investigator " was commenced, and the formality of 
 driving the silver nail into her stem took place. The ceremon'"-, 
 peculiar to Bombay, is said to be of Parsee origin, and is some- 
 what analogous to that of depositing coins, &c. under foundation 
 stones. The nail was of silver, about seven inches in length and 
 three-quarters of an inch diameter near the head. The four sides 
 bore the inscriptions: — (1) Indian Grovernment surveying steamer 
 " Investigator," Bombay Dockyard, December 1878 ; (2) The Right 
 Hon'ble Lord Lytton, G.C.S.I., Viceroy and Governor-General; 
 
 (3) The Hon'ble Sir R. Temple, G.C.S.I., Governor of Bombay; 
 
 (4) Captain G. O'B. Carew, I.X., Officiating Superintendent of 
 Marino, and Jamsetjee Dhunjeebhoy Wadia, master builder. 
 
 During the year a Chart Depot at Calcutta had been established, 
 and was in good working order. Printed lists of all new charts 
 and hydrographic publications, and information as to where 
 the same were obtainable, were distributed to all Indian shipping 
 agencies, and to all shipmasters calling at Calcutta ; and the result 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 9 
 
 was an increase in the sale of Admiralty publications, and of charts 
 of Indian ports and anchorages. Many acknowledgments were 
 received from the maritime public of the practical utility of an office 
 where reliable charts and information were procurable. 
 
 Seventeen new charts were issued during the year referred to, 
 and the large number of 17,268 Admiralty and Marine Survey 
 charts corrected. Among the special reports prepared during the 
 year, and reprinted in the Annual Report, were the following : — 
 
 Memorandum on the reefs and dangers southward of Kundari 
 Island, aud the necessity for better marking those dangers by night, 
 by Navigating Lieutenant Jarrad, R.N. 
 
 A description of some new species of Hydroid Zoophytes from 
 the Indian Coasts and Seas, by Surgeon J. Armstrong, Medical 
 Officer and Naturalist. 
 
 Reports by Commander A. D. Taylor, late I.N,, on the Phaeton 
 Shoal and Alguada Reef, and on the various ports, &c. inspected by 
 him during the season. 
 
 A thorough inspection of the lighthouses and light-vessels of 
 India, with such proposals for their improvement as might seem 
 best in the interests of navigation, was one of the early aims of the 
 Marine Survey Department. This inspection Commander Taylor 
 was enabled to carry out in the year 1879-80, and his general report 
 upon the Indian lights is printed in full in the Report for that year. 
 It contains some useful observations and suggestions in regard to 
 92 lights, from Karachi to Coco islands. A supplementary report 
 in the same volume deals with the question of the relief and supply 
 of Indian lighthouses and their periodical inspection. 
 
 Owing to the untimely death of Mr. Morris Chapman, I.N., the 
 temporary abolition of No. 2 Boat party, and the postponement of 
 the surveys of Beypur and Cochin had become necessary ; and as 
 Lieutenant Jarrad's health was impaired, arrangements were made 
 for him to remain at Bombay and for an amalgamated party 
 under him and Lieutenant Petley to take up the survey of the Bombay 
 harbour, which the experience of the previous year had shown to 
 be necessary. 
 
 The first survey undertaken, however, was that of Karwar, which 
 was plotted on the 6-inch scale by Lieutenant Petley ; but owing 
 to the inefficiency of the small steam cutters at the disposal of the 
 party, the survey could not be extended so far to the north and 
 south as was desirable. Bankote was also surveyed on the same 
 
10 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 scale, and on its completion the party moved to Marraagao, where 
 a minute examination of that port was made at the request of the 
 Bombay Government, acting on the suggestion of the Engineer-in- 
 Chief of the proposed Hubli-Marmagao Railway. This work was 
 completed at the hottest period of the year, and was rendered 
 exceptionally trying by the prevalence of the Kanara fever, which 
 occasioned much sickness among the party. 
 
 The special reports printed in the Appendix to the Annual Report 
 for 1879-80 comprised reports on False Point harbour, and the 
 great modifications and movements of sand going on there, two 
 memoranda on Coconada, and a new deep channel into the 
 Godavari river, and a memorandum on the proposed breakwater 
 at Marmagao, all by Commander Taylor, while some general notes 
 on the topography and history of the latter place were written by 
 Lieutenant Petley, with the assistance of Dr. J. Gerson da Cunha. 
 
 During 1880-81 the surveying operations consisted of a careful 
 survey by Lieutenant Petley of the Bombay foreshore from the 
 Prongs lighthouse to Mazagon, and to an average distance of 
 7,500 feet seaward. The result was to discover many rocky 
 patches and also less water on the Raleigh shoal than shown on 
 the existing charts. Lieutenant Petley then proceeded to Goa, 
 where by the 20th February all the seaboard coast and islands were 
 mapped and 55 square miles of water were minutely examined, the 
 sounding lines being run in sections, those over shoal and dangerous 
 ground being as close as possible. The Portuguese Governor- 
 General took great personal interest in the progress of the survey, 
 and had it not been for this, the difficulties would have been far 
 greater than they were, for the natives somehow formed the idea 
 that the survey party were connected with the new salt tax treaty, 
 which was very unpopular, and many petty annoyances often 
 occurred. The survey of the Sunchi reef was awkward and 
 perilous, as the sea when apparently quite smooth would suddenly 
 pile up on the reef and develop into tremendous breakers, and with 
 the place full of sharks, the danger from a capsize was great. A 
 good descriptive and historical sketch by Lieutenant Petley of Goa, 
 its forts, churches, rivers, islands, &c., is printed in the Appendices 
 to the Reports for 1879-80 and 1880-81. In the month of May 
 Lieutenant Petley made a hasty survey of the approaches to Princes 
 Dock, Bombay. The general result of the season's work at 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 11 
 
 Bombay was that eight miles of coast line were triangulated and 
 20 square miles of water soundings were taken. 
 
 Lieutenant W. H. CooinJ)s commenced a survey of the port of 
 Rangoon in November 1880 and completed it in March of the 
 following year, the space soimded being eight square miles, and the 
 length of coast measured a little more than 20 miles. Some notes on 
 the history and topography of Rangoon were compiled by Lieutenant 
 Coombs during his stay, and find place in the Report. 
 
 During the summer and autumn of 1881 Mr. P. J. Palle executed 
 a survey on the scale of 400 feet to the inch of that portion of 
 Dowdeswell island (Orissa coast) which lies north of HukitoUah, and 
 is most seriously affected by the action of the winds and waves of the 
 southerly monsoon, as also by the river freshets. Mr. Falle also 
 made observations later on in the year on the set and velocity of 
 the tides in the harbour. 
 
 On the 3rd March 1881 the new surveying steamer " Investigator " 
 was launched, and Lieutenant L. S. Dawson, R.N., an able surveyor 
 of 18 years' standing, possessing considerable experience of hydro- 
 graphical matters, was appointed to the command of the vessel. 
 He eventually succeeded Commander Taylor in the Superintendent- 
 ship of Marine Surveys. 
 
 The work at headquarters consisted in tendering advice on a 
 variety of matters of a scientific description affecting navigation to 
 the Government of India and the local governments and administra- 
 tions. In May 1881 the superintendent was appointed President of 
 a Committee on Indian Lighthouse Administration. 
 
 In 1880 events arose which ultimately had a most important 
 bearing on the future of the Department. In the early part of that 
 year disagreements began to crop up between Mr. R. Carrington, 
 the Superintendent of the Drawing Branch, and some of the Royal 
 Navy officers who had been lent for surveying service by the Lords 
 of the Admiralty', and this culminated in the services of Navigating 
 Lieutenant F. W. Jarrad, R.N., being replaced by the Government 
 of India at the disposal of the Admiralty on the 6th February 1880. 
 Lengthy correspondence followed between the Indian Government, 
 the Commander-in-Chief on the Bast Indian Station, the Lords of 
 the Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for India. This led 
 eventually to the Government of India determining to institute an 
 inquiry into the working of the Marine Survey Department, and a 
 committee was appointed for the purpose under the presidency of 
 
12 INDIAN MAKIiNE SURVEYS. 
 
 Major-General J. T. Walker, E.B., Surveyor- General of India, the 
 other members being Mr. D. M. Barbour, officiating Accountant- 
 General of Bengal, Mr. H. F. Blanford, F.R.S., Meteorological 
 Reporter to the Government of India, Commander A. D. Taylor, 
 late I.N., Superintendent of Indian Marine Surveys, Commander 
 A. D. Street, R.N., Assistant Secretary to the Government of India 
 in the Military (Marine) Department, and Mr. C. E. Palmer, R.N., 
 Examiner of Marine Accounts as Secretary. The chief proposals 
 of this Committee were that the Survey Department should be 
 amalgamated with the Indian Marine and that a rather smaller 
 surveying establishment than the original one should be sanctioned. 
 The head of the department was to be styled Superintendent of 
 Coast Surveys in lieu of Superintendent of Marine Surveys, the 
 employment of Royal Naval officers was to be continued, and 
 arrangements were to be made for marine zoological observations and 
 trawling to be carried on in the new surveying steamer, under the 
 supervision of a Naturalist. The post of superintendent was 
 recommended to be conferred on Commander T. A. Hull, R.N., an 
 officer who had had greac experience in coast surveying in various 
 parts of the world, and in the projection and compilation of charts 
 in the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty."'^ The Admiralty, 
 however, objected to the Superintendentship being given to an officer 
 retired from the Royal Navy, and this proposal had to be abandoned. 
 The general re-organization of the Department too, on the lines laid 
 down by the Committee, did not commend itself to the Admiralty 
 and the Secretary of State, and at the suggestion of the former, 
 advantage was taken of Commander Taylor's prospective retire- 
 ment to depute Captain H. W. Brent, R.N., the recently nominated 
 Director of Indian Marine, to take up the question on his arrival in 
 India, so as to advise the Government as to the best way of dealing 
 with the Marine Survey Department. 
 
 An elaborate report on the Marine Survey Department was 
 compiled by Captain Brent, and its entire work since its origin in 
 1874 was severely criticised. A series of statements and charges 
 was brought against the Department, but it is enough to state here 
 
 * Captain Hull was author of a remarkable paper read in 1874 before the lloyal 
 United Service Institution called " The Unsurveyed World, 1874," which enumerated, 
 and specified all the more pressing coast surveys then needed throughout the world. 
 The paper attraclefl much attention. 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 13 
 
 that the general purport of this part of the report was to allege 
 that the Calcutta Oj6B.ce or shore establishment had been unduly 
 magnified at the cost of ^e survey proper, that India required her 
 coasts surveyed, but no Hydrographic Office, and that the most 
 useful and profitable course in the interests of the State was 
 " to break up the Indian Marine Survey Department." 
 
 Captain Brent's detailed recommendations regarding the personnel 
 and records were as follows : — 
 
 Commander A. D. Taylor, late I.N., Superintendent of Marine 
 Surveys, was to be pensioned. The post of Superintendent of the 
 Drawing Branch was to be abolished, and 10 clerks and draughts- 
 men were to be either transferred to other Grovernment posts or 
 dismissed. All the Admiralty charts purchased by and presented 
 to India, were to be sent back to the Hydrographer, while Indian 
 survey charts were to be sent to Bombay dockyard, together with 
 chart boxes, instruments, drawing materials, tin cases, &c. 
 Surveyors' original charts were to be sent to the Admiralty 
 Hydrographer. 
 
 The "Wreck Eegister and the clerk employed thereon were to be 
 transferred after the 1st July to the Port Office, Calcutta, instructions 
 being sent to the Indian ports to send all information in future to 
 that official instead of to the Marine Survey Department. The Port 
 Officer has since carried on this duty in addition to his own work. 
 The Annual Keturn of Lighthouses and Light- vessels was to be 
 handed over to the Home Department, and the Notices to Mariners 
 abolished, on the ground that they could always be procured from 
 London. Captain A. W. Stiffe, the Port Officer, was directed in 
 1887 to prepare a new corrected edition of the former Eeturn, and 
 to the same officer was also entrusted the duty of issuing all Notices 
 to Mariners relating to India. 
 
 With respect to the future conduct of surveys, Captain Brent laid 
 down at the outset that it was only from the active list of the Royal 
 Navy that efficient marine surveyors could be obtained, and that the 
 Indian surveyors should be therefore nominated by the Admiralty, 
 the posts of assistants being filled by officers of the Indian Marine. 
 But the two classes were to be kept distinct, there being no promo- 
 tion from the lower to the higher grade. Their work was to be 
 sent home directly to the Hydrographer, such charts as might be 
 
14 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 required promptly for local navigation and engineering wants being 
 first photo-zincograplied in India. Printed Admiralty charts of the 
 coast of India were in future to be corrected at the Admiralty. 
 In the opinion of Captain Brent the " Investigator " steamer and 
 two boat parties would be sufficient at least to start the surveys 
 with. Unfortunately, however, it has never been found practicable 
 to increase this force. 
 
 The future establishment was to consist of a surveyor in charge (in 
 lieu of the Superintendent), who was to be placed in command of the 
 " Investigator," direct the boat surveys, arrange all survey work 
 and connect it with the points of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. 
 The programme of operations was to be submitted through the 
 Director of the Indian Marine to the Government of India for 
 sanction. The surveyor in charge was to decide which of the 
 surveys would be of sufficient importance or use to be photo-zinco- 
 graphed, and he was to countersign the original charts before 
 forwarding them to the Hydrographer of the Admiralty, to decide 
 on the form of all hydrographic information, whether emanating 
 from the marine surveying officers, port officers, or other sources, and 
 to forward such information to the Admiralty for publication. He was 
 to communicate with the Hydrographer of the j^dmiralty respecting 
 past operations and those most pressing in the future from a local or 
 Indian point of view, obtaining his approval or dissent before acting 
 on the more important points. To report to the Hydrographer as 
 to any changes in the naval personnel and to the Director of Marine 
 any changes in the Indian personnel likely to prove of benefit to the 
 public service. To make demand on the Hydrographic Office in 
 England for such charts, surveying notices, or publications as 
 may be necessary to meet local Indian requirements. To answer 
 any questions relating to harbour conservancy by means of buoys, 
 beacons, or lights ; those of a secondary nature to be kept for the 
 recess. 
 
 Owing to the arduous character of the duties and the trying 
 nature of the climate, it was stipulated that the duration of 
 the appointments should be limited to five years, renewable if 
 advisable. The naval officers were to come under the Uncovenanted 
 Civil Service rules for leave and furlough, but, to count their time 
 and to keep them under the Naval Discipline Act, their names were 
 to be borne on the books of the flagship on the Bast India station 
 or such other ship as might be necessary from time to time. 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 15 
 
 There was to be an office at Bombay under the Director of Marine 
 with two draughtsmen and a clerk, and these officials were charged 
 with the custody and care of the charts. 
 
 Local governments and^dministrations and the several port officers 
 were to promptly communicate all information regarding wrecks, 
 lights, navigation, buoys, beacons, shoals, or other matters affecting 
 the safe navigation of the seas, to the Director of Marine for the 
 information of the surveyor in charge. The surveyor in charge 
 was to be the adviser to the Government of India upon all matters 
 connected with the navigation of Indian seas, the lighting and 
 marking of the sea approaches to all great Indian ports and rivers, 
 conservancy of harbours, and cognate subjects. 
 
 This general scheme was approved by the Government of 
 India.* The proposed staff as agreed to by them was to consist of 
 one surveyor in charge and seven officers, all of the Royal Navy, 
 and nine assistant surveyors of the Indian Marine. The total cost 
 of the scheme was to be Rs. 1,93,000, which was estimated to be a 
 saving of Rs. 7,000 a year on the cost of the then existing establish- 
 ment (Rs. 2,00,000 per annum), but as the actual expenditure of the 
 latter was about half a lakh less than its sanctioned limit, the new 
 scheme was in reality the more costly of the two. 
 
 The Secretary of State duly accorded his sanction to these pro- 
 posals, and the retirement of Commander Taylor on the 1st July 
 1882, under the 55-year rule, enabled the re-organization to be 
 completed. He was succeeded in the charge of the Marine Surveys 
 by Commander L. S. Dawson, R.N. 
 
 Commander Alfred Dundas Taylor, whose active Indian career thus 
 practically came to an end, is an officer whose public service here 
 merits some notice. 
 
 His earliest eastern services were rendered in the Persian Gulf when 
 he was a midshipman on board the Honourable East India Company's 
 ship " Blphinstone." On leaving that vessel in June 1843 he was 
 granted a certificate as " a first-rate navigator who promised to be as 
 ■'' good an officer." His surveying career commenced in the following 
 year under Commander Montriou (succeeded later on by Lieutenant 
 Selby) in the brig " Taptee," along the Concan coast below Bombay, 
 and this work was carried on for four years. Promoted to the rank 
 of lieutenant in 1847 the next two years found him on board the 
 
 * Military (Marine) Letter, No. 29 of 1882, dated 1st September 1882. 
 
16 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 steam frigate " Feroze," in the Red Sea. In the autumn of 1850 
 he was appointed to command the surveying vessel " Pownah," in 
 which, during the next six years, he carried out a survey of the 
 Grulf of Cutch and the Malabar coast. In 1855 he examined the 
 port of Karwar, and was then sent by Lord Harris (father of 
 the present Governor of Bombay) to survey Coringa bay and 
 Cocouada port, on the Coromandel coast, and Cochin, on the Malabar 
 coast. Resuming the latter survey, he finished southward as far as 
 Calicut by the middle of 1859. Later in that year he was sent to 
 pilot the expeditionary force against the rebellious Waghers at Bet 
 and Dwarka, and then proceeded to England on furlough. In 1862 
 Commander Taylor was pensioned off on the abolition of the Indian 
 Navy but, at the request of Admiral Washington, the Hydrographer, 
 his services were utilised in the compilation of Sailing Directions 
 for the West Coast of Hindostan, which work was published in 1865. 
 It was during the course of the next few years that in his researches 
 at the India Office, Commander Taylor became aware how little had 
 been done to improve the hydrography of Indian waters, a subject 
 eventually brought by the Secretary of State under the notice of 
 the Grovernment of India, which led to the formation of the Marine 
 Survey Department under Taylor's charge.* 
 
 During the six years of its existence, the cost of the Marine 
 Survey Department had been as follows : — 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 1875-76 - 1,66,771 
 
 1876-77 - - 1,40,484 
 
 1877-78 - - 1,38,290 
 
 1878-79 - - 1,60,207 
 
 1879-80 - - 1,13,706 
 
 1880-81 - - 1,94,607 
 
 as. 
 
 P- 
 
 12 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 11 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 Of 
 
 Total Rupees - 9,14,067 9 2 
 Or, on an average, Rupees 1,52,344 per annum. 
 Under Commander Taylor's superintendentship, i.e., from April 
 1875 (the date on which work was commenced at headquarters) up 
 to the end of September 1881, the publications of the Marine 
 Survey Department consisted of the following : — 68 new charts 
 
 * See Mr. Markham's Memoir on the Indian Survoys (Second edition), p~45. 
 Commander Taylor last year (1890) signalized the 50th year of his public service 
 by the compilation of a China Sea Directory, a sequel to the Indian Ocean Directory. 
 
 f Including Rs. 83,536, part construction of the surveying steamer " Investigator." 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 17 
 
 24 Hydrographic Notices, 172 Noticos to Mariners, 5 Annual 
 Returns of Wrecks and Casualties in Indian Waters (1876-1880), 
 6 editions of tlie List of Lighthouses and Light- vessels in British 
 India (1876-1881), and various other useful publications, including 
 Spheroidal Tables, Grlossary of French Nautical Terms, Tables of 
 Natural Scales, Table of Distances at which Objects are seen at 
 Sea, &c. The advantages, too, of a chart dep6t at Calcutta, where 
 hydrographical publications could be promptly obtained without the 
 long delay of reference to England, were beginning to be fully 
 appreciated by the mercantile public, and in 1880-81 1785 charts 
 were sold, being at the rate of between five and six charts a day. 
 
 Such were the results accomplished by the Department during its 
 brief existence. Under the superintendence of its able and devoted 
 chief, and with the co-operation of its energetic officers, it had 
 made a position for itself, and its good work was beginning to be 
 known and thoroughly appreciated by the mercantile marine 
 frequenting Indian seas. Had it been able to survive those internal 
 and external petty jealousies, from which no public department, any 
 more than any other human institution, is exempt, it would 
 undoubtedly have achieved a long record of good work, worthy of 
 comparison with that, which during the present century, has made 
 the history of Indian land surveys so famous and brilliant. Un- 
 doubtedly much of the marine survey work has since been continued 
 by earnest and capable hands. But the break-up of a department 
 is seldom unaccompanied by evils; the old personnel vanishes, 
 the old lines are obliterated, the experience which it has taken years 
 to build up, is either discredited or wholly lost, and the result is, 
 even at the best, a serious interruption to that record of continued 
 progress and development which are the aim of all English 
 administrations. 
 
 Y, 20321. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 II. 
 
 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 Second Period, 1882-90. 
 
 The Indian coast surveys now entered on a new chapter of their 
 history. The headquarters had been moved from Calcutta to 
 Bombay, future operations were to be mainly confined to 
 surveying, pur et simple, and Commander L. S. Dawson was 
 appointed to their charge on the 1st July 1882,* in the place of 
 Commander A. D. Taylor, late I.N., retired. 
 
 The " Investigator " paddle steamer, 508 tons, was now available 
 for surveying purposes, and was arranged as a sort of floating 
 headquarters of the Marine Survey Department, a complete set of 
 charts, sailing directions, pilotage books, and works of reference 
 being taken in her, to enable Commander Dawson to deal with any 
 hydrographical question or reports referred to him. 
 
 During the year 1881-82 her officers performed the following 
 survey work ; — 
 
 Place. 
 
 Scale. 
 
 Area Sounded 
 
 in 
 Square Miles. 
 
 Coast Line 
 
 in 
 
 Square Miles. 
 
 Topography 
 triangulated and 
 drawn in detail. 
 
 Mai wan 
 
 6 inches to 1 mile 
 
 21 
 
 
 17-5 
 
 13 
 
 Vingorla 
 
 6 .., „ 
 
 11 
 
 
 7 
 
 10-5 
 
 Bombay 
 
 •5 „ „ 
 
 32 
 
 
 11 
 
 4 
 
 Do. 
 
 ^ )i n 
 
 Total 
 
 81 
 
 
 20 
 
 30 
 
 
 14.5, 
 
 
 55 • 5 
 
 57-0 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * Uommander Dawson had been employed (while Lieutenant) as Naval Assistant in 
 the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty since 187G. He had ])reviously had 
 10 year.?' experience in surveying in the ^Mediterranean, China, River Plate, New 
 (Tiiinea, and at Fiji, where he commanded the schooner " Alacrity." 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 19 
 
 The boat party, in charge of Lieutenant W. H. Coombs, E.N., 
 also did some useful work. It executed a survey of False Point, 
 on two sheets, the scales being 600 feet to 1 inch, and 4 inches to 
 1 nautic mile, respectively. For the first month the whole of the 
 work had to be carried on with only the whale boat, and all the 
 ofl&cers and men suffered more or less from, the malarial fever, for 
 which the place is notorious. The remainder of the season was 
 taken up with surveys of Santapilly reef, Coconada, and the 
 southern portion of Madras harbour. 
 
 During most of the following year the charge of the surveys was 
 temporarily transferred to Lieutenant A. Channer, R.K., and under 
 his superintendence a survey of the Karil Kachal channel and 
 Vingorla rocks was made, after which the " Investigator " weighed 
 anchor and proceeded to run a line of deep-sea soundings parallel 
 to and about 60 miles off the coast to the Grulf of Manar, and 
 across the gulf to Colombo, passing over the " Wedge bank." 
 
 The next work undertaken was a survey, in December 1882, of the 
 Dhumra river entrance, and the portion of the Baitarani (Byturnee) 
 river from its junction with the Dhumra up to Chandbally, and the 
 following month Balasore roadstead and Burraballung river up to 
 Balasore town were charted. The "Investigator" next proceeded 
 to Chittagong, where a rough reconnaissance of the Meghna river, 
 from Narayanganj to Sandwip channel, and of the Karnaphuli or 
 Chittagong river, to three miles seaward was made, after which the 
 ship returned to Bombay. 
 
 No. 1 Boat survey party, which had been in abeyance dming the 
 previous year on account of the oflBcers formerly composing it 
 having been required for duty on board the new surveying steamer, 
 was reconstituted on the 1st October 1882. Under Commander 
 Dawson, a survey of Back bay, Bombay, on the scale of two inches 
 to the mile, was commenced, and continued and completed by 
 Lieutenant Pascoe, the result being to show a slight deepening of the 
 bay to the northward as compared with Lieutenant Whish's survey 
 of 1861. Karachi harbour was next taken in hand, and plotted 
 on a double-elephant sheet, the work comprising 19^ miles of coast 
 line, and 16 square miles of sounding. A decided silting of the 
 harbour on the west side, and also a great decrease of water space 
 to the northward by the Puhi and Soti creeks were revealed, and 
 westward of Manora Point several rocky patches, where numerous 
 vessels had lost their anchors, were found, and clearly marked and 
 
 B 2 
 
20 i>;dian marine surveys. 
 
 defined. The party were tlien conveyed to Beyt harbour, in Baroda 
 State, where the fixing of the position of the new lighthouse, in 
 process of building, and a plan of the harbour and entrance 
 channels were desired. This survey was duly completed on the 
 4-inch scale. 
 
 Kg. 2 Boat party, under Lieutenant W. H. Coombs, undertook 
 surveys of the entrance to the Chittagong river, and of Akyab, the 
 latter being on the scale of 3 inches to the mile and embracing 
 an area of 60 square miles. Operations were much delayed by 
 the deplorable condition of the steam cutter, which broke down 
 continually, and which Lieutenant Coombs was obliged to work at a 
 dangerous amount of pressure to enable him to get even so moderate 
 a speed of three knots an hour. 
 
 The total Avork during the season showed an exceedingly good 
 record, the " Investigator" and the two boat parties having been all 
 working at their full strength. Exclusive of the Meghna recon- 
 naissance, 320 square miles of soundings had been taken, and 32 
 square miles of topography in detail, 250 coast line in linear 
 miles, and 60 deep-sea soundings made. The " Livestigator " was 
 reported by Lieutenant Ohanner to be admirably adapted for 
 the work, being very handy and light in running soundings from 
 25 to 100 fathoms. 
 
 At the beginning of the season, 1883-84, Commander Dawson 
 resumed charge, and the first piece of work undertaken was 
 the survey of Cochin on the 8-inch scale, which some four years 
 previously had been postponed owing to the death of Lieutenant 
 Morris Chapman, late I.N. The Cochin river entrance, the bar, 
 and backwater were all sounded, the area amounting to 12^ square 
 miles, and the positions of the bar buoys, as previously laid down, 
 were found to be considerably in error. The vessel then proceeded, 
 via Colombo, to the coast of Burma, and on its way took a line of 
 deep-sea soundings across the Bay of Bengal from Dondra head, 
 the southernmost point of Ceylon, to the vicinity of Cheduba island. 
 At the mouth of the Sandoway river Lieutenant Channer was left 
 for the purpose of surveying the approaches to Tongoup and 
 Sandoway, while Commander Dawson went on to the entrance 
 of the Eangoon river, where numerous complaints had been received 
 as to the extension of the banks, silting of channels, and general 
 alterations in the hydrography of the Rangoon river. This survey 
 proved to be lengthy and difficult, and several new channels and 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 21 
 
 great clianges in tte main condition of the river were ascertained 
 to have taken place. It was completed in the early part of 
 March; no fewer than«168 square miles being sounded over 
 on the 2-inch scale in the Rangoon river and its approaches, 
 from the China Bakir river and entrance to the Port of Rangoon. 
 The port itself was sounded on the 6-inch scale. It was ascer- 
 tained that the time of high water at full and change of the 
 moon at Rangoon had become about 45 minutes earlier than it 
 was in the year 1829, a change accounted for by the scour of 
 the river having, increased in consequence of artificial embank- 
 ments, &c. 
 
 Oheduba strait and Ramri roadstead were nest taken in hand, 
 a detached boat party under Lieutenant Helby, R.N., being told off 
 to the former, while the " Investigator's " officers were engaged 
 on the triangulation of the whole, as well as on the detailed 
 survey of Ramri strait. The survey of the approaches to Sando- 
 way and Tongoup, covering 301 square miles, had been made 
 as mentioned above by Lieutenant Channer. 
 
 Boat party No. 1, under the charge of Lieutenant T. 0. Pascoe, 
 was employed during the latter part of 1883 on the survey of 
 Quilon, where the Travancore Government was anxious to construct 
 a deep-water harbour, there being no other harbour on the 
 Travancore seaboard, and the backwater?.', which extend 100 miles 
 altogether to the north and south, offering great advantages for 
 boat traffic up to the foot of the hills. The party returned to 
 Bombay by Christmas day, and the remainder of the season 
 was taken up with the surveys of Mahuwa or Mowa and 
 Shial Bet. 
 
 No. 2 Boat party, under Commander Palle, I.M., mapped out 
 Vizagapatam and Calingapatam, and under Lieutenant Morris Smyth, 
 R.N., who took charge on the 1st February, made a survey of 
 Negapatam and Nagore. 
 
 Thus the full programme drawn up for the Season 1883-84 (with 
 the exception of the search for the Sacramento shoal, which owing 
 to the want of a vessel for the purpose had to be abandoned) was 
 carried out, with the additions of the entrance to the China Bakir 
 river, the approaches to Sandoway and' Tongoup, and the port of 
 Negapatam. The total out-turn for the season amounted to 
 11 charts and plans, covering 746 square miles of soundings, with 
 15 deep-sea soundings. 
 
22 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 The next year (1884-85) saw Commander Alfred Carpenter, R.N., 
 assume the direction of the operations, in place of Commander 
 Dawson, the Department during the interval between the two 
 commands being placed in charge of Lieutenant Channer, E.N. 
 The " Investigator's " first course was to Sandoway lioads, where 
 work was immediately commenced in continuation of the Cheduba 
 and E,amree harbour surveys of the previous season. 
 
 The Cheduba straits were completed in December 1884 
 after a year's work, during which 83 linear miles of coast and 
 905 square miles of soundings were charted, ■ new shoals were 
 discovered, and the so-called Port Childers, formerly described as an 
 excellent harbour, was proved to be full of dangerous pinnacle 
 rocks. 
 
 An examination was made of the Orissa coast from Dhumra river 
 to Balasor, but no detailed marine survey of the shore was 
 carried out. Soft mud flats dry at low water extended two or 
 three miles ofi" its entire face, while dense jungle and mangrove 
 swamps formed the actual coast. Many of the stations along 
 the shores made by the great trigonometrical surveyors some years 
 previously had become submerged : the two-fathom line extended 
 from three to four miles off shore, and at six miles no portion of the 
 coast could be seen from a ship's deck. 
 
 A camping party, landed on Shortt island, proceeded to delineate 
 the Palmyras shoals, 88 square miles of which were charted, while 
 the " Investigator " re-sounded the whole of the bank of soundings 
 (or Pilot's Eidge) between False Point, Palmyras Point, and the 
 Eastern channel light-vessel, carrying the soundings out to 30 
 fathoms. The positions of the various soundings were found 
 astronomically, and every observation carefully checked by four or 
 five observers, each with his own sextant, as attention had been 
 repeatedly called by captains of vessels bound for the Hugli river 
 to the erroneous nature of the soundings on published charts of this 
 part of the Bay of Bengal. 
 
 The result of the survey showed an almost identical bottom 
 contour to that on the Admiralty chart (False Point to Mutlah) 
 as delineated by Mr. E. C. Carrington. The amount of square 
 miles sounded over by the Pilot's Eidge survey was 2,400. On its 
 completion the "Investigator's" boats assisted in sounding the 
 extreme seaward face of the Palmyras shoals, which had apparently 
 projected eastward half a mile from their former position. 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 23 
 
 The bar of the Dhumra river was found also to have altered 
 considerably since 1882. 
 
 In March 1885 an examiaation was made by the " Investigator " 
 of the curious submarine ravine called the Swatch-of-no-ground, 
 south of the Sundarbans. It was found to have an average breadth 
 of nine miles, with a floor of from 600 to 400 fathoms depth, and 
 inclined sides of soft mud of about 1 in 4. The mouths and sands 
 of the whole delta of the Sundarbans converge to throw their ebbing 
 waters towards the Swatch, and one suggestion has been that the 
 eddy caused by these waters meeting has tended for many ages to 
 prevent the mud held in suspension from settling over the central cleft, 
 and thus the banks on either side have grown seaward while the 
 Swatch has retained its original depth. 
 
 The result of the 1884-5 season's work of the Marine Survey of 
 India was 11 charts and plans, including one of the entrance to the 
 Rajpuri river by a boat's party, under Lieutenant E. Helby, R-ISF, 
 The " Investigator " ran also over 4,500 linear miles of soundings. In 
 the department of zoological and botanical work the general expe- 
 rience of Commander Carpenter, R.N., and Lieutenant Ohanner, E..N., 
 who had both served on board H.M.S. " Challenger," proved most 
 valuable. Under the supervision of Mr. G. M. Giles, M.B., F.R.C.S., 
 who acted as surgeon-naturalist, some interesting hauls from 
 deep-sea trawling were made, though the appliances had been 
 long disused, and the microscope was one of very old-fashioned 
 construction. 
 
 On the whole the season of 1884-85 had been one of fair weather, 
 and the outcome of work was larger than during any previous 
 year. 
 
 In March 1885, the " Investigator " left the Sunderbuns and 
 carried a line of soundings to Kyauk-pyu in Arakan, whei'e a survey 
 of that port was commenced and finished in April. Seven deep-sea 
 Soundings were taken diagonally across the Bay of Bengal, on the same 
 line but between the soundings taken by Commander Dawson in 
 Decerhber 1883, and thus a complete section of the bay was obtained, 
 the average distance between the casts being 70 miles. The surface 
 temperature averaged 86°-5 ; that of the abysmal regions of the 
 open ocean is universally low, the mean temperature of the sea 
 bottom being everywhere about 36° in very deep water, this being 
 the temperature of greatest density. 
 
24 
 
 INDUN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 The following- charts and plans were draughted 
 
 
 Scale. 
 
 Charts. 
 
 
 
 
 Approaches to Sandoway 
 
 - 
 
 1 inch to a mile. 
 
 North and West coasts of Cheduba - 
 
 - 
 
 ^ 
 
 » ji 
 
 False Point to Mntlah river 
 
 
 i 
 
 ?> 1) 
 
 Sketch of Orissa coast 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 " !> 
 
 Plans. 
 
 
 
 
 Kamrce harbour, Cheduba 
 
 - 
 
 3 
 
 inches to a mile. 
 
 Cheduba strait - - 
 
 - 
 
 2 
 
 'I )j 
 
 Kyauk-pyu - - - . 
 
 - 
 
 3 
 
 " » 
 
 Palmyras shoals 
 
 - 
 
 3 
 
 " » 
 
 ]Mergui ])arbour 
 
 - 
 
 6 
 
 » i> 
 
 Tavoy river 
 
 - 
 
 2 
 
 5> )> 
 
 Bhaunagar, Kathiawar - 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 " Jl 
 
 „ „ (in three sheets) 
 
 - 
 
 20 
 
 " )) 
 
 Eajpuri or Jaiijira harbour 
 
 - 
 
 4 
 
 >) !) 
 
 All the above, with the exception of the large scale of Bhaunagar 
 (which was for local engineering purposes), were completed and sent 
 to the Hydrographer, and four of the plans were photo-zincographed 
 at Poona and sent to the Chief Commissioner of Burma for local 
 distribution. 
 
 The approaching outbreak of war with King Theebaw necessitated 
 some scheme for piloting a flotilla advancing on Mandalay and 
 Bhamo, for buoying the river and for preserving the buoys, as 
 native pilots beyond the frontier were not to be had. A river survey 
 party under Commander A. Carpenter, R.N., was accordingly formed, 
 with a small reserve party under Commander P. J. Falle, I.M.' 
 wliich was established at Pagan, about half-way between the frontier 
 and Mandalay. The main party, on joining the war flotilla at 
 Minhla, were sent forward to lead the fleet up to Mandalay, throwing 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 25 
 
 the survey launcli ahead ^o sound whenever there was a doubt as to 
 which channel the m.ain stream had adopted for the dry season. 
 The possession of a gun and a bluejacket's crew were a very service- 
 able help to them when sounding ahead of the other vessels. Com- 
 mander Carpenter and }\is party then piloted the flotilla up to 
 Bhamo, having first taken the pilots over the shallowest portions and 
 examined the latest-formed channels. A complete sketch survey 
 was made of the river from Thayetmyo to Bhamo, and was checked 
 by astronomical observations at 20 positions, forming altogether a 
 valuable addition to geography. The survey party returned to 
 Eangoon and rejoined the " Investigator " towards the end of 
 January, having received the thanks of General Sir H. Prendergast 
 for the skilful assistance which they had rendered to the Irawadi 
 war flotilla. 
 
 The next survey taken up was that of the Mergui archipelago, 
 the Admiralty chart of which (by Captains Ross and Lloyd of the 
 Indian Navy) was found to be very correct, the only defect being an 
 insufiicient number of soundings. The islets are all steep, and many 
 are mere pinnacles, which makes it probable that similar dangerous 
 pointed rocks exist below water. The Grreat Western Torres islands, 
 immense heaps of boulders overgrown with foliage, were visited, 
 and their position tested by angles to known peaks and found to be 
 1^ miles out. 
 
 About this time a fresh datum for the low- water level on Indian 
 charts was resolved upon. Previously, the soundings used to 
 indicate the depth at the average lowest tides of all the lunar 
 fortnights during the year, but as this had been proved by the 
 observations of Major Baird to give in some cases more water 
 than actually existed, owing to the considerable difference on the 
 west coast of India between night and day tides, and on the Bast 
 and Burmese coasts between winter and summer ocean level, it 
 was decided that all soundings and tide tables should be reduced to 
 the lowest low water of the year, provided it was not phenomenal, 
 e.g., brought about by an earthquake or cyclone. The only exceptions 
 to this rule was to be made at Karachi, Marmagao, and in the Eiver 
 Hugli, where the harbour authorities sound their own port* and 
 prefer their own reduction datum. This, however, was a matter 
 which would not confuse the mariner, as at such ports pilots are 
 obligatory. 
 
26 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 Lieutenant E. C. H. Helby, R.N., in cliarge of No. 1 Boat survey 
 party, completed the survey of the approaches to Bhaunagar com- 
 menced in the previous season. The soundings extended over 104 
 square miles, charted on the scale of three inches to a nautical mile. 
 No. 2 Boat party, under Lieutenant M. H. Smyth, R.N., was 
 engaged in buoying the China Bakir entrance to the Irawadi 
 river, and in the survey of Mergui, already mentioned. 
 
 On the " Investigator's " return from the "Western Torres islands, 
 in March, she completed the southern approach to Mergui, taking 
 in some 20 miles of the beaten track to the southward. Preparis, 
 Narcondam, and Barren islands were next visited. From the last 
 two islands radiating lines of soundings were carried out to ascertain 
 their slope to the floor of the ocean. It was found that they rose 
 from a depth of 1,140 fathoms, but that the north-east slope of 
 Narcondam was being encroached upon by the outlying banks from 
 the great rivers flowing into the Gulf of Martaban. The temperature 
 obs'3rvations taken seemed to favour the inference that no greater 
 depth than 760 fathoms exists in any of the passages between the 
 Andaman islands or between that group and Acheen. 
 
 In May, Lieutenant A. Channor, R.N., was again appointed as 
 Surveyor in charge (Commander Carpenter being absent on leave 
 in England). The following charts and plans were drawn during the 
 recess : — 
 
 Irawadi river from Thayetmyo to Bhamo, on f-inch scale in 
 
 4 sheets. 
 China Bakir river - 
 Mergui Fells passage - 
 „ Northern approach 
 ,, Kings island to Christmas island 
 Cambay Perim to Bhaunagar 
 ,, Narbada ,, 
 
 ,, Mandwa Bay, Diu - 
 besides sailing directions, tidal, and other data. These were all 
 completed and forwarded to the Admiralty Hydrographer, copies 
 having been photo -zincographed by the Poona Office. 
 
 The first place examined by the " Investigator" was Hinze basin 
 on the Burmese coast; the Moscos islands were then re-plotted, 
 and the beaten track in the Mergui archipelago from Christmas 
 
 on 2-inch hcale 
 
 „ 2 
 
 
 
 „ 1 
 
 
 
 „ 1 
 
 
 
 » 3 
 
 
 
 „ 2 
 
 
 
 „ 6 
 
 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 27 
 
 island, "where the survey of the previous season had ended, 
 down to Forrest strait near Pakchan. The track is useful to 
 local trade and gives prqiection to vessels trading to Singapore, 
 but until thoroughly surveyed on a large scale, which the trade 
 does not at present seem to require, it is not recommended for 
 large and deep draught vessels. In fact, large ships able to steam 
 against the ordinary monsoon would not use it. 
 
 On Christmas day a visit was paid to the Elephant islands, close 
 to the south-east side of Domel island. The former are composed 
 of a marble of medium quality, and are very remarkable, both for 
 their abrupt shapes and the beautiful grottoes they contain. The 
 grottoes are mostly accessible at low water through tunnels below 
 high- water mark opening into lofty caves. At the south end of 
 the largest islet, which is 1,000 feet, a low- water tunnel admits 
 a boat into a lagoon, entirely closed by high precipitous cliffs and 
 open only to the sky. Into this lagoon, which seems to be 
 purposely created for smugglers, several cave grottoes open from 
 under the cliffs. An interesting description of these islands will be 
 found in the Hecords of the Geological Survey. 
 
 "With the object of examining the banks extending off the 
 Sundarbans between Chittagong and the " Swatch," a survey was 
 made of the Meghna flats. No less than 1,750 square miles were 
 sounded, the result being to show more water in nearly every 
 direction than on the published charts, and no extension of the 
 prominent shoals. No. 1 Boat party completed their survey of 
 the channel between the Narbada river and Perim island in the 
 Grulf of Cambay (Narbada river to Perim island), the triangulation 
 being carried across the gulf from the Kathiawar side to Broach 
 point by means of mirrors which were extemporised as heliostats. 
 Mandwa bay, Diu head, was also surveyed, the area sounded being 
 10 square miles, while in the case of the Grulf of Cambay it was 
 65 square miles. Between October and February the " Investigator " 
 was at work in surveying the entrance to the Beypur river, and 
 here, and at Calicut, and off Cotta point, an aggregate area of 
 139 square miles were sounded and plotted on various scales. Boat 
 party No. 2, surveyed the approaches to the Ye river on the 
 Tenasserim coast on the scale of four inches to the mile, but the 
 work was much impeded and interrupted by the ill-health of the 
 party, until on the 18th November no fewer than 23 were on the 
 
28 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 sick list, and work was suspended. Places situated on tidal estuaries 
 where fresh, and salt water come into contact are notoriously 
 malarious, and though not of a severe type the disease in this case 
 was extremely persistent. 
 
 The natural history results were meagre during the year 1886-87, 
 Surgeon G. M. Giles having been deputed to serve with the Chitral 
 and Kafiristan Mission during the greater part of the year. 
 
 Towards the close of March 1887 the " Investigator " completed 
 the survey of the shallows off the mouths of the Meghna river. 
 The soundings on the " South Patches " proved to be even shallower 
 than hitherto supposed. This shoal has caused a great many wrecks 
 from endeavours to avoid it, for sailing vessels arriving off 
 Chittagong with their chronometers often in error after long ocean 
 passages, give it too wide a berth and get wrecked on the Meghna 
 shoals. With the present corrected chart, vessels making for 
 Chittagong should be able to avoid these Patches, while the rectifi- 
 cation of the peaks and outlying islets of the Andaman and Nicobar 
 groups will tend to decrease the wrecks on the flats of the 
 Sundarbans by enabling vessels standing up the Bay of Bengal to 
 fix their true positions. 
 
 From the " South Patches " a line of soundings was first run 
 south to the latitude of Akyab, and then a line of deep-sea 
 soundings was carried at intervals of 70 miles to Madras, the depths 
 gradually increasing towards the latter place, 1,820 fathoms being 
 obtained 40 miles off Pulicat, near Madras. This line was the first 
 record of the depth of the northern portion of the Bay of Bengal. 
 
 Commander Carpenter's paper on the mean temperature of the 
 Bay of Bengal, with its chart, has been published in the Journal 
 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1887, Vol. LVL, Part II. 
 The temperature records afford an extremely useful check on the 
 observations of depth in cases where the sounding wire indicator 
 gets out of order. 
 
 Off Madras a closely -sounded survey was made, on the scale of 
 two inches to the mile, of the Tripalur reef and Rockingham patch, 
 where three steamers had grounded, one being lost and another 
 very badly damaged. This survey was connected with the land 
 survey stations. A few soundings were also taken north of Pedro 
 Point in Ceylon, where a gap existed in the soundings showing the 
 eastern entrance to Palk straits. 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS, 
 
 29 
 
 During the recess the following charts and plans were turned 
 
 oiit by the officers of 
 parties :- 
 
 the " Investiofator " and her two boat 
 
 Charts. 
 
 White Point to Mergui 
 
 Megna flats 
 
 Beypur to Sacrifice rock 
 
 J inch to 1 mile. 
 
 1^ inches 
 
 ^ inch 
 
 r „ 
 
 .2 inches 
 3 
 8 
 2 
 12 
 3 
 
 Plans. 
 Mergui archipelago - 
 Forests strait 
 Tripalur reef, <s;c. 
 Beypur and Calicut roads 
 Ye river 
 
 Approaches to ditto - 
 Beypur river bar 
 Cotta point and reef - 
 
 All except four of the above have been photo-zincographed for 
 local use, and all except that of the Meghna flats, which was purely 
 astronomical, were based on data of the Great Trigonometrical 
 Survey. Sailing directions, tidal and other data were also 
 compiled. 
 
 For' the next season the sanctioned programme comprised a 
 survey of the western coast of the Andaman islands, and of the 
 Granjam coast between Santapilly and Hurrichpoor in latitude 20° N., 
 but later on the Madras Government requested that that of the 
 Ganjam coast might be postponed another year. 
 
 A line of deep-sea soundings was carried from Porbandar to the 
 Laccadive islands, one result of which was to indicate that the 
 Laccadive submarine peaks spring from an ocean floor about 
 1,100 fathoms, or one and a quarter land miles deep, and are 
 themselves about the same height as the Western Ghats in those 
 latitudes. 
 
 A curious discovery was made at Chitlac island, tending to prove 
 the existence of a southerly current on the west coast of India. 
 A large wooden tank had floated ashore over the reef in September 
 1885 with a human skull inside, and from enquiry this appeared to be 
 part of the wreckage of the British Indian wooden barque " Jabree," 
 of 695 tons, with a crew of 60 men and 40 passengers, an account 
 of the loss of which is given in the Wreck Register for 1885. 
 
30 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 She had reached Ras-el-Hadd on the east coast of Arabia, when 
 she was caught in a gale and foundered in a few hours ; seven of 
 the crew managed to climb into an empty wooden water-tank 
 which had been washed off the deck, and thero the seven men 
 lived for ten days without either food or water. After the lapse 
 of those ten days the survivors died one by one, the bodies being 
 flung overboard, and the tank drifting on steadily towards the coast 
 of Cutch at the rate of 28 miles a day. The sixth man died whilst 
 within sight of land, and the last solitary survivor managed to 
 crawl ashore at Jakao, in Cutch. He found a pot of millet, but 
 his throat was so parched that he was unable to swallow it till it 
 was moistened with sea water ; thus refreshed he was able to make 
 his way along the shore till he reached a native hut, where he was 
 kindly treated, though laid up for a long time with fever. 
 
 Commander Carpenter considers that there is very little doubt 
 that this same tank, after touching the coast at Jakao on the north 
 side of the entrance to the Gulf of Cutch, was driven seaward by 
 the outset of the gulf consequent on the heavy monsoon rains, 
 and drifting southwards along the west coast of India in the 
 southerly current that relieves the pressure of water on the Sind 
 coast during the S.W. monsoon, was carried out to the Laccadives 
 after the monsoon was over. 
 
 The " Investigator " proceeded in November to the Andaman 
 islands, which, with the exception of the little Andamans, had been 
 all recently triangulated by Captain Hobday of the Trigonometrical 
 Survey. A coast survey based on the land tri angulation, and 
 on the scale of one inch to the mile, was set in hand, and 724 
 square miles in all sounded. Of the harbour of Port Blair a rough 
 chart by Lieutenant Dickson and Mr. Marshall, I.N., had been 
 made in 1861. and as a more perfect survey was now considered 
 necessary, a detached party under Lieutenant B. Whitehouse, R.N., 
 took this in hand, and completed ] 6 square miles of soundings on 
 the 5-inch scale, including 238 square miles about the Western 
 Coral banks, which were gone over most minutely to ascertain 
 whether there was any really dangerous shoal water on them. The 
 least water found was six fathoms. On two occasions instead of 
 anchoring on the banks for the night the ship was allowed to drift, 
 and some very rare marine specimens were obtained by trawling, 
 and sent to the Calcutta Museum. 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 31 
 
 The Andamanese were found to be no longer treacherous nor 
 hostile to Europeans landing on their islands. A great number of 
 them now talk Hindostani, which they learn with great quickness. 
 A tide-watching party placed in tents at the west end of Andaman 
 strait was met by some 30 natives, who left their hut a mile and 
 a half distant and encamped close to the Englishmen, It was at 
 first supposed that they had come for protection agaiixst other 
 tribes, but it transpired that they had really come to protect onr 
 people, a welcome change of feeling which is attributable to the 
 excellent administration of Colonel Cadell and his predecessors. 
 
 During 1887, Lieutenant Belby, R.N., who had been in 
 charge of No. 1 Boat party, brought the survey of Beypur and 
 Calicut to a close in time to recess at Poona in May. Thirty miles 
 of the Malabar coast were well surveyed and the Calicut reefs 
 clearly depicted. Lieutenant Helby then handed charge of the 
 boat party to Lieutenant M. H. Smyth, R.N., who, during 1887-88, 
 made large scale surveys of the small ports of Porbandar and 
 Navibandar in Kathiawar, and also surveyed Cannanur on the 
 Malabar coast, all in excellent style. 
 
 In 1887 Staff Commander T. C. Pascoe, R.N., left the Indian 
 M'arine Survey and reverted to Admiralty employment after having 
 been 11 years in the Department, during which he had done much 
 valuable work. 
 
 A detailed report on the results of the deep-sea dredging casts, 
 by Surgeon-Katuralist Gr. M. Giles, is annexed to the IVIarine Survey 
 Report for 1887-8, as well as a tabular analytical catalogue of the 
 collection by Mr. J. Wood-Mason, Superintendent of the Indian 
 Museum at Calcutta. Another appendix is the interesting little 
 paper referred to above by Commander Carpenter, R.IST., on the 
 mean temperature of the deep water of the Bay of Bengal, with its 
 accompanying chart, the general effect of which is to show how 
 rapid the fall in temperature is at the varying depths from the 
 surface down to 150 fathoms, while after 1,200 fathoms the change 
 in temperature becomes very slow. 
 
 In 1889 Surgeon A. Alcock (who had succeeded to the post of 
 naturalist), I.M.S., was permitted to reside at Calcutta during the 
 recess, for the purpose of arranging the collections made and 
 deposited in the Indian Museum at Calcutta. Thanks to this per- 
 mission, Surgeon Alcock has been able to make a very large addition 
 
32 
 
 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 to our knowledge of Indian Marine Zoology, more especially in 
 regard to fishes, of wHicli lie has described 44 entirely new to science, 
 and 62 new to the Indian fauna. 
 
 In the spring of 1888 the " Investigator," having completed the 
 examination of the outlying dangers on the west coast of the 
 Andaman group, took a north and south line of deep soundings 
 about 100 miles west of the Andamans and Nicobars from latitude 
 12° 40' to latitude 5° 45' N. In the latter position a submarine 
 elevation was found representing a submerged peak rising 2,000 feet 
 high from the floor of the ocean, about half way between the Straits 
 of Malacca and Ceylon. 
 
 During the recess the following fair charts (with the exception 
 of the 20-inch Porbandar harbour plan) were drafted and forwarded 
 to the Admiralty Ilydrographer : — 
 
 Name of Chart or Plan. 
 
 Scale. 
 
 *Port Blair to Sisters islands 
 
 1 iucli to 1 mile. 
 
 Xorth Sentinel islanil 
 
 ?j )j 
 
 
 *Port Blair 
 
 5 inches 
 
 
 Macpherson's strait 
 
 2 „ 
 
 
 West Coral bank 
 
 1 inch 
 
 
 Middle and South Coral banks 
 
 1 „ 
 
 
 Porbandar harbour 
 
 20 inches 
 
 
 *Porbandar and Navibandar 
 
 4 „ 
 
 
 *Cannanur to Mahe 
 
 H „ 
 
 
 *Plans of Cannanore and Tellicheri 
 
 3 „ 
 
 
 * Photo-ziucographed for local use. 
 
 The " Investigator " left Bombay harbour on the 20th October, 
 and after having coaled at Colombo carried some deep soundings 
 to the Andamans. Confirmatoiy evidence was obtained of the 
 existence of the ridge or plateau of 1,700 fathoms found in April 
 1888 about 170 miles west of the Andamans. Between this ridge 
 and the islands there is a suomarine valley of 1,900 to 2,000 
 fathoms, which appears to stretch up from Acheen ; on the west 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 33 
 
 side of the valley th.e water appeared to be slightly colder than the 
 liormal temperature of those depths. 
 
 Arriving at fort Blair,4»]S[o. 1 Boat party was landed for the 
 purpose of making a survey of Diligent straits on the one-inch 
 scale, while the " Investigator " visited South Sentinel island and 
 the bank off the S.W. point of Little Andaman, both of which were 
 sounded. 
 
 Before proceeding to the Orissa coast, deep soundings were taken 
 across the bay. The Bay of Bengal proved to have a regular 
 decline towards its mouth, the Andaman and Nicobar ridge forming 
 its eastern boundary (the sea east of the Andamans being a separate 
 basin) ; there is slightly deeper water nearer the coasts than m the 
 centre, and the depth falls very suddenly from the 100-fathom line 
 off the Sunderbunds to the 900-fathom line. If we take the slope 
 of the bed of the bay between the 1,100 and 1,400 fathoms contours 
 as being the true gradient of its fall, unaffected to any great extent 
 by the detritus from the rivers, and carry this gradient, which is 
 only 1 in 396, northward, we find that it brings the bed of the bay 
 up on a level with its surface only when it reaches the foot of the 
 Himalayas. 
 
 The survey of the Orissa coast was begun at the mouth of the 
 Devi river, and first carried to the northward for 24 miles. This 
 survey was on the one-inch scale, and was afterwards carried by 
 the "Investigator" along the coast for a total distance of 199 miles, 
 operations being greatly helped and expedited by the marks erected 
 by the land surveyors. The mouth of the Devi river, the anchorage 
 at Puri, and Gopalpur anchorage were also charted on the four-inch 
 
 scale. 
 
 During 1889-90, the operations were carried along the Granjam 
 coast to the south of Gropalpur. A survey of the Coco Islands was 
 also commenced during the same season, as well as an examination 
 of the Bassein River and its approaches, by the boat party under 
 Lieutenant G. S. Gunn, R.N. 
 
 The Report for 1888-89 was the last submitted by Commander 
 Carpenter, R.N., and in it he took the opportunity to draw up a 
 brief review of past work, as well as a forecast of future operations. 
 More than seven years had elapsed since the " Investigator " 
 had made her first surveying trip, and in that time she had run 
 some 44,000 miles, of which just half were actual lines of close 
 soundings taken on various surveys. The " Investigator's " boats 
 
 I y 20321. 
 
34 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 had, in addition to the parent vessel's mileage, run some 11,500 
 miles of similar soundings. This total mileage, however, was far 
 from completing the shores of India. As a matter of fact, at that 
 time only 1,715 miles or one-third had been charted sufficiently for 
 safe navigation out of a total length of 5,100 miles, consequently 
 much remained and even now remains to be done before the coasts 
 of India can be said to be adequately surveyed. 
 
 The localities specially needing attention have been specified in 
 a very valuable memorandum by Commander Carpenter, which is 
 attached to the Marine Survey Report for 1888-89, and a brief 
 notice of these requirements is here desirable, and will form a fitting 
 conclusion to the present chapter. 
 
 The mouths of the Indus have not been examined since 1877, 
 when they were surveyed by Lieutenant A. W. Stiffe, and are 
 continually reported to be shoaling seaward. A re-survey will 
 have to be done astronomically with a mark boat as a guide to the 
 line of soundings. The original survey was made as far back as 
 1848-49, and the examination in 1877 was only over the most 
 projecting portion, which, however, is that which most specially 
 requires attention from time to time. 
 
 The Gulf of Cutch shows signs of increasing trade, and before 
 long the ports of Mundra, Tuna, Rojhi, and Salaya creek will require 
 charting on scales sufficiently large for harbour improvements. 
 The gulf was well surveyed for open navigation in 1852 by 
 Lieutenant (now Commander) A. D. Taylor,* but the plotting on 
 the chart requires fitting in with the land triangulation. 
 
 The coast of Kathiawar from Dwarka point to Grogha in the 
 Gulf of Cambay is fairly well shown, and an improved chart to 
 Diu head is to be compiled, but Jafrabad, between Diu and 
 Goapnath, requires charting on a large scale, and the whole coast 
 needs sounding ofi". It was surveyed by Lieutenant Ethersey, I.N., 
 in 1837, in a pattimar. The operations now called for would occupy 
 two years. 
 
 The Gulf of Cambay is practically unsurveyed, with the exception 
 of a portion from Bhaunagar creek down to Perim island and 
 across to Broach, which represents about one-seventh of the whole 
 area. The head of the gulf is shallowing up and becoming less 
 navigable every year, and this is resulting in the banks at its 
 
 * See page 15. 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 35 
 
 mouth extending further seaward, and becoming more dangerous 
 to shipping. It was also surveyed by Lieutenant Bthersey prior 
 to 1845, and though a v«ry creditable piece of work, considering 
 the means at his disposal and the fierce tidal currents, the chart is 
 now quite unreliable. The work would take three years. 
 
 The Bombay coast, from latitude 20° N. as far as Bombay, has 
 been very slightly delineated, and the whole stretch is rocky and 
 dangerous, but there is no immediate call for a survey, though 
 the projecting reef near Danu, specified in the old Indian Navy 
 Ofiicers' Memorandum of 1862, requires examination, and as 
 local trade increases there will be a demand for reliable charts 
 of the small ports of call along it, while a harbour of refuge 
 is especially needed somewhere midway between Danu and 
 Bombay. A boat party could be employed here with advantage 
 for four years, or it would take the " Investigator " herself about 
 two years. 
 
 At the northern end of the Kanara coast there are about 60 miles 
 of very rocky coast, which though well surveyed by Lieutenant 
 A. D. Taylor in 1856, are not charted so as to meet present require- 
 ments. There is not sufficient protection here for a boat party, and 
 the scale, to be adequate, should be two inches, which would occupy 
 the " Investigator " two seasons. A detailed survey will soon be 
 required from the Bnciam rocks to Cape Comorin,a rocky strip of 
 the Travancore coast some 25 miles in length. On the Tinnevelli 
 coast the Manapand shoals require proper delineation, and with the 
 above-mentioned bit of Travancore coast would not take more than 
 a single season. 
 
 The Laccadive Archipelago was well plotted in 1844-48 by 
 Captain Selby and Lieutenant A. D. Taylor, but the islands have 
 never been properly placed in longitude. Several of the group are 
 three to four miles out of position and should be rectified by chrono- 
 metric distances. This would take two months. 
 
 On the eastern coast of India the large bay north of the Paumben 
 Pass called Palk Straits is far from complete, the soundings being 
 thick only in shore, while the banks which extend from Point 
 Calimere to the north point of Ceylon are of sand and liable to 
 change. In the event of the deepening of the Paumben Pass, an 
 accurate survey of the banks will be required with the object of 
 finding the best position for light-ships, buoys, &c. The small 
 ports of Karikal, Cuddalore, Porto Novo, and Pondicherry require to 
 
 C 2 
 
36 INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 
 
 be charted on a large scale, wMcli with other miscellaneous work 
 would take a season. 
 
 From Madras to False Point tlie east coast of India was, until 
 1888-89, quite unsurveyed, and as beacons kave been erected by 
 the land surveyors this important piece of work could be finished by 
 1894. With the view of rounding off this survey, the portion 
 between the Mahanadi river and the Palmyras shoals should be 
 examined and the soundings carried out in a south-easterly direction 
 to 40 fathoms. This would then join on to the survey of the Pilot's 
 Ridge, and approaches to the Hugli, executed by the Department 
 in 1885. 
 
 The Burma coast from 20 miles north of Elephant Point down 
 to the Terrible Rocks has only been sketched, and many complaints 
 are received from steamers trading up and down it. The coast is 
 essentially rocky, and there are mud volcanoes at its south end 
 which are liable to form new shoals. This coast would take three 
 years to complete. 
 
 Passing over the extensive Cheduba Strait survey, we again come 
 upon a large piece of coast 150 miles in length from Sandoway to 
 Cape Xegrais, which has never received more than a running survey, 
 and that as far back as 1826-30. This part, until properly charted, 
 is quite unapproachable for steamers owing to the numerous rocks 
 and shoals that exist. But as it lies in a bight and out of the track 
 or passing vessels, the requirement is not pressing. 
 
 The Bassein river has not been examined since 1853, and has 
 undergODe great changes, but the upper reaches which connect it 
 with the Irawadi shift so frequently that a marine survey would 
 be thrown away, and vessels must depend only on their pilots. 
 The entrance should, however, be sounded, and this could be done 
 by a boat party in one season. The Great Baragua mud flat, 
 extending across the deltaic mouth of the Irawadi, has never been 
 thoroughly delineated and was only sketched in during the early 
 years of this century. In 1855 Captain Ward, I.N., made a survey 
 of it and of the outer banks of the Sittang river, but unfortunately 
 the drawings were lost. The Sittang river mouth, too, is a blank 
 on the present charts, nothing whatever being known of its present 
 channels. One season should consequently be set apart for a general 
 sounding of the Gulf of Martaban and Sittang banks. 
 
 The coa.st of South Burmah from Amherst to Pakchan, a length 
 of about 400 miles, with the exception of Ye River, Tavoy River, 
 
INDIAN MARINE SURVEYS. 37 
 
 and Mergui, has only been delineated by running surveys as far 
 back as the years 1820-30. The principal trade route or beaten 
 track of trading steamers h^s however been sounded out sufficiently 
 for present purposes. As trade develops and new products are 
 discovered fresh surveys will be required. Besides the coast proper 
 there is an extensive archipelago, on the islands of which discoveries 
 have lately been made of silver, lead, tin, and marble, which afford 
 exceptional facilities for shipment. The coast proper will take at 
 least six years to survey, and the archipelago another three years. 
 Pakchan, the i^.ndaman islands (at present only one-fourth surveyed), 
 the Coco group, and the Nicobars also require attention. 
 
 Summing up these requirements it will be seen, with the present 
 establishment, about 40 years must elapse before the coasts of India 
 and Burma can be sui'veyed sufficiently for safe navigation, and by 
 that time British India may have extended its sea-board, and other 
 coasts may demand attention. Moreover, in 40 years time ocean 
 traffic will probably have very much enlarged, and rapidity of 
 transit increased, greater facilities will be required to bring produce 
 from small ports to larger ones, for shipment on ocean steamers and 
 there will be a gradual development of new ports and localities. 
 
 Whether it will be found expedient as well as possible to cope 
 more expeditiously with this large field of future operations, by 
 commissioning another surveying steamer, is a point that remains 
 to be seen. The matter has been commended by the Secretary of 
 State to the careful consideration of the Grovernment of India. In 
 any case there is clearly a very extended field of employment for 
 the Indian Coast Survey Department for many years to come. 
 
III. 
 
 GEE AT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVBT OF INDIA. 
 
 For more ttan a century and a half it has been generally 
 recognised that a trigonometrical survey forms the most correct 
 basis for mapping a country. The selection of sites for the careful 
 measurement of base lines, from which one or more series of triangles 
 are projected over the expanse of country to be mapped, and the 
 closing of the operations on to a second base line, the final measure- 
 ment of which forms a check on the accuracy of the operations — this 
 process spreads in every direction a network of precisely defined points 
 within which it becomes possible for the topographers to insert the 
 details. It was General Roy who commenced the work in England 
 towards the close of last century by the measurement of a base on 
 Hounslow Heath in 1774, and in 1802 Colonel Mudge was engaged 
 in the measurement of his arc of the meridian from Dunnose to 
 Clifton. The same year saw the commencement of the actual work 
 of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in the measurement 
 of Major Lambton's base line near Madras. A graphic account of 
 Lambton's work and a history of the subsequent triangulation under 
 Everest, Waugh, and "Walker are contained in four chapters of the 
 "Memoir on the Indian Surveys." 
 
 In 1 876, at the time that our review of these operations beo-ins, 
 the Trigonometrical Branch was under the control of Colonel 
 J. T. Walker, C.B., R.E., F.R.S., Superintendent, Major-General 
 H. L. Thuillier, C.S.I., F.R.S., being Surveyor- General of India 
 and Superintendent of the Topographical Survey. 
 
 Extensive chains of triangulatory measurements had by that time 
 been spread over the Indian Peninsula from the Himalayas to 
 Ceylon, and the principal triangulation was now fast approaching 
 completion. 
 
 The first rough topographical survey of all India was also 
 nearly accomplished, and this naturally suggested a reduction of 
 the establishments of the Survey. In September 1875 the first 
 step was taken by the Government of India in decidine' that the 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA, 39 
 
 Survey budget should be reduced from 24O,O00L to 200,000^. Two 
 topographical parties were abolished, one full party was transferred 
 to Mysore, its cost being defrayed from the revenues of that Btate, 
 and similar reductions were made in the Trigonometrical and 
 Revenue Survey branches. These reductions, however, did not 
 entirely commend themselves to the Secretary of State. Further 
 information was called for, Lord Salisbury expressing at the same 
 time his hesitation in sanctioning to the full the proposed reductions 
 except on general financial grounds or in consequence of some 
 recent undue growth of survey expenditure.* The Government of 
 India replied to this in August 1876, setting forth full details of 
 the expenditure during the previous 10 years. Even this informa- 
 tion, however, was not conclusive. The data, in the words of the 
 Secretary of State, gave — 
 
 no indication of any enlargement of these ostablislimeuts, wliich may not. be regarded 
 as a reasonable result of the increased desire for improved information, siicb as that 
 which it is the function of the Survey Department to furnish to other branches of the 
 administration. 
 
 His Lordship went on in his replyf to lay stress on the general 
 usefulness of the work of the Department : — 
 
 I continue to attach much importance to the steady progress of the construction and 
 publication of good maps of all parts of the British provinces in India, feeling sensible 
 that without them serious obstacles are necessarily interposed in the way of the acquisi- 
 tion of that complete statistical knowledge of the country, the absence of which has so 
 long been a discredit to our administration, and the application of which is so requisite 
 for the purpose of progressive government. 
 
 I should therefore be glad if, when the time comes for considering the details of the 
 budget for the ensuing year, your Lordship should find yourself in a position to avoid 
 further reductions in the grant to tlie Survey Department. 
 
 These were statesmanlike words and undoubtedly would have 
 borne fruit in at least arresting further reductions. But in the 
 meantime a grave misfortune had arisen. A famine was over- 
 spreading huge tracts of country, aggregating some 200,000 square 
 miles, in Madras and Bombay, and 36 millions of people were in 
 the most serious plight. It was, in fact, the most grievous calamity 
 of its kind experienced in British India since the beginning of the 
 century.| This terrible state of things and the heavy expenditure 
 caused thereby, which, of course, were not foreseen at the time the 
 Secretary of State's despatch was written in January 1877, made it 
 
 * G-eographical Despatch to India, No. 3, dated 24th February 1876. 
 
 t No. 1, ilated 4th January 1877. 
 
 J Eeport of the Indian Famine CoramissioD, paragraph 60. 
 
40 GREAT TBIGOXOMETKICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 impossible to rescind or even to modify to any great extent the 
 scope of tlie orders of 1875. 
 
 It was about this time that Greneral H. L. Thuillier, the Surveyor- 
 General, was retiring from the service in which he had done such 
 excellent work for five and forty years, and the Government took 
 the opportunity to call upon his successor, Colonel J. T. Walker, to 
 frame a scheme of re-organization of the Department. This 
 re-organization involved an amalgamation of the three branches of 
 the Survey, viz., the Great Trigonometrical, the Topographical, and 
 the Revenue. Up to that time they had been virtually separate depart- 
 ments, each with its own cadre of officers and establishments of 
 European and Native surveyors and its own superintendent. 
 Originally, when the three departments were first formed, at different 
 times, the duties which each had to perform were essentially distinct. 
 The Trigonometrical Survey was required to furnish the basis 
 on which all surveys of interior details were to rest, and the 
 framework within which they were to be filled and connected 
 together. The Topographical and the Revenue Surveys were to 
 furnish the interior details, the former having to survey by means of 
 plane-tabling the whole country, including Native States and British 
 territory with the exception of the richer British revenue-paying 
 districts, which were to be surveyed by the latter on a larger scale. 
 In course of time, however, the duties of the three departments 
 began to overlap and intermingle. The Trigonometrical Survey 
 was approaching its completion, and for many years a large propor- 
 tion of its surveyors had been employed on topographical work. 
 The Topographical Survey, though originally intended for the 
 primary general survey of India, had had to undertake in many 
 cases detailed surveys on large scales, and the Revenue Survey had 
 in addition to its own special functions been largely employed on 
 the topography of hill districts on a trigonometrical basis. The duties 
 of the three departments had thus become much intermixed, while 
 at the same time the transfer of an ofiicer from one department to 
 another was a matter of such difficulty, that, from every point of 
 view, amalgamation was most desirable. This amalgamation was 
 not carried out without a good deal of difficulty and damage 
 to individual prospects, coincident as it was with extensive 
 reductions. The amalgamated cadres of officers and surveyors were 
 at last constituted as follows : — 
 
 1 Surveyor-General and Superintendent of the Trigonometrical 
 and Topographical Branches. 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 41 
 
 1 Deputy Surveyor-General and Superintendent of the Revenue 
 
 Branch. 
 4 Deputy Superintendents, 1st grade. 
 
 10 „ „ 2nd 
 12 „ „ 3rd 
 
 11 Assistant „ 1st 
 
 11 „ „ 2nd 
 
 12 „ „ 3rd 
 9 Surveyors, 1st grade. 
 
 12, „ 2nd „ 
 
 16 „ 3rd „ 
 
 22 „ 4tli „ 
 
 23 Assistant Surveyors, 1st grade. 
 25 „ „ 2nd „ 
 27 „ „ 3rd „ 
 29 „ „ 4th „ 
 
 The designation of " The Survey of India " was given to the 
 amalgamated Department, "which was henceforth to be one body, 
 its officers being held to be available for any description of survey 
 work that might be required of them, and the whole being placed 
 under the orders of Colonel J. T. Walker. 
 
 A brief notice of the previous services of this distinguished 
 officer seems here called for. 
 
 Major (now General) J. T. Walker, U.S., C.B., F;R.S., LL.D., 
 &c., succeeded to the Superintendence of the Great Trigonometrical 
 Survey on the 13th March 1861, on the retirement of Major- 
 General Sir Andrew Waugh ; he became Surveyor- General and 
 Superintendent of Topographical Surveys on the retirement of 
 Colonel Thuillier on the 1st January 1878 ; and he held the three 
 united posts until the 12th February 1883, when he quitted India 
 preparatory to retirement. He had entered the corps of Bombay 
 Engineers in 1844, served throughout the Punjab campaign of 
 1848-49, and had been employed for the next five years in making a 
 rapid military sui"vey of the Northern Trans-Indus frontier, which he 
 carried single-handed over an area of about 10,000 square miles, 
 from Peshawar down to Dera Ismail Khan ; he served in several 
 encounters with the hill tribes on the Trans-Indus frontier, and 
 during the mutiny of 1857 was severely wounded at the siege of 
 Delhi ; for his military services he received three medals and three 
 clasps, a brevet majority, and the Companionship of the Bath. 
 
42 GREAT TRIGOXUMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 He was appointed an assistant in tlie Great Trigonometrical 
 Survey on the 1st December 1853, took a share in the measurement 
 of the Chach base line in the valley of the Indus near Attock, 
 and for some years was conducting the principal triangulation 
 along the Indus and on the meridian of 73|^°, and in carrying a 
 line of levels to connect the stations of the triangulation with the 
 sea. 
 
 In 1S61, when Colonel Walker became superintendent of the Great 
 Trigonometrical Survey, the greater portion of the principal triangu- 
 lation had already been completed, and the time had arrived for 
 determining the procedure by which the fallible values of the several 
 angles and base-lines, as obtained by actual measurement on the 
 ground, were to bo rendered consistent, and final values were to be 
 determined for the lengths and azimuths of the sides of the triangles 
 and also for the latitudes and longitudes of the stations, which is 
 the ultimate object of all first-class triangulation. Already pro- 
 visional corrections had been applied to the angles of certain chains 
 of triangles directly connecting base-lines for the linear error 
 generated between the base lines, whereby the length of one base, 
 as computed through the triangles from the other, was brought into 
 accordance with the measured length. But this was only a small 
 part of the requisite reductions for general consistency. The 
 triangulation being formed of a large number of meridional chains 
 tied together by a few longitudinal chains — forming sections some- 
 what resembling a gridiron in shape — presented a large number of 
 circuits ; and at the closing side of each circuit two values were 
 forthcoming not only of the length of the side but also of its 
 azimuth, and two values were also forthcoming of the latitudes and 
 longitudes of the stations at its extremities. Thus three geodetic 
 errors — as they have been called — had to be recognised and disposed 
 of by a process of dispersion throughout the angles, as well as the 
 linear error ; and the question arose, and a most embarrassing 
 question it was, as to how the requisite angular corrections to 
 produce consistency throughout could be legitimately computed. 
 
 The procedure adopted was to form equations of condition 
 expressing the errors of the angles in each circuit as unknown 
 quantities in terms of the closing error of the circuit, for the three 
 geodetic as well as the linear errors. In forming the geodetic 
 equations — now done for the first time in any survey — it was found 
 that the co-efficients of the unknown quantities in them were greatly 
 
GREAT TBIQONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 43 
 
 more difficult to determine than the co-efficients in the linear 
 equations, for they consist of summations of series of terms from 
 the commencement of the circuit up to the position of the angle 
 whose error is the unknown quantity, whereas in the linear equations 
 the co-efficients are merely the co-tangents of the angles. The 
 solution of the equations was effected by Gauss's method of minimum 
 squares, in which every unknown quantity is given the weight due 
 to the facts of observation of which it represents the error. The 
 number of triangles in each circuit was so great that every equation 
 usually contained at least a hundred unknown quantities and often 
 iTiany more, and thus the simultaneous solution of any considerable 
 number of circuits would be a matter of enormous labour, requiring 
 every precaution to ensure accuracy in the execution of so large a 
 mass of interdependent calculations. It was found practically 
 impossible to undertake the simultaneous solution of the whole of 
 the principal triangulation of India ; the triangulation was there- 
 fore apportioned into five sections, of which the dividing lines were 
 the two longitudinal chains of triangles, one connecting Karachi 
 with Calcutta, and the other connecting Vizagapatam with Bombay, 
 and also the portion of the central meridional chain of triangles 
 called the Great Arc, which lies between the parallels of 18° and 30° 
 Of the sections thus obtained, the four northern ones were of a 
 quadrilateral form, and were called the North-East, North-West, 
 South-Bast, and South- West Quadrilaterals, the directions having 
 reference to certain points common, to all the four sections at their 
 convergence in Central India, namely," the Sironj base-line, which 
 was the adopted origin of the linear element of the survey, and the 
 Ivalianpur Observatory, the adopted origin of the geodetic elements 
 of azimuth, latitude and longitude. The fifth section embraced the 
 whole of the Peninsula to the south of a line from Bombay to 
 Vizagapatam, and, being triangular in form, is called the Southern 
 Trigon. Each figure presents an enormous amount of simultaneous 
 interdependent calculation, greater than had ever been executed in 
 any survey, or probably in any investigation whatever. 
 
 Of these sections of the triangulation the North- West, North- 
 East, and South-Bast Quadrilaterals were reduced, and the final 
 results printed and published at the head quarters of the Survey in 
 Dehra Dun, by Mr. Hennessey and other officers directing the 
 computing staff, under the immediate superintendence of General 
 Walker. The results are contained in Volumes II. to IV- and VI. 
 
44 GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 to VIIT. of the Account of the Operations of the Great Trigono- 
 metrical Survey. Of these volumes, nine in all — of which No. I. is 
 on the Base-lines, Xo. Y. on the Pendulum Operations, and No. IX. 
 on the Longitude Operations — were published under Colonel Walker. 
 The principal triangulation of the Indian Survey was designed, 
 from its commencement, to furnish data for employment in the 
 determination of the figure of the Earth. The central chain, executed 
 by Colonels Lambton and Everest, which extends from Cape Comorin 
 to the Himalayas, has several stations at which astronomical observa- 
 tions of the latitude were taken to convert it into a geodetic arc, 
 and it is a most valuable arc, and has been employed in all the latest 
 and best investigations of the Earth's figure. But east and west of 
 this central chain there were several other meridional chains when 
 the triangulation was completed, some of them of an accuracy at 
 least equal to and perhaps greater than that of the Great Arc, and 
 these only required to have the latitudes of certain of their stations 
 determined astronomically to become valuable meridional arcs for 
 geodetic purposes. Moreover, a further contribution to geodesy 
 became practicable as soon as a sufficient number of telegraph lines 
 had been run over the country, by connecting certain of the 
 trigonometrical stations with those lines, and then determining the 
 difi'erences in longitude between the stations telegraphically. 
 Colonel "Walker obtained a supply of new instruments for these 
 observations, and a large number of astronomical latitudes and 
 difi'erential longitudes were observed under his directions, and 
 employed by Colonel Clarke, R.E., C.B., of the Ordnance Survey, in 
 his latest investigations of the earth's figure, published in his work 
 on Geodesy. Much of this work, however, still remained for 
 completion on Colonel Walker's retirement, but the principal 
 triangulation of all India proper was completed, and the greater 
 portion of it had been finally reduced. 
 
 Colonel Walker also initiated the pendulum operations, which 
 were completed under his superintendence, and the tidal and 
 levelling operations, which are still in progress. 
 
 In 1864 he went to Russia to make the acquaintance of the 
 officers at the head of the Russian Topographical Department, and 
 for several years he was indebted to them for copies of their latest 
 maps of regions in Central Asia, which he employed in the com- 
 pilation of the successive editions of his well-known map of 
 Turkestan. He also did much to advance the operations of the 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 45 
 
 celebrated native explorers who have obtained so much new- 
 geography in Trans-Himalayan regions. 
 
 On being appointed Surveyor-General, Colonel Walker proceeded 
 to carry out the amalgamation of the three branches of the Survey 
 referred to above. 
 
 Colonel "Walker held the Surveyor-Generalship until 1883, when 
 he was succeeded by Colonel George Charles De Free. The latter 
 officer had entered Addiscombe in 18^8, and was appointed Second 
 Lieutenant of the Bengal Artillery in 1850. He served with the 
 Pegu Field Force in the following year, and examined the Tonghup 
 pass between Arakan and Burma, and reported on its practicability 
 for elephants. For this he was thanked by Lord Dalhousie, the 
 Governor-General, and he also gained the Pegu war medal. In 
 1854 he joined the Survey Department and Ivas deputed to take up 
 topography in Ganjam, where he worked for many years, being 
 afterwards attached to the contiguous survey of the Chota Nagpur 
 Division. On the disbanding of No. 4 Topographical Party (see 
 p. 74), he was placed in charge of No. 7 Party (Rajputana and 
 Simla). He officiated as Surveyor- General in 1883-84, and in the 
 latter year was confirmed in the appointment, which he held up to 
 his death, in Jersey, on the 18th February 1887. He was a talented 
 and indefatigable officer, and his early death was undoubtedly due 
 in great measure to the inclement and unhealthy tracts in the 
 eastern part of the Peninsula where he had so long and energetically 
 laboured. He was succeeded by Colonel H. R. Thuillier, R.B., (son 
 of the former Surveyor-General of that name) who obtained his 
 commission in 1857, and whose good services have admirably 
 sustained the traditions and reputation of the Department. 
 
 During the year 1876-7, at which period our review of these 
 operations begins, three parties were engaged on principal triangula- 
 tion, on the Madras Coast Series, the Eastern Frontier Series, 
 and the Eastern Sind Series, and two parties in the Assam Valley 
 and British Burma on secondary triangulation. The primary 
 object of the Madras Coast Series was the completion of the 
 principal triangulation in Southern India by a regular series between 
 Madras and Cape Oomorin, with a branch series via Palk straits 
 connecting Ceylon with India. Triangulation had been carried into 
 this region by Colonel Lambton in the beginning of the century, 
 but on leaving the hills of the central peninsula and entering a 
 vast plain covered with trees and vegetation, it met with difficulties 
 which the early appliances of the survey were inadequate to 
 
46 GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 surmount and whicli necessitated the stoppage of the operations. 
 A large blank in the triangulation thus remained to be filled in. 
 The Madras Coast Series (under the temporary direction of Captain 
 T. T. Carter, in place of Colonel BranfiU) started from Southern 
 Tanjore and worked northwards, so as eventually to eflfect a junction 
 with the Madras Longitudinal Series at its eastern extremity. The 
 country was unfavourable for triangulation, being flat, with innu- 
 merable groves of valuable trees ; the villages were numerous, and 
 each covered much ground, and owing to the want of roads locomotion 
 was by no means easy. The famine, too, which was raging in 
 Southern India during the season, made the question of supplies 
 a difficulty, prices being excessively high, and the villagera occa- 
 sionally disinclined to supply food at any price. The country 
 traversed by the party skirts the coast of South Tanjore for some 
 fifty miles along the north-western shore of Palk straits (the Sinus 
 Argaricus of Ptolemy), and lies between the deltas of the Vaigai 
 and the Cauvery rivers. 
 
 In the following season the triangulation was carried by Colonel 
 Branfill across the paddy swamps of the Cauvery delta into the 
 valley of the Coleroon. The lofty tower of the Provincial College 
 at Kumba Konam aff"orded an excellent station, which greatly 
 facilitated the passage of the delta. An approximate connexion 
 with the levels of the South of India Eailway was effected, and 
 seven of Colonel Lambton's old stations were identified and con- 
 nected. An interesting note on the physiography of the Cauvery 
 delta, together with a list of the proper names of stations and places 
 with root meanings and notes on their characteristics, was compiled 
 by Colonel Branfill during the season and published by the Asiatic 
 Society of Bengal. 
 
 Next season (that of 1878-9) saw the party working across the 
 alluvial flats of the Coleroon, Yellar, and South Pennar rivers, and 
 it was not till the hillock and rock-studded plain of the Carnatic 
 was reached that the ground became favourable for triangulation. 
 The great Siva temple of Gangaikondapuram, in the north-east 
 corner of the Trichinopoly district, was visited and described by 
 Colonel Branfill, and his paper thereon was also published in the 
 journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 
 
 The operations of this party were brought to a conclusion in the 
 year 1879-80 by the measurements of three polygons between 
 Pondicherry and Madras. Secondary chains of triangles were 
 carried from the main chain to fix the positions of the lighthouses 
 
GKEAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 47 
 
 at Pondiclierri, Negapatam, and otlier distant points, and in course 
 of this worl^: recourse was very frequently had to the lofty 
 temples called Gopurams, the temporary conversion of which into 
 theodolite stations Avas successfully negotiated by the Assistant 
 Surveyor, Mr. Potter. The principal triangulation being finished 
 early in the season, Colonel Branfill proceeded to the west coast to 
 connect the secondary triangulation which Colonel Lambton had 
 brought up from Cape Comorin over the hills of Travancore and 
 Cochin to Ponani, early in the present century, with the secondary 
 triangulation of the Malabar minor series. Colonel Branfill's opera- 
 tions closed with certain observations for the better connection of 
 the triangulation on which the topography of the Nilgiri Hills is 
 based, with his principal triangulation. This completed the modern 
 operations in Southern India, the greater portion of which fell to 
 his share and were accomplished .with considerable skill, energy, 
 and perseverance. 
 
 The Eastern Sind Series, on the meridian of 70°, was commenced 
 by Captain Rogers in 1876, at a side of the Karachi Longitudinal 
 series. It lay across a country of sheer desert, composed mainly of 
 parallel ridges of sand of considerable height with steep slopes 
 covered with low thorn jungle ; occasionally these sandhills disappear 
 and give place to a variously moulded surface of ever shifting sand 
 utterly devoid of vegetation called " draens." Curiously enough, 
 wells of good water are occasionally found in these spots, the 
 water in other parts of the desert being scarcely drinkable. The 
 villages are for the most part built on the tops of the sand- 
 hills, which in winter are warmer than the valleys. During 
 1877-78 the rains failed in Sind, and Captain Rogers was 
 consequently despatched to carry a secondary triangulation from 
 the western frontier of Sind into Baluchistan along the line 
 between Jacobabad and Quetta, a series much needed for the 
 correction of the maps of Southern Afghanistan and Baluchistan ; 
 the position of Kandahar in particular being placed on one of the 
 best maps 15 miles west of its real position. Towards the 
 British frontier there is a great dearth of water and vegetation, 
 but near the hills there are ravines and watercourses, several con- 
 siderable villages, and traces of much greater prosperity and 
 population in times past, the subsequent deterioration being attri- 
 buted mainly to the unsettled condition of the country. Captain 
 Rogers laid out several triangles near the entrance to the Bolan 
 
48 GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 pass, after wliicli lie marched to Quetta and fixed the most conspicuoiis 
 hills around. During the following season war broke out with 
 Afghanistan and Captain Rogers was attached to the southern army, 
 but Mr. Price carried the triangles up to Quotta, and Mr. Torrens 
 extended them to the boundary of Pishin beyond. A good descrip- 
 tion of the Kachi plain lying between General Jacob's tower on the 
 British boundary and the mountains forms part of Mr. Price's official 
 report. The various pieces of triangulation completed by Captain 
 Rogers and his assistants comprised the following : 1st, the series 
 from Jacobabad to Quetta ; 2nd, the series from Quetta to Khelat ; 
 3rd, the series from Quetta to Kandahar : 4th, the triangles round 
 Kandahar and the Khakrez valley. 
 
 It was not till near the end of the field season of 1879-80 that 
 the work of the Eastern Sind Series was resumed, when Captain 
 Rogers completed two double polygons spanning a direct distance 
 of 64 miles. In the following year the series was completed by 
 Colonel Branfill by four polygonal figures carried northwards, and 
 closing on to a side of the Great Indus Series. A chain of secondary 
 triangles was also successfully carried by Mr. Torrens across 
 Central Sind to Sehwan, on the Indus, to furnish points for the 
 revenue and topographical surveyors. 
 
 On the northern confines of India the survey of the mountainous 
 disti'icts of Kumaun and Garhwal (of which only a small area 
 remained to be done) had been in abeyance during 1875-76 so 
 as to enable the whole strength of the party to be applied to 
 the Dehra Dun survey, which by that means was finished in 
 that season. In 1876-77 the Kumaun and Garhwal survey was 
 resumed under Mr. B. C. Ryall and also brought to a conclusion. 
 The winter had been exceptionally severe, and the spring and 
 early summer cold and wet ; consequently this told much against 
 the surveyors, whose operations had to be conducted at an average 
 elevation of about 16,000 feet above sea-level; Mr. Ryall's highest 
 point of observation was 19,600, while Mr. Pocock executed 
 one plane table section at 19,000 feet. The snow-line was much 
 lower than usual, and owing to the inhabitants being thereby detained 
 in their winter homes long beyond the ordinary time, supplies were 
 very difficult to obtain. Mr. Ryall's triangulation is described below, 
 p. 50. To Mr. J. Peyton was entrui^ted the topographical survey of the 
 Byans valley, but here again the exceptionally unfavourable weather 
 proved a great obstacle to work. In July there were only five days 
 of clear blue sky, when the mountain features could be delineated, 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL gURVEY OF INDIA. 49 
 
 and in the Kuti Valley, behind most of tlie great snow and rain 
 collecting mountains, tlie weatlaer was seldom fine for more than a 
 couple of hours in the morning. The Byans valley communicates 
 with Tibet by three rout*, the principal and earliest open to 
 travellers being called the Lipu Lek pass ; in moderate weather this 
 is a very easy pass. There are seven villages in the valley, all 
 facsimiles of each other, but with the exception of some half-dozen 
 houses built in the stylo of Swiss chalets, they all are small and low, 
 the building material being furnished by the cedars of the adjoining 
 ranges. The Bhotea inhabitants of these lofty regions are a race 
 of sturdy hiilmen, with no caste prejudices, ready to eat game of 
 all kinds and to drink to any extent. They are principally engaged 
 in agriculture and breeding sheep and goats, and all their clothing is 
 made by hand looms, the wool being procured from their own 
 sheep. Woollen blankets and plaids of bright colours and scarfs 
 are made by the women, who occasionally act as coolies when there 
 is a lack of men. At Garbia, one of the largest villages of the 
 Byans A^alley, the Tartar physiognomy is by no means prominent, 
 and some of the faces were expressive and even pretty. Mr. Peyton 
 found the men always faithful to their engagements, and many of 
 them while in attendance on him underwent great hardships, 
 roughing it on the cold mountain tops without shelter of any kind. 
 To Mr. Pocock and Mr. Warwick was allotted the topography of the 
 northern and southern portions, respectively, of the Dharma valley, 
 which runs contiguously to the Byans valley, and in the case of the 
 former the inclemency of the weather was equal to and the altitude 
 even greater than in the Byans valley where Mr. Peyton was 
 occupied. The entrance to the Milam valley is through a stu- 
 pendous gorge overhung by large masses of granite precipices ; 
 the gorge is about 12 miles in length, and the road through it is for 
 the most part a mere series of narrow steps built along the faces of 
 steep hillsides or rugged precipices ; where these steps cannot be 
 made planks leading from one ledge of a precipice to another are laid 
 across. The mountains here are composed of three different kinds 
 of rock, the lowest formation is granite, of which all the most lofty 
 peaks are composed ; the second is hard slate ; and the third and 
 highest is a hard crystallised limestone. At the village of Milam* 
 the valley splits into two ; the one to the west is occupied by an 
 
 * This is tlie village where the celebrated explorers Nain Singh acd Kisheu Singh 
 were both born and brought up. See page 151. 
 
 1 Y20S9]. D 
 
50 GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 extensive glacier, the other might be called a narrow gorge, 
 extending up to the very watershed line on the Unta Dhurra pass, 
 below which lies a glacier four miles in length. Owing to this glacier 
 the Unta Dhurra pass is the most difficult of all the passes in 
 Kumaun and Grarwhal. 
 
 Mr. E. C. Ryall succeeded in extending the Milam series of 
 triangles (originating from a side of the Kumaun and Garhwal 
 survey) up to the frontier of Hundes — which is the name of the 
 S.W. province of Tibet — and then for some distance across the 
 frontier, whereby he was able to fix the positions of a large 
 number of peaks in Tibetan territory.* The severity of the winter 
 had caused the routes to be blocked up with snow ; but though 
 this may have deterred ordinary travellers, the Tibetan officials 
 were on the alert, and soon after Mr. Ryall had crossed the frontier 
 his presence became known to them. By informing them, however, 
 that his object was to survey the northern limits of British territory, 
 which ho found it impossible to do from the south, he succeeded in 
 satisfying them, and was allowed to proceed. Mr. Ryall was 
 enabled to fix a large number of snowy peaks across the Sutlej, 
 including the remarkable needle-like peak of Leo Porgyal situated 
 at the point where the British frontier crosses the gorge of the 
 river, the sacred Kailas, and other lofty peaks at the head of the 
 Manasarowar lakes and to the east. The triangulation accomplished 
 was sufficient to furnish bases for a detailed survey, if one should 
 ever be desirable. The province of Hundes or Nari-Khorsam occupies 
 the upper basins of the Sutlej and the head waters of the Karnali 
 river. It is a most desolate region, the only trees being poplars, and 
 these being found only along the lower banks of large streams. 
 One of the most important places is the military fort of Taklakhar 
 (Tiger's fortress), which is garrisoned by about 100 men and is close 
 to the Nepal frontier. It is in reality a huge mound, the dwellings 
 being excavated in the centre and the sides loopholed for defensive 
 purposes. "Within are said to be vast stores of grain and ammuni- 
 tion, the former being subject to no deterioration owing to the 
 extreme dryness of the atmosphere. Taklakhar was the last post 
 occupied by the Dogras in their disastrous invasion of Hundes, when 
 Zorowar Sing's Indian army of 6,000 men was routed by the 
 Chinese and perished miserably by the sword and by the frost on 
 
 * See s])ecial report attached to Surveyor-General's Report for 1877-78. Some 
 interesting particulars are also given in the Trigonometrical Survey Report for 1870-77. 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 51 
 
 the 12tli December 1841. The people of Hundes (called Hunias) 
 are of Tartar origin, having the well-known leading ethnological 
 characteristics of that race. They own large flocks of big, long- 
 fleeced sheep, and herds of cattle and Tibetan goats, as well as a 
 few yaks. There are five principal passes leading from Hundes into 
 British territory, and the traffic over them is carried on between the 
 15th June and the 15th October. The passes, however, are not 
 declared open till the authorities have satisfied themselves as to the 
 absence of epidemics in the Ghats, the eS"ect of small pox, &o. on 
 some occasions among a people so indifi'erent to cleanliness having 
 been terrible. Shawl wool is taken in large quantities to Amritsar 
 and other places in the Punjab, while sheep's wool is also largely 
 exported to the Himalayas, where it is made up into blankets and 
 serges. 
 
 In the following year Mr. T. Kinney was despatched up the 
 Bhagirathi valley to supplement Mr. Ry all's observations in the 
 direction of the Mlang valley and the Tsaprang district of Hundes. 
 The Bhagirathi forms the westernmost source of the Ganges, and 
 the gorge through which the Nilang valley is entered is terrific in 
 aspect ; snowy peaks, from 20,000 to 21,000 feet in height, 
 towering overhead, while the stream flows 10,000 feet below, walled 
 in by sheer precipices sometimes 3,000 feet in height. The descrip- 
 tion given by Captain Hodgson in 1817* fully bears out Mr. Kinney's 
 more recent account. Owing to the Tibetan frontier officials having 
 been sharply censured by the Governor of Gartok (who has supreme 
 authority over the province of Hundes) for allowing Mr. Ryall to 
 cross the frontier the year before, Mr. Kinney was unable to do 
 much more than fix some of the Tibetan peaks from the crest of 
 the watershed, some 19,000 feet in height. The cold was intense 
 throughout, and as the party were forced to encamp -at least 
 4,000 feet below, much time was spent in travelling to and fro, and 
 the out-turn of work not so great as it would have been under 
 favourable circumstances. 
 
 The secondary triangulation in the Assam valley was carried on 
 by Lieutenant Harman, in 1876-77, with his customary energy, 
 notwithstanding the unfavourable weather, incessant rains flooding 
 the nullahs and turning the forest paths into streams of mud and 
 water, which brought out myriads of leeches, to the great discomfort 
 of the party. Huge india-rubber trees had often to be felled, though 
 
 * See Asiatic Eesearches, Vol. XIII. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 GREAT TMGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 one, 112 feet iu lieigHt, was usefully converted into an observing 
 station, enabling a connexion to be established witli ttie triangulation 
 of Lieutenant Woodthorpe, who was carrying on a topographical 
 survey in the neighbourhood. The work of the season extended 
 over a distance of 53 miles, along the banks of the Brahmaputra to 
 within a few miles of Sadiya. During the following season 
 (1877-78) endeavours were made to extend the triangulation of the 
 region between the Subansiri and the Dihong, so as to ascertain 
 which of the two formed the continuation of the Sanpo river of Tibet. 
 As it was practically impossible to venture far across the frontier. 
 Lieutenant Harman was directed to measure the discharges of Iho 
 Subansiri, the Dihong, the Dibong, and the Bramaputra in order 
 to try and solve the question by ascertaining the magnitude of the 
 volume of water in each river, and thus obtaining indirect evidence 
 on the question at issue. 
 
 In company with Captain Woodthorpe, Lieutenant Harman pro- 
 ceeded to the Miri Hills, between the Subansiri and Dihong rivers, 
 and succeeded in sketching about 1,500 miles on the half -inch 
 scale. This included a portion of the Dihong river, higher than any 
 previously surveyed, but not sufl&ciently high to show whether the 
 stream is the continuation of the Sanpo or not. He next com- 
 menced to measure the river discharges, taking observations of the 
 following : — (1) the Subansiri river ; (2) the Brahmaputra, at a 
 point three miles from Dibrugarh and below the junction of the 
 Dihong and Dibong rivers ; (3) the united stream of the Dihong 
 and Dibong rivers, one mile below their junction and one mile above 
 their junction with the Bramaputra ; (4) the Dibong river, at one 
 mile above its junction with the Dihong and half a mile below the 
 junction of the Sensri river with it ; (5) the Brahmaputra river, 
 about nine miles above Sadiya and half a mile below the junction 
 of the united stream of the Tengapani and Noa Dihing rivei's ; and 
 (6) the united stream of the two latter rivers, at about 200 yards 
 below their junction. 
 
 The full details of these interesting operations, including the 
 sectional measurements and the calculation of discharges, have been 
 published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.'-' The general effect is 
 to show that the volume of water in the Dihong is from two to 
 
 * .S'ee.T. A. S. B., Vol. XLVIII., Pt. 2, No. I., 1879. The measurements, in connexion 
 ■with the earlier ones by Bedford and Wilcox, iire also discussed in General Walker's 
 paper on the Hydrography of S.E. Tibet (see Proceedings Eoyal Geographical 
 Society, p. 581 of 1888). 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SUliVJiY OP INDIA. 53 
 
 three times as great as that of the Hubansiri, and that the former 
 is much more likely to be the continuation of the Sanpo than the 
 latter. 
 
 The secondary triangulation in Burma consisted in 1876 of chains 
 projected from the Eastern Frontier Series in various directions, 
 one being from Myanong to Cape Negrais, (2) one from Prome to 
 Thayetmyo and Tonghu, and (4) a chain to meet (2) in the neighbour- 
 hood of Tonghu. The country through which these operations had to 
 be carried on was difficult, the hills being flat-topped, densely wooded, 
 and from their similarity difficult to distinguish apart. The 
 difficulty of obtaining labour, too, was considerable, as the Burmese 
 coolies strongly object to being absent from liome for more than a 
 day or two. In tbe following season (1877) Mr. Beverley was 
 instructed to select suitable sites for two lofty beacons which it was 
 proposed to erect on the coast line abreast of the Krishna shoal, the 
 lighthouse on whicb had mysteriously disappeared, whether blown 
 over in a storm or demolished by the collision of a vessel was 
 unknown. Strenuous efforts were made to extend the triangulation 
 towards tbese beacons during the year 1878-79 ; but in conse- 
 quence of the great difficulties encountered, owing to the country 
 being quite uninhabited and covered with dense forest and jungle, 
 through -which it was almost hopeless to attempt to cut openings 
 for the rays, the attempt to triangulate was abandoned, and instead 
 thereof a traverse survey was carried to the beacons along the 
 best paths that could be found. 
 
 At the close of the season 1875-76 the line of principal triangula- 
 tion called the Eastern Frontier Series bad been brought down to 
 the vicinity of Tavoy, whence, during 1876-77, it was carried 
 forward in all a distance of 92 miles, first by Mr. H. Beverley and 
 afterwards by Captain J. Hill, R.B., who assumed command. For 
 the extension of the triangulation southwards it was necessary, 
 during the ensuing season, to have a station on the group of 
 islands known as the Middle Moscos, and another on the Southern 
 Moscos. The country traversed on the mainland was very like that 
 of the previous season ; a thick impenetrable jungle, covering plain 
 and mountain alike, and offering great obstruction to the elephants, 
 which had often to be brought to the stations by tediously circuitous 
 routes. The trigonometrical measurements were advanced a distance 
 of 65 miles ; the position of the town of Tavoy was fixed, as well 
 as that of the " Three Pagodas," an important and well-known mark 
 
54 GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 on tlie boundary between Siam and Tenasserim. All tlie officers 
 snffered more or less in health, after their exposure and privation in 
 the Tenasserim jungles, and the want of a sanitarium in Burma to 
 enable men to recruit before entering the duties of a fresh season 
 was much felt. 
 
 This series had now reached a point about 35 miles south of 
 Tavoy, from which the direct distance to Bangkok, the capital of 
 Siam, was only 90 miles, while the distance round the coasts 
 was fully 2,000 miles. As a check on the marine surveys it was 
 very desirable for a chain of triangles to be carried across into 
 Siamese territory, and to this the King of Siam readily assented. 
 Singularly enough, the tract of British territory lying up to the 
 Siamese boundary, though only 42 miles in width, proved the most 
 difficult piece of all, the hills (composed chiefly of metamorphic rocks) 
 being generally flat with no commanding points, while the dense 
 tropical vegetation and unusually long rainy season of 1878 were 
 further obstacles to speedy progress. Once across the frontier the 
 country suddenly became more favourable, and with the ready 
 co-operation of the Siamese officials good progress was made up to 
 within 25 miles of Bangkok, the remaining portion being continued 
 by Captain Hill late in the following year, and completed by 
 Mr. McCarthy at the beginning of the season 1880-81. 
 Mr. McCarthy also determined the position of the six next most 
 important towns in Siam ; one of the stations selected was part of 
 the celebrated Phra Pratom pagoda, the largest in Siam. The 
 outside circuit of its enclosure is 3,251 feet. Within this enclosure, 
 which is cloistered and turreted, are other cloisters, temples, and 
 belfries built on successive plateaux, while from the centre of the 
 highest a great bell-shaped spire springs to the height of 347 feet 
 above the ground. Besides these places the positions of several hill 
 peaks on both sides of the head of the Gulf of Siam were deter- 
 mined, compass sketches made of several of the chief rivers and: 
 canals, and a plan of Bangkok prepared on the scale of four inches 
 to the mile. 
 
 In November 1880 Mr. McCarthy was requested by the British 
 Vice-Consul, Mr. Newman, to accompany a Siamese telegraphic 
 expedition then about to start for the Natyadung pass, on the 
 Bi'itish frontier, about 55 miles higher up than the Amya pass, by 
 which the survey party had crossed into Siam. The whole route up 
 to the former pass was measured \vith cane ropes, and Mr. McCarthy 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 55 
 
 was also enabled to get bearings to fresb peaks and to affix the 
 names to some already observed. He returned to Moulmein on tlie 
 13tli April 1881, having ^been employed on field duty nearly 
 eighteen months, and having won good opinions in bio dealings 
 with the Siamese officials and natives. 
 
 The extension of the Eastern Frontier Series or chain of principal 
 triangulation down into lower Tenasserim, with a view to the 
 measurement of a base-line at the southern extremity of British 
 Indian territory, was taken in hand by Mr. H. Beverley in 
 November 1879. But the ill-health from which, in spite of a very 
 strong constitution, he had suffered for some year?, proved fatal 
 and he died on the 22nd June. He had served 25 years in the 
 Department, and notwithstanding the malarious and difficult tracts 
 in which he had often worked his labours were assiduous and 
 successful. 
 
 The selection of a suitable site for the measurement of a base- 
 line was a difficult matter, but eventually a good spot was discovered 
 in the Mergui township, Mergui island, beyond the range of the 
 numerous creeks which penetrate inland from the sea. Lastly, but not 
 leastly, supplies for the numerous surveyors and their followers were 
 here easily procurable. While Mr. Potter, Assistant Surveyor, was 
 constructing the principal stations around the base-line, and clearing 
 the rays between them. Captain Hill was completing the remaining 
 triangles between Tavoy and the base-line and connecting his 
 heights with the sea-level for verification. Extraordinary difficulties 
 were experienced from the haze, which was so dense that the 
 shipping people and fishing population were unable to carry on 
 their usual calling. The meteorological observations throw very 
 little light on the cause of this peculiar haze. It generally 
 commences about the middle of January, with north-east or easterly 
 winds, and rain seems to have no effect upon it ; with south-west or 
 western winds it clears. The natives add that exceptionally hazy 
 seasons occur at intervals of about five or six years. 
 
 The part of Mergui chosen for the base-line appears to have been 
 more thickly inhabited in former times than at present. Many 
 old pagodas, some in ruins, are scattered about. A number 
 of Mussulmans, chiefly descendants of men from India and the 
 Straits who have intermarried with Burmans, have taken up their 
 residence in the place ; they are increasing steadily, and supplanting 
 the original Burmans. The Mergui archipelago, consisting of 
 
56 GREAT TRIGOKOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 thickly-Studded islands, interspersed with shoals and rooks, enjoys a 
 salubrious climate, and the scenery is beautiful. Many of the 
 islands are peculiar and icteresting ; one with a central basin 
 enclosed by walls of rock can be approached through a short tunnel 
 open only at low water, and when the tide rises communication 
 with the outer world is cut off for six hours. Another small flat 
 island, called Tho Bya, has a small fresh-water lake in the centre, 
 and until recently villages stood and fields were cultivated round 
 the margin ; but tigers came and multiplied to such an extent that 
 they drove away the people, and the island is now deserted. With 
 the exception of the fishing people from Mergui and the neigh- 
 bourhood, the only inhabitants of the smaller islands of the 
 Archipelago are the Selung, a small tribe of strange, timid, wild 
 beings, without fixed abode, living almost entirely in their boats. 
 According to Captain Hill they appear to be fleeced systematically 
 by the Chinese, who send agents to them out into the Archipelago 
 to barter rice at exorbitant rates for the pearls, sheila (which fetch 
 very high prices in China), bees-wax, mats, &c. which the Selung 
 are able to supply. 
 
 During the season 1881-82 two parties were engaged in the 
 completion of tho Eastern Frontier Series and the measurement of 
 the Mergui base, viz., that under Major Eogers (who had relieved 
 Captain Hill), and the party under Colonel Branfill which in the 
 previous year had been employed in completing the Eastern Sind 
 Series. During the first half of the season these parties worked 
 independently of each other ; Colonel Branfill' s in connecting 
 the principal triangulation with the base-line and executing the 
 necessary preliminaries for the linear measurement ; Major Rogers's 
 in extending the principal triangulation southwards and making a 
 reconnaissance of the islands of the Mergui archipelago, with a view 
 to the future extension down to Singapore. With the aid of the 
 Indian Marine steamer " Celerity," by which communication was 
 much expedited, the most was made of the brief observing season — 
 barely two months— and by the end of January all hands were 
 engaged in the measurement of the Mergui base-line under Colonel 
 Branfill. The base is only about 3-4 miles in length, or rather less 
 than half the average length of the previous Indian base-lines 
 (that at Cape Comorin alone excepted) ; but suitable ground for a 
 longer base could not be found anywhere on the coasts or islands 
 of the Archipelago. 
 
GBEAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 57 
 
 The actual measurements and comparisons of tlie compensatiou 
 bars with the standard of length occupied 24 days, and the 
 value of the length of the J^ase-line, as determined by calculation 
 through the triangulation, which consists of a chain of polygonal 
 figures nearly 1.000 miles in length, proved to be only 3-4 inches, 
 or 1 inch per mile, in excess of the measured value. 
 
 "With a view to determine the height of the base-line above the 
 sea a line of spirit-levels was carried from one end down to the 
 coast — where arrangements were made for erecting a tidal 
 station. Astronomical observations for the determination of the 
 latitude and the azimuth were taken at four of the stations of 
 the principal triangulation in the vicinity of the base-line, and the 
 mean differences between these observations and the latitudes and 
 azimuths geodetically computed from Kalianpur — Colonel Everest's 
 station of astronomical origin — were 8-2" in latitude and 11 "2" in 
 azimuth ; but the theoretical probable errors generated in the 
 course of the triangulation between the origin at Kalianpur and the 
 terminus at Mergui are less than ±1'' in latitude and ±3" in 
 azimuth ; thus the discrepancies between the observed astronomical 
 and the deduced geodetic results at Mergui are probably due mainly 
 to the influence of local attractions in deflecting the plumb-line at 
 the initial and terminal astronomical stations. 
 
 Latitude observations were also made at Moulmein by Major 
 Rogers, and the same oflficer also inspected the working of the 
 tide-gauges at Moulmein, Amherst, Rangoon, Elephant point, and 
 Port Blair, and then proceeded to Poena to relieve Major Hill 
 of the charge of the tidal and levelling party. Thus the super- 
 vision of the calculations for the reduction of the principal 
 triangulation and the astronomical observations mainly devolved 
 on Colonel Branfill, who, having brought all the work to a satis- 
 factory completion and handed it over to Mr. Hennessey, at the 
 computing office of the great trigonometrical survey in Dehra Dun, 
 proceeded to Europe on furlough. The triangulation parties were 
 then broken up, most of the officers being transferred to topogra- 
 phical surveys, while the native establishments were reduced and 
 transferred to the new secondary triangulation party and the Nepal 
 Boundary survey. 
 
 The chain of principal triangles known as the Eastern Frontier 
 Series had thus been brought down from Assam through Arakan 
 
58 GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 and British Burma into Tenasserim, and closed on to a base-line of 
 verification in Mergni, near the southern extremity of the British 
 territory east of the Bay of Bengal. Thus the principal triangula- 
 tion of all India had been completed on the lines originally marked 
 out by Colonel Everest and sanctioned by the Honourable Court of 
 Directors of the East India Company, A brief retrospect of the 
 history of this great undertaking, epitomized from General Walker's 
 excellent account thereof, may be here given. 
 
 The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India originated in a 
 so-called " mathematical and geographical survey," which was 
 commenced in Southern India, in the year 1800, by Major Lambton 
 of H.M.'s 33rd Regiment of Foot, on the recommendation of the 
 Honourable Colonel Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington. Its 
 object was, in Major Lambton's words, to " determine the exact 
 " positions of all the great objects that appeared best calculated 
 " to become permanent geographical marks, to be hereafter guides 
 " for facilitating a general survey of the peninsula;" and as at 
 that time the elements of the figure of the earth were not known 
 with suflficient approximation to enable the latitudes and longitudes 
 of the " great objects " to be computed with accuracy from the data 
 of the triangulation. Major Lambton pointed out that his intended 
 survey would, in the interests " of general science involve many 
 " more objects than that immediately appertain to geography," 
 and that portions of the triangulation would have to be executed 
 with the utmost possible precision, and be supplemented by astro- 
 nomical determination of position, with a view to the requirements 
 of geodesy. 
 
 Between the year 1800 and 1825 the operations consisted of a 
 network of triangulation over Southern India, grounded on, and 
 verified by, several chain-measured base-lines, through the middle 
 of which a principal chain of triangles was carried in a meridional 
 direction, from Cape Comorin up to Sironj in Central India. This 
 chain formed the southern portion of what is now known as Lambton 
 and Everest's Great Arc. Its angles were measured with greater 
 care than those of the collateral network, and at certain of its 
 stations astronomical observations of the latitude were taken for 
 the determination of the included minor arcs of amplitude. Colonel 
 Lambton died in 1823, and was succeeded by Colonel Everest, who 
 found no difficulty in obtaining carte blanche from the Government 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 59 
 
 of India and the Court of Directors for a new instrumental equip- 
 ment, much superior to what had hitherto been employed. During 
 his absence from India a small party of surveyors was engaged 
 in carrying a longitudinal chain of triangles eastwards from the 
 point reached by the Great Arc in Central India to Calcutta. 
 
 On his return from Europe in 1830, Colonel Everest recommended 
 the abandonment of the network system of triangulation, and the 
 substitution instead of what he called the "gridiron" system, 
 consisting of meridional chains which were intended to be constructed 
 at intervals of about one degree apart, while the longitudinal chains 
 would follow the parallels of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, and 
 thus run at intervals of from five to six degrees apart. The external 
 chains of the gridiron were to follow the British frontier lines and 
 the coast lines. The entire triangulation was to be grounded on 
 base-lines measured with the Colby apparatus of compensation bars 
 and microscopes — in terms of a fixed standard of length — which 
 were to supersede the old base-lines that had been measured with 
 chains of comparatively rude construction and of uncertain length. 
 This programme of operations was approved by the Government of 
 India and the Court of Directors, and it has furnished the guiding 
 lines on which the principal triangulation has been executed during 
 a period of almost exactly half a century. 
 
 For convenience of treatment in the final reduction, the whole 
 of the chains situated within the limits of India proper have been 
 grouped into five sections. Four of these are roughly four-sided in 
 outline and are respectively called the North-East, North-West, 
 South-East, and South-West Quadrilaterals, names in which the 
 cardinal points have reference to the Kalianpur Observatory in 
 Central India, which Colonel Everest adopted as the origin of the 
 operations subsequent to 1832. The fifth is three-sided, and is called 
 the Southern Trigon, and embrace the southern portion of the 
 peninsula, below the parallel of Madras. The North-Bast Quadri- 
 lateral was completed first of all, and here it will be seen, on reference 
 to the Chart of the Principal Triangulation, that the meridional 
 chains of triangles lie at intervals of about one degree apart, as 
 originally designed by Colonel Everest. But in the sections sub- 
 sequently executed the intervals between the meridional chains were 
 materially increased, as the minor triangulations which in course 
 of time came to be executed by the topographical surveys were of 
 such accuracy that a smaller amount of principal triangulation was 
 
60 GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 foimd to suffice for all geograptical requirements, and more was not 
 wanted for geodetical requirements. An additional meridional chain 
 might have been constructed on the meridian of 84° within the 
 South-Bast Quadrilateral, and it doubtless would have been con- 
 structed but that before it could be commenced a network of 
 excellent topographical triangulation had been thrown over the entire 
 area which is included between the collateral principal chains, 
 and nothing more was wanted. Similarly in tlie Southern Trigon, 
 the execution of a chain of principal triangles along the west coast 
 from Cape Comorin to Mangalore was desirable for symmetry, 
 co-ordinately with the chain on the east coast from Cape Comorin 
 to Madras, but it was not wanted for geodesy. For geographical 
 purposes the Malabar coast series of secondary triangles was amply 
 sufficient. Tt had been mostly executed by Major Lambton, and it 
 stood connected with the modern operations. Major Lambton had 
 not, however, attempted to throw his triangulation over the broad 
 belt of plains on the east coast, which is covered with trees and 
 obstacles that he had no means of surmounting. Thus a chain 
 oi: principal triangles has been extended of late years over these 
 ]jlains, and has furnished a base from which a branch chain of 
 triangles has been carried across the Paumben straits to the 
 Island of Ceylon, in order to connect the surveys of India and 
 Ceylon. 
 
 For geodetic purposes the amount of principal triangulation 
 \\hich has been executed has been pronounced to be ample. The 
 first measurement of the sections of the Great Arc between Cape 
 Comorin and Sironj was accomplished with instruments far inferior 
 in accuracy to those with which the liberality of the Court of 
 Directors furnished Colonel Everest in subsequent years, and being 
 (Lemed of insufficient accuracy for geodetic requirements, its revi- 
 8. on was directed to be undertaken as soon as might be consistent 
 \\\th the need of triangulation for geographical purposes in other 
 jiirtsof India. The northern section, from Sironj down to Bidar, 
 ■\v IS indeed revised imder Colonel Everest's superintendence in 
 1 S38-39, but the revision of the southern sections — ■ Bidar, 
 Bangalore, Cape Comorin — was postponed for several years, and 
 was eventually accomplished during 1869-74. 
 
 The longitudinal series, from Sironj to Calcutta, was also revised, 
 as it was originally executed with very inferior instrumental 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 61 
 
 means, and it happens to be the most important of all the great 
 chains of triangles, because it furnishes bases for no less than 
 14 meridional chains lying to its north and south. Partial revisions 
 have been made in other quarters of work executed with inferior 
 instruments, which it was deemed necessary to raise to a higher 
 standard of accuracy. Outside the limits of India proper the more 
 recently completed chain of triangles called the Eastern Frontier 
 Series is a valuable contribution to geodesy as well as geography. 
 
 The whole of the triangulation rests on ten base-lines which have 
 been measured with the Colby apparatus of compensation bars and 
 microscopes, which was constructed in England under Colonel 
 Everest's superintendence. The relations of the length of the 
 Indian standard to the principal European standards of length have 
 been very exactly determined. Considerations of symmetry would 
 suggest the introduction of an additional base-line near Bombay, 
 on the same parallel as the Bidar and Yizagapatam base-lines, and 
 measured with the same apparatus.. But it so happened that a 
 cbain base-line had been measured on the Karleh plain, near 
 Bombay, in the year 1828, by Captain Shortrede, the calculated 
 value of which, through, the longitudinal series from the Bidar 
 base-line, agrees very closely with the measured value. It was 
 commended by Colonel Everest, who, however, some years after- 
 wards, in 1848, made preliminary arrangements for the measurement 
 of another line in the neighbourhood with the Colby apparatus, but 
 he did not carry out this project. Eventually the idea was 
 abandoned, as the distance from the Bidar base is com.paratively 
 small, and no material advantage at all commensurate with the 
 labour and expense would be derived from the measurement of a 
 new base ; for to measure a base-line with the Colby apparatus 
 occupies two full-strength trigonometrical parties for an entire field 
 season, unless there happens to be other employment for the survey 
 of&cers in the neighbourhood of the base. There is some uncertainty, 
 as regards the unit of length adopted by Captain Shortrede in 
 measuring the Karleh base, consequently this base has not been 
 employed in the final reductions, though no new base has been 
 measured. 
 
 Thus the great work of the principal triangulation of India 
 became an accomplished fact. Commenced in 1800, under the 
 auspices of the Madras Government, it was carried on by Major 
 Lambton, almost single-handed, until the year 1818, when the 
 
62 GREAT TKIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Marquis of Hastings, who was tlien Governor-General, placed it 
 under the direct and immediate control of the Supreme Government. 
 Captain Everest was shortly afterwards appointed assistant to 
 Major Lambton. In 1832 additional officers were appointed, and 
 by the year 1840, when the geodetic operations on the northern 
 sections of the Great Arc were completed, the personnel sufficed 
 for the equipment of six trigonometrical survey parties, and this 
 number of parties was uniformly maintained from that time 
 onwards, until it could be gradually diminished on the completion 
 of the successive chains of triangles. The operations have been 
 uniformly and consistently supported by the Supreme Government, 
 with the sanction and approval, first of the Honourable Court of 
 Directors of the East India Company, and afterwards of the 
 Secretary of State for India. In times of war and financial 
 embarrassment the scope of the operations has been curtailed and 
 establishments have been reduced, and some of the military officers 
 sent to join the armies in the field ; occasionally the civilians also 
 have been sent to the seat of war, to be employed on survey duties. 
 But whatever the crisis, the operations have never been wholly 
 suspended. Even during the troubles of 1857-58 they were 
 carried on in some districts though arrested in others. They have 
 been uninfl-uenced by changes of 'personnel in the administration of 
 the British Indian Empire, each succeeding Governor- General or 
 Yiceroy having honoured them with his support. At the close of the 
 mutinies, Lord Canning wrote as follows of the principal triangu- 
 lation and collateral topography in Kashmir to Colonel Waugh, 
 then Surveyor-General of India : — 
 
 " I cannot resist telling you at once with how much satisfaction I have seeu those 
 papers. It is a i)lea3ure to turn from the troubles and anxitaies with which India is 
 still beset, and to find that a gigantic work of permanent peaceful uscfuhiess, and one 
 which will assuredly take the highest rank as a work of scientific labour and skill, 
 has been steadily and rapidly progressing through all the turmoil of the last two 
 years." 
 
 and up to the last moment, the successive Government have 
 accorded their support to the operations with equal liberality and 
 constancy. It may well be doubted whether any similar under- 
 taking, executed in any other part of the world, has been equally 
 favoured and supported. 
 
 The field operations, viz., the measurements of the base-lines and 
 angles of the principal triangulation, being completed, the next 
 
GREAT TKIGONOMETRIOAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 63 
 
 step was the final reduction and liarmonising of the results, giving 
 to each measurement and observation its proper weight, and 
 nothing more or less. Strictly speaking, this undertaking should 
 have been postponed until the completion of the whole of the 
 operations, and then all the observations should be reduced 
 simultaneously, because every fact of observation is more or less 
 dependent on, and connected with, every other fact. But the 
 simultaneous reduction of the vast number of such facts acquired over 
 all India, by many individuals and during a period of many years, 
 was obviously impossible. Thus it became necessary to divide the 
 triangulation of India proper into five sections, and even then the 
 simultaneous reduction of the numerous facts of observation 
 collected together in each group was a work of enormous labour, 
 necessitating, as remarked by Colonel Clarke, C.B,, of the Ordnance 
 Survey, one of the most eminent of living geodesists, in his recent 
 treatise on geodesy, " the most elaborate calculations that have 
 " ever been undertaken for the reduction of triangulation." The 
 division of the work into sections necessitated bhe maintenance of 
 the results determined for the sections first reduced in the 
 contiguous sections, when they, in turn, came to be reduced and 
 this necessitated commencement with the section, which in all its 
 parts was of the highest accuracy. The section of which the field 
 work was first completed was the !N"orth-east Quadrilateral, but as 
 many of its angles had been measured with instruments of inferior 
 accuracy to those employed in the sections which were subsequently 
 completed, the reductions were performed in the following order : — 
 first, the N"orth-west Quadrilateral ; secondly, the South-east Quadri- 
 lateral ; and thirdly, the North-east Quadrilateral. The reductions 
 were commenced in the year 1869 ; the final results of the first 
 section are given in Volumes 11., III., and IV. of the Account of • 
 the Operations of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, published in 
 1879 ; those of the second in Volume VI., published in 1880 ; and 
 those of the third in Volumes VII. and VIII. The fourth section 
 selected for treatment was the Southern Trigon. 
 
 The stations of the principal triangulation were 3,665 in number 
 in 1885. They have been constructed with a view to being as lasting 
 and permanent as possible. On the plains they take the form of 
 towers rising from 20 to 40, and even 60 feet above the ground 
 level, and usually about 16 feet square at base, with an isolated 
 central pillar — always of masonry— for the instruments to rest on. 
 
64 GREAT TKIGONOMETEICAIi SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 On hills anl mounds the central pillar is raised two to four feat above 
 the ground level, and is surrounded with a platform of earth and 
 stones. Mark-stones engraved with a dot and i-urrounding circle to 
 define with precision the point to which the observations are 
 referred, are inserted on the surface and at the base of each pillar. 
 The stations are invariably placed under the protection of the local 
 officials ; they are scattered over 338 British districts and Native 
 states, in each of which some officer is required to submit annual 
 reports of the condition of the whole of the stations within its 
 circle; repairs are effected whenever necessary. If the present 
 system of protection and repairs is maintained by future generations 
 of officials, the duration of the stations should be coeval with that 
 of the hills and plains on which they stand, and the great work now 
 completed will be of lasting utility. 
 
 A considerable amount of secondary triangulation has been 
 execvited pari passu with the principal triangulation, partly by 
 observations from the principal stations to all the most prominent 
 objects visible from them, as the snowy peaks of the Himalayan 
 range, and partly by the construction of chains of secondary triangles 
 resting on the primary chains, such as have been carried to a number 
 of important towns and cities within the limits of the Empire, and of 
 late years beyond these limits, to Kandahar and Khelat on the one 
 side, and to Bangkok on the other. Much secondary triangulation, 
 however, still remains to be executed. Until recently it was wanted 
 on the coast lines to furnish fixed points for the marine surveys, 
 and in localities in the interior at a distance from the nearest prin- 
 cipal chains, where data may be required for topographical survevs. 
 But it IS chiefly wanted outside the limits of India proper, as for 
 the extension of the Eastern Frontier Series through the Malayan 
 peninsula down to Singapore, and to furnish a basis for the 
 geography of Upper Burma. For tlie latter purpose three chains 
 on the meridians of 94°, 96°, and 98° respectively are desirable, the 
 two first of which would close on the chain of secondary triangula- 
 tion already completed in the Assam valley, while the third might 
 be carried still further to the north. Bangkok, the capital of Siam, 
 having already been connected with the Indian triangulation by a 
 chain of triangles, which was recently executed with the support of 
 the Siamese Government. 
 
 The requirements of geodesy necessitate astronomical observations 
 for the determination of the latitude and the azimuth, and electro 
 
GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. fi5 
 
 telegraphic observations for the determination of differential longi- 
 tudes, at several of the stations of the principal triangulation. These 
 have already been completed to a considerable extent. Further 
 operations of this nature are in progress ; they are carried out by 
 the two small astronomical parties which are attached to the trigono- 
 metrical or geodetic branch of the Department, and by which all the 
 operations that are required to render the principal triangulation 
 fully subservient to geodetic science should be completed in the 
 course of time. An extensive series of pendulum observations for 
 investigations of variations of gravity and the figure of the earth, 
 taken chiefly at stations of the principal triangulation, has been 
 completed and connected with the groups of corresponding observa^ 
 tions in other parts of the globe. Long lines of spirit-levels have 
 been carried on in connexion with the principal triangulation, from 
 the sea to the base-lines in the interior, and from sea to sea across 
 the peninsula ; they rest on determinations of the mean sea-level 
 which have been made at the tidal stations on the coasts.* 
 
 On the conclusion of the measurement of the Mergui base-line, 
 Mr. J. McGill and Mr. 0. D. Potter were deputed in 1882-3 to carry 
 a chain of secondary triangulation along the east coast, chiefly for 
 the purpose of setting up beacons for the use of the marine surveys. 
 These operations extended between Ichapur, in Granjam, to the town 
 of Pooree, the seat of the Jaganath temple. The country is generally 
 well populated and prosperous, including seaports and large towns, 
 but subject to unhealthy malarious influences. The Chilka lake 
 fell within the area of the work ; it is a vast sheet of salt water, 
 covering 350 square miles, with numerous islands, and fed by 
 freshets of the Mahanadi river and numerous small streams descending 
 from the Eastern Ghats ; it has one outlet into the sea by a small 
 breach in the said ridge, and a canal connects with the port of 
 Granjam. During 1883-84 the measurements were carried northward 
 along the coast of Orissa from Pooree to Balasor by Mr. A. D'Souza, 
 and the opportunity was taken to look up the old stations of Major 
 Saxton and Captain Depree's survey in 1858-59. In 1884-85 
 Mr. D'Souza worked southwards, and carried the old triangulation of 
 the Madras Coast Series, which had stopped at Coringa, to the mouth 
 of the Grodavari. Some interesting notes on the principal coast 
 towns and rivers of the Ganjam, Vizagapatam, and Godavari 
 districts accompany his report on the operations. The following 
 
 1 y 90321. 
 
 * From the Surveyor General's Eeport for 1881-82. 
 
66 GREAT TIUGONOMETRICAL SUaVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 seasons saw the operations advance botli northwards and southwards, 
 and in 1887-88 the entire coast triangulation from False Point to 
 Point Calimere, in the Tanjore district, was completed. Mr. Ryall, 
 who had assumed charge in 1885-86, had hoped to close his work on 
 to the station of the Xegapatam Minor Series, but these were found 
 to be so inconveniently situated and so hemmed in by gardens and 
 trees, that a carefully executed traverse, 60 miles in length, was 
 executed, and a junction effected with stations of the Great 
 Trigonometrical Survey. 
 
 The triangulation along the Madras coast having been thus 
 completed in 1887-88, the following year saw the party transferred 
 to Lower Burma for the purpose of carrying out similar work there 
 and fixing artificial beacons, as well as natural landmarks, at con- 
 venient intervals within sight of the sea for the Marine Surveyors 
 to base their work upon. One hundred and fifty-seven miles of 
 triangulation of this description were completed in 1 888-89, reaching 
 from Cape INTegrais to Sandoway, and about 170 miles in the 
 following season, A commencement was also made of the principal 
 triangulation for Upper Burma on the meridian of 97°. The series 
 emanated from a side of the Eastern Frontier Series near Toungoo, 
 and is destined to proceed northwards as far as Mandalay in the first 
 instance. Owing to climatic and other difliculties, the progress 
 during the past season was limited to the selection of two figures 
 and the building of the observing stations at the angles, but the 
 work was carried for 50 miles further in 1889-90, and six new 
 principal stations were fixed. For the Marine Surveys, 35 points 
 were fixed during the same year along a distance of 170 miles 
 from Kutabdia light-house off the coast of Chittagong, Bengal, 
 to Akyab, in Burma. 
 
 The series of secondary triangles emanating from the Great 
 Indus Series and running along the parallel of 30° N. latitude, 
 which had been commenced in the previous year to furnish a basis 
 for future work in Baluchistan was continued for a direct distance 
 of 115 miles to Quetta. Observations at four stations still remained 
 to carry the series to the Khwaja Amran range. 
 
 In this province and in the other new province of Upper Burma 
 a large field still awaits the exertions of the Indian triangulation 
 parties. 
 
67 
 
 IV. 
 TOPOGRAPHICAL SUEVBYS. 
 
 The Topographical and Revenue Surveys serve to furnish the 
 details required for filling up the outline supplied by the fixed points 
 of the tri angulation, the former being confined mainly to the Native 
 States, and non-regulation British districts, of small importance from 
 a revenue point of view, while the Revenue Surveys deal with the 
 more productive and valuable tracts. As has been appropriately said, 
 it is their function to supply flesh and blood to the skeleton provided 
 by the triangulators. But while the Trigonometrical Survey has 
 had to be conducted regularly throughout on a fixed plan, both the 
 Topographical and Revenue operations have to be taken up on 
 varying scales to suit local requirements and conditions. The 
 standard scale of the Topographical Survey is 1 inch to the mile, 
 but where the work has to be executed very quickly the scale is 
 reduced to -^^ or to J of an inch to the mile, as in trans-frontier 
 regions ; on the other hand, in British territory it is sometimes 
 increased to 2 inches, and generally to 4 inches for Forest Surveys. 
 The Revenue Surveys are on scales of 4, 16, and 32 inches to the 
 mile, and sometimes larger scales. These two classes of operations 
 have covered the greater portion of the expanse of British India 
 and the Native States, which have thus been, or are being, practically 
 mapped out on the scale and in the manner most appropriate to 
 the general purposes of administration. The accuracy of the 
 work has necessarily varied greatly according to circumstances. 
 Some of the earlier topographical surveys partook more of the 
 nature of rough and hasty geographical reconnaissances, but the 
 more recent surveys have been carried out on more rigorous 
 principles, and with greater regard for completeness and precision. 
 Since the close of the Punjab war in 1847, and the publication 
 of the " Manual of Surveying for India " a few years later, by 
 Captains Smyth and Thuillier, there has been an ever-increasing 
 
 E 2 
 
68 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 efficiency in the methods and procedure of the surveys, and in the 
 completeness and trustworthiness of the resulting maps. 
 
 At the close of the period dealt with in the last edition of the 
 " Memoir," the primary topography of the larger part of India, 
 as shown by the index map attached to Greneral Thuillier's topo- 
 graphical report, had been completed, the most conspicuous blanks 
 still remaining being the western half of Eajputana, the greater part 
 of the North- West Provinces, the Konkans, and nearly all the Madras 
 Presidency. The old maps of nearly all these regions had supplied 
 material for published sheets of the Indian Atlas on the scale of 
 four miles to the inch, but much of it was incomplete and unsatis- 
 factory, and the re-survey and re-engraving of the less-accurately 
 mapped tracts have consequently had to be taken up a3 financial and 
 other considerations permitted. The most recent index map of the 
 Indian Atlas shows that the Punjab, Sind, the Berars, part of 
 Rajputana, most of the western and southern portion of the Bombay 
 Presidency, Haidarabad, and nearly all Southern India, as well as the 
 North-West and Lower Provinces, must be re-engraved before the 
 Indian Atlas sheets exhibiting those regions can be held to be up to 
 the level of accuracy befitting the standard map of India. And as 
 in many of these tracts fresh and better surveys must precede the 
 preparation of fresh plates, it is clear that there is abundance of 
 employment still awaiting the Indian Topographical and .Revenue 
 Survey parties. 
 
 During the season 1876-77 nine separate parties of the Topo- 
 graphical Survey were at work in different parts of India. The 
 area allotted to the operations of the Gwalior and Central India 
 Survey covers an extensive portion of country east and south 
 of the Eajputana desert. One of its principal duties in 1876-77 
 was the construction of large scale surveys of the fortress of 
 Gwalior, the cantonments of Morar, the native city, and the Resi- 
 dency lands and surrounding country for the military authorities. 
 These were superintended by Captain Charles Strahan, R.B., chief 
 of the party, while Lieutenant J. R. Hobday carried on the one-inch 
 work towards the west in the Native States Udaipur, Dungarpur, 
 and Tonk in the Rajputana Agency. Part of Captain Strahan's 
 operations lay near the great water-parting of the rivers draining 
 east into the Bay of Bengal and those flowing into the Gulf of 
 Cambay on the west, and the difference here observable is most 
 remarkable, the north-east portion being very flat and quite open, 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS, 69 
 
 with several large towns and villages and fairly well cultivated ; it 
 forms part of the plateau of Eajputana, and is on the average about 
 1,600 feet above the sea ; while, after crossing the water-shed the 
 change is quite abnipt : the ground is intersected by watercourses 
 which gradually deepen into narrow valleys, and the general fall of 
 the face of the country shows a drop of 950 feet. 
 
 In 1877-78 the work of the party lay in the vicinity of TJdaipur 
 and east of the Aravalli mountains, a region part of which is inha- 
 bited by the notorious Bhils.* Lieutenant Hobday penetrated into 
 one " pal " or settlement (liter. " the embankment of a tank "), where 
 no one except Captain Conolly of the Bhil Corps had ever dared to 
 venture. He, however, trusted the people, and was well received. 
 The Bhil Corps appears from the accounts of Captain Strahan and 
 his assistants to be doing excellent work among the wild denizens of 
 these parts. Before the organization of the corps, the Bhils trusted 
 no one, looked on all intruders as enemies, and were so incredulous 
 of the good faith of the British that they had to be paid daily, 
 simply because they could not believe that if thoy remained they 
 would really receive thoir pay at the end of the month. Now there 
 are always a number of young men waiting for vacancies to be 
 enlisted in the regiment. Desertion is still frequent, but this is 
 partly due to their love of home and the distances to be traversed, 
 it being no xmcommon thing for a sepoy to walk 15 or 20 miles to 
 his home after his day's work and be back in time for parade in the 
 morning. A great deal of topographical information respecting 
 this country was amassed by Captain Strahan, including a detailed 
 description of the great fort of Chitorgarh.f 
 
 During this season the party was deprived of one of its most 
 highly valued members by the death of Mr. H. J. Bolst, who suc- 
 cumbed to typhoid fever after a long illness. He had been 27 year^ 
 in the Department, 17 years of which had been spent in this party, 
 where ho had rendered most useful service. 
 
 The programme for 1878-79 involved a partial diversion from the 
 ordinary work, and included a survey of the Pachpadra salt fields 
 (described by Captain C. Strahan in the appendix) on the 4-inch scale, 
 and of the land adjoining the Luni River on the 1-inch scale, both 
 
 * Some interesling details respecting the Bhils by Sub-surveyor Abdul Sobhan will 
 be found at page 43 of the Topographical Survey Eeport for 1 876-77. 
 
 f See page 101, et seq., of Surveyor General's Eeport for 1877-78. Also pages 41 
 and 42 of Topographical Survey Report for 1876-77. 
 
70 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEY?. 
 
 being in the Jodhpur State, for the requirements of the Indian 
 Customs Department. The regular work of the party consisted of a 
 detail survey of the city of Udaipur* and environs on the 12-inch 
 scale, and detail survey of the neighbouring district on the 1-inch 
 scale. A comparatively small out-turn of work was effected in the 
 following season, but this was mainly due to the intricate character 
 of the ground, which was likened by Major E. H. Steel (who took 
 charge during absence on furlough of Captain Strahan) to " a petrified 
 stormy sea." The ground to the north, whither the operations were 
 moved in 1880-81, proved still more intricate and difficult, and th^; 
 attitude of the Bhils was very threatening, insomuch so that 
 Mr. Templeton, one of the surveyors, was warned not to return to 
 one of the Bhil villages if he valued his life. In 1881-82 the 
 region about Mount Abu fell within the area of triangulation, while 
 the topography ranged over the three Eajput States of Marwar, 
 Mewar, and Sirohi. The transfer of No. 7 topographical party from 
 Rajputana to Burma led to its uncompleted ground being allotted to 
 Iso. 1 party, which in consequence assumed the designation of the 
 Central India and the Rajputana Survey party. In the three years 
 1882-85 portions of the country south-west of Brinpui^a as well as 
 of the desert west of Bikanir and parts of the Sirohi, Palanpur, 
 and Jodhpur States were mapped in detail, as well as special 
 surveys of the Sunda and Dorra ranges of hills, and large scale 
 surveys of Ajmere, Jaipur, Amer or Amber. In 1885-86 the 
 triangulation was carried down to the margin of the Rann of Cutch 
 mentioned below (see p. 85), while the detail survey was carried on 
 in portions of Jodhpur and tracts adjacent to the Luni river. But 
 at the close of that season the Rajputana party was ordered to be 
 transferred to Baluchistan, so a large tract of this important province 
 of British India remains unsurveyed, with no definite arrangements 
 for its completion. The number of standard sheets unsurveyed are 
 fifty out of a total of ninety-seven, covering nearly all the western 
 half of the province. 
 
 The Khandesh and Bombay Native States Survey worked in two 
 detachments in 1876-77, one being employed on the ordinary one- 
 inch scale in the Native hilly states north of the Narbada, and the 
 second, under Mr. H. Horst, the officer in charge, on the more 
 
 * A good description of the city will be found from the pen of Lieutenant J. E. 
 Hobday at pages 42 and 43 of the Topographical Survey Eeport for 1875-76. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 71 
 
 important two-inch survey of the revenue-paying portion of the 
 plains of Khandesh. While surveying in the Tapti valley, 
 Mr. Graham, Assistant Surveyor, witnessed some extraordinary 
 examples of " sorcery " among the Bhils, such as walking through 
 and treading on live coals barefoot without sustaining the slightest 
 apparent injury.* Mr. Horst was assured it was a common practice, 
 and frequently adopted by village punchayets as an ordeal in trials for 
 theft and murder. The work was continued during the two following 
 seasons, the plane-tabling including part of the Western Satpuras and 
 the valley of the Tapti. Great obstacles were encountei'ed by the 
 surveyors, partly from the high and rugged character of the hills, 
 but chiefly from the diflSculty in getting supplies and the general 
 inhospitable nature of the country. The only water available for 
 drinking was of the most unwholesome description, to which may 
 be attributed the constant attacks of fever to which the assistants who 
 surveyed the worst parts were subjected. The culminating portion 
 of the Satpura range " Astamba," 4,346 feet above sea-level, came 
 into the season's work. About 900 square miles on the two inch 
 scale were surveyed bet^yeen the town of Dhulia and the Tapti 
 river, this tract consisting mainly of undulating revenue-paying 
 districts. An attempt was made, on the whole successfully, to 
 incorporate the village boundaries from the Bombay Eevenue 
 Survey maps. Captain W. J. Heaviside, who took charge of the 
 party in 1879-80, furnishes some picturesque descriptions of the trap 
 formation of the Dcccan, which in Khandesh assumes the form of 
 grand black precipices surmounted by massive basaltic columns 
 rising to three or four thousand feet above sea-level. Two con- 
 spicuous basaltic hills, known as Mangya Tangya, on a spur of the 
 Sahyadri hills, are of remarkable appearance, resembling monoliths 
 rising from pyramidical bases, in which numerous steps have been 
 cut. Some Buddhist temples, hewn out of the solid rock, are also to 
 be seen here. The following season saw the detail survey carried 
 forward in the south-western portion of the area allotted to the 
 party, where it abuts on Berar and the Nizam's dominions. The 
 inhabitants of this part mostly speak Mahrati, and are rather addicted 
 to drink and theatricals, which latter entertainment affords a means 
 of support to a class of strolling actors. 
 
 The Khandesh and Bombay Native States Survey was finally 
 brought to a conclusion by Major T. T. Carter in 1882-83. It had 
 
 • See page 47 of Topographical Survey Report for 1876-77, 
 
72 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 been started in 1871, and comprised an area of 18,133 square miles, 
 including Khandesh and some of its outlying villages in the Nizam's 
 territory. Of the total area about 10,532 square miles have been 
 surveyed and published on the one-inch scale, and the remaining 
 7,601 square miles have been surveyed on the tvro-inch scale, but 
 published on the one-inch scale. The first-named part comprises the 
 rugged and hilly tracts lying between the Tapti and Narbada 
 rivers, forming portion of the Satpura range and the tract of country 
 lying above the Ghats of the Satmala hills ; that surveyed on the 
 two-inch scale consists of the alluvial valleys of the Tapti river and 
 its tributaries, where the country is richer and productive. In these 
 parts the valleys are numerous, well cultivated, and connected by 
 good roads, and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway traverses it 
 from south-west to north-east. 
 
 The Bhopal and Malwa Survey party was originally organized in 
 1862 for the survey of llewa and Bundelkhand, and on the 
 completion of that work was transferred in 1871 to Bhopal and 
 Malwa, to deal with all the country north of the Narbada river in 
 the Central India and Rajputana Agencies between the parallels of 
 22° 15' and 24°, and bounded on the east by Saugor and on the 
 west by Mahi Kanta and Eewa Kantha. The survey lies inter- 
 mediate between the operations of the Gwalior and Central India 
 party to the north and the Khandesh and Bombay Native States 
 party to the south. Up to 1877 the out-turn of topography in 
 Bhopal and Malwa had been a little over 16,000 square miles, The 
 work of 1876-77 saw the practical completion of the topography 
 of the Yindhya range, which runs generally east and west through 
 the area of the survey. Between the towns of Dhar and Amjhera 
 there runs a low ridge extending northward some 30 miles, and the 
 point where this ridge issues from the Vindhya range is the water- 
 shed* of three of the river-systems of India, viz., 1st, the Narbada, 
 which lies to the southward and flows westward into the Gulf of 
 Cambay, 2nd, the Mahi, which rises to the north-west and discharges 
 into the same gulf after a circuitous course, and, 3rd, the Ohambal 
 and Chamli rivers, which, rising to north-east, unite near Barnagar 
 and join the Jumna. During 1877-78 fever prevailed in almost 
 every camp, but a fair out-turn of work was nevertheless attained, 
 while in the following season large scale surveys of Indore and 
 
 * The height of the water-shed is apparently 1,883 feet. See Ciiptain Wilnier's 
 Narrative, Surveyor- General's Report for 1878-79, page 13 of Appendix. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 73 
 
 Dewas were completed in addition to the ordinary mapping. The 
 greater part of the ground covered by the surveyors of this party 
 proved tedious and intricate to the plane-tablers. Major J. R.. 
 Wilmer, who was in charge, mentions a peculiar custom that the 
 Bhils have here of branding their male children on the arms above 
 the wrist with burning cotton dipped in oil, so as to enable them 
 to be identified as true Bhils. This custom appears to have been 
 unknown to previous writers. At the close of the season 1881-82 it 
 wag arranged that the bulk of this party should be transferred to the 
 Mirzapur district, while the few remaining sheets of the Malwa 
 survey were entrusted to the Khandesh and Bombay Native States 
 (No. 2) party, who had completed their work in the season 1882-83, 
 and assumed in consequence the designation of the Bhopal and Malwa 
 Survey party. The latter work was brought to a termination in 
 1884-85, the entire out-turn of the 15 seasons having amounted to 
 29,262 square miles, comprising 59 standard sheets, all surveyed on 
 the one-inch scale. In addition, large scale surveys were made and 
 mapped of 13 cities and cantonments, representing an area of 
 127 square miles. The survey had been commenced in 1870-71 by 
 Major Riddell, R.E., and carried on by that officer till 1873-74, 
 when the charge of the party devolved on Lieutenant- Colonel 
 Wilmer, by whom the work was continued till 1882-83, when the 
 party was transferred to Mirzapur. The late Khandesh (afterwards 
 re-named the Malwa) party, under Major Carter, R.B., then resumed 
 this work and did a full season's area in 1883-84, and in the 
 following season the charge of the survey was entrusted to 
 Mr. Patterson, by whom the work was brought to a. completion. 
 While working in the TJdaipur State some sensational stories were 
 circulated respecting the poles erected as signals to mark the trigono- 
 metrical stations, which the natives were convinced were intended for 
 the immolation of the men and women. Another rumour circulated 
 was that the survey party had come to weigh all the married men 
 and women, and that of those found of unequal weight there would be 
 a redistribution, thus disturbing their marriage ties. The Udaipur 
 Durbar, in consequence of these rumours, desired the survey party 
 to retire as soon as possible, but Mr. Patterson took the occasion to 
 invite the Bhils to the camp and encouraged them to dance and 
 sing and shoot at a target with their bows and arrows, afterwards 
 dismissing them with douceurs. A description by Mr. Gr. P. Tate 
 of the town of Bhinmal and surrounding country will be found 
 
74 TOPOGKAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 in the j^ppendix to tlie Eeport of the Surveyor- General for 1884-S5, 
 T')affe XXX. 
 
 Central Provinces, Sfc. — Turning now to the operations which had 
 been progressing in the east of the Peninsula, we find that the season 
 1876-77 was signalised by the completion of the Central Provinces 
 and Vizagapatam Agency Survey, embracing altogether 72,144 
 square miles. The difficulty and unhealthiness of work in this 
 region had been almost proverbial from its commencement, and its 
 successful termination was a matter of genuine congratulation ; 
 the previous operations were mainly associated with the name of 
 Colonel Saxton, who is frequently mentioned in the " Memoir " : 
 to Captain Holdich belonged the credit of completing the work, 
 though this was not done without much cost and suffering to all 
 the members of the party, some of whom were so prostrated 
 by jungle fever that they were with difficulty removed from the 
 field on the conclusion of the work. The characteristic features of 
 the country where the concluding operations lay were extensive 
 plateaux of from 1,800 to 2,000 feet above sea-level, surmounted by 
 masses of flat-topped hills. These high lands are a continuation 
 of the great plateau system of Central India, which decreasing in 
 elevation by a succession of steppes finally breaks to the west 
 into the low-lying plains forming the basin of the Godavari. The 
 geological structure of this part of the country is mixed, being 
 composed of trap and varieties of sandstone and slate ; the first 
 occurs in the higher flat masses, while the two latter predominate 
 in the lower hills, and are distinctly separate one from another, a 
 circumstance producing bold, rugged, and ever-changing scenery, 
 but always the same endless monotony of forest from the plains 
 to the highest peaks. The Pertabpur taluk on the right bank of 
 the Kotri abounds in tigers, and sometimes whole villages are 
 deserted through their depredations. 
 
 Another survey also brought to a conclusion in the same season 
 was that of No. 4 party, N.E. Division, Central Provinces Survey, 
 which had originally been organized by Colonel De Pree in 1856, 
 and during the 22 years of its existence had triangulated and 
 mapped on the one-inch scale a tract of country extending from the 
 Bay of Bengal at Balasor to a point nine miles east of Jabalpur. 
 This tract extends over nine degrees of longitude, and on an 
 average two degrees of latitude, and its area amounts to nearly 
 25,000 square miles. The difficulties overcome here were of no 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 75 
 
 ordinary nature, for the country is a continuation of tte Vindhya 
 range, "whicli crosses India from Bombay on tlie west towards 
 Calcutta on the east and then turns southwards to Madras, forming 
 everywhere the water-shed Between the great river-system draining 
 into the Bay of Bengal, and that towards the west into the Indian 
 Ocean. The land is almost entirely a series of plateaux of one uniform 
 height between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above sea-level, and of a wild, 
 hilly, and inaccessible character, destitute of roads, and inhabited 
 by an original population of Kols and Gonds, as well as minor 
 tribes. In addition to the ordinary survey, 11 Grovernment reserved 
 forests were mapped on the four-inch scale. Alphabetical lists were 
 compiled of each State, the areas computed, the houses counted, 
 and the whole arranged in a compendious form as a gazetteer for 
 each of the standard sheets. The Chota Nagpur Division of the 
 Central Provinces covers 75 sheets, of 30' longitude by 15' of lati- 
 tude, and the jS^orth-Eastern Division, 42 sheets. 
 
 Assam. — The desultory and detached nature of the frontier surveys 
 and explorations on which the Khasia, Garo and Naga Hills party 
 (N^o. 6) had been for some years engaged, necessitated its being 
 broken in 1876-77 into three distinct sections or detachments. 
 Major Badgley, the officer in charge of the party, undertook the 
 revision of certain work in the vicinity of Shillong ; Lieutenant 
 E. G. "Woodthorpe, R.E., and Mr. M. J. Ogle were detached to 
 explore a wild part of the Lakhimpur district at the extreme head 
 of the Assam valley, south-east of Sadiya, and close to the Burma 
 frontier ; while the other two assistants were deputed on the Khasi, 
 Kamrup, and Garo Boundary Survey. Under these circumstances 
 the cost of the work was necessarily higher than usual, while dense 
 forest, swamps, want of good drinking water, venomous insects, 
 and fever seriously impeded the progress of Lieutenant Woodthorpe 
 and Mr. Ogle's work. Both these officers contributed some in- 
 teresting descriptions of the country and of the manners and 
 customs of the Singphos, Kamtis, Nagas, and other tribes met 
 with. 
 
 The next season (1877-78) saw Major Badgley again engaged 
 in the revision of the survey work between Gauhati and Shillong, 
 (which had been done under unfavourable circumstances, necessitating 
 a re-examination of the ground), and also in triangulation in Sylhet, 
 where the swampy and malarious character of the place, and the 
 
76 TOPOGKAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 cowardly and malignant behaviour of the inhabitants, whom Major 
 Badgley found to be a particularly obnoxious and untrustworthy 
 lot, proved awkward obstacles to progress. 
 
 Lieutenant Woodthorpe was deputed with an assistant in the 
 first instance to accompany Lieutenant Harman to the Miri hills, 
 as already mentioned on page 52. On his return, Lieutenant Wood- 
 thorpe proceeded to Sadiya, and without waiting for his Mishmi 
 carriers, who had failed to put in an appearance, he ascended a 
 range of hills rising about 9,000 feet high, and overlooking the main 
 valley of the Dibong, and succeeded in acquiring the following : — 
 (1) a fairly accurate knowledge of the sources of the Dibong, and 
 the course of its main stream in the hills ; (2) an accurate know- 
 ledge of its course in the plains, and of about 1,000 square miles 
 of the hills bordering it ; and (3) an approximate knowledge of an 
 additional 1,100 square miles in the hills. The Dikrang, Diphu, 
 and Digaru rivers were also mapped. 
 
 This party had been engaged for several years in surveying the 
 hills south of the Brahmaputra river, the greater portion on the 
 half-inch scale, when in 1878 Major Badgley was instructed to 
 undertake a full topographical survey on the larger scale of 
 two inches to the mile of all the land on the south of the Sylhet 
 district left unsurveyed by the Revenue Survey, and afterwards 
 to make a detailed survey of the boundaries of tea grants and 
 estates. The want of accurate surveys was believed to be costing 
 Government heavily in fraudulent zemindari claims. "With the 
 assistance of some surveyors lent from the Revenue Survey Branch 
 this work was taken in hand. Much difficulty was experienced, in 
 triangulating, the stations being in most cases platforms supported 
 by bamboo scaffolding round trees, the tops of which were cut off 
 and the levelled stump used as a stand for the theodolite. Great 
 care had to be taken not to touch the tree, as once set swaying it 
 took some time to come to rest, and the wind for the same reason 
 sometimes put a stop to observations. Major Badgley says of the 
 Tipperahs that they are active fellows, and excellent hands at 
 jungle cutting, but their fondness for burning the forests makes 
 them undesirable cultivators. The Manipuris he describes as 
 pleasant-spoken, independent, and good hands at a bargain, but 
 in matters concerning land as often victimised by the Sylhetias, who 
 are strong, cowardly, morose, and quite uncompromising in their 
 hatred of Europeans. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 77 
 
 During 1^79-80 and 1880-81 Major Badgley found it very 
 difficult to get coolies, vfhile work was further retarded by the 
 difficult ground, consisting principally of hills, forest, and swamp. 
 One of these swamps called Hakaluki Howhar is about 20 miles 
 long by 9 miles broad during the rains. Major Badgley says that 
 he had to cross it once during winter, and was up to his waist in 
 water and weeds in it from eight o'clock in the morning till past 
 10 at night. In the following season the country under survey lay 
 further to the west, about the lower spurs of the Tipperah hills, 
 running northwards past the British boundary into the plains of 
 South Sylhet, as well as the isolated groups of low hills lying 
 between Fenchugunj and the Manu river. These tracts of country 
 up to that time described on the maps as " hills covered with 
 " impenetrable jungle " were rapidly becoming very valuable, as they 
 were being taken up and opened out for tea cultivation. Lieutenant- 
 Colonel "Woodthorpe, who was in charge of the party, remarks on 
 the beauty of South Sylhet. The following graphic description 
 from his pen is worth quoting : — 
 
 " At four o'clock in the afternoon I am standing on a cleared hill just above a large 
 tea garden. The air is beautifully soft and balmj', and looking to the east I see below 
 me the gentle undulations and flat ground under tea cultivation, the rich dark green 
 bushes standing out in bold contrast on the red-brown soil. Among the bushes the 
 busy coolies are at work, the women adding brightness to the scene with their 
 brilliantly coloured robes. In the midst of the cultivation on the banks of a clear 
 stream, in a small, well-kept enclosure with a pretty tauk, stands the manager's 
 bungalow, a large commodious house, with white-washed walls and lofty thatched roof, 
 slightly hidden by tall plaintain trees. Rose bushes and other shrubs flourish in tlie 
 garden, in which from my elevated standpoint I can see that the useful is not over- 
 looked in the culture of the beautiful, as testified by a corner where many tempting- 
 looking vegetables are growing. With the orange glow of the afternoon sun upon 
 it, the bungalow, with its garden, looks, as indeed I find it, a very haven of rest, 
 comfort, and hospitality. I hear voices behind the bungalow near some large, neat 
 tea-houses, and, looking, I see an excellent tennis court, where an exciting contest is 
 being carried on between the young planters of this and a neighbouring garden. 
 Beyond, the view due south is closed by the virgin forest of dark trees and feathery 
 bamboos, the greater portion of which Avill soon, by the enterprise of the planters 
 and the extension of the tea gardens, disappear. To the south-west and west the eye 
 wanders over the plains of South Sylhet, bounded on the south by the jungle-clad 
 hills of Tipperah, purple now and indistinct. The flat green fields, above which, as 
 the sun sinks, soft mist wreaths float, are broken up by frequent clumps of mighty 
 bamboos or fine old banian trees, amid whose dark recesses a few glimpses of reddish 
 roofs and the light blue smoke curling upwards denote the presence of villages. 
 Beyond these to the west and north lie open expanses of what at this season is dry, 
 or at the worst, only damp ground, but which a few of the March and April storms 
 
78 TOPOfctRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 will speedily convert into swamp?, and even lakes. A thin dark line appearing here 
 and there marks the course of a river, its waters now very low and hidden by the high 
 banks, above which the masts of country boats and the smoke from the funnel of a 
 steamer, just about to anchor for the night, are visible. Far away to the north 
 beyond the plain, the trees, the villages, and the station of Sylhet itself, rises the 
 long, level outline of the Khasia hills, faintly glowing in the sunset. A hum of 
 voices ascends from the villages below, cows wend their way homewards through the 
 deepening gloom, and as the snn sinks in the brown obscurity of the distant horizon, 
 I shut up my theodolite, and running down the hillside, soon find myself at the 
 bungalow, where a hearty welcome and an excellent dinner await me.'' 
 
 Colonel Woodthorpe takes occasion to record in his report the 
 very great assistance and hospitality rendered to him and to his 
 followers by the planters, who in several places are making good 
 roads themselves, and so actively helping to open up the country. 
 
 Mr. A. W. Chennell, an energetic and valued member of this 
 party, died in Bombay Harbour on the 5th October 1883. The 
 disease to which he succumbed had originated in an accident he 
 met with during the previous season while traversing a stream in 
 the Tipperah hills. He had always been mentioned in the highest 
 terms by the officers under whom he served during the 19 years 
 he had been in the Department, and he was one of the surveyors who 
 were specially selected for service in Afghanistan during the late war. 
 
 The season of 1883-84 was to have been occupied in the 
 survey of the ISFoa Dihing valley and the hitherto unexplored 
 portions of the Patkoi range on the extreme north-eastern frontier 
 of Assam, but owing to the Aka raid on Balipur, the work was 
 postponed, and the survey party, in accordance with the wishes of 
 the Chief Commissioner of Assam, was ordered to accompany the 
 military force which was sent into the hills to rescue British 
 captives. The topographical results appear to have been meagre, 
 as the military authorities did not permit Colonel "Woodthorpe to 
 visit much of the Aka country. He and Mr. Ogle subsequently 
 explored some of the Daphla hills, discovering in the course of 
 their work a branch of the Bhoroli named Kameng, of which large 
 stream no one had ever heard. The weather was, however, 
 exceptionally bad, and Colonel Woodthorpe considers that on the 
 north bank of the Brahmaputra the higher ranges are seldom free 
 from cloud and rain after November. 
 
 The season 1884-85 was devoted to work on the extreme north- 
 eastern frontier of Assam, where a knowledge of the mountainous 
 region between the head of the Assam valley and the upper waters 
 
TOPOaRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 79 
 
 of flie Irawadi is even now (1891) very important, as the esta- 
 blishment of a direct means of communication between the two 
 countries will be a great ac^inistrative and commercial gain, and 
 help towards opening up this part of Upper Burma. No. 6 survey- 
 party, consisting of Colonel Woodthorpe, Mr. Ogle, and Mr. Swing, 
 with, an escort of the 44th Gurkha Light Infantry, and some 
 Frontier Police under the command of Major C. E. Macgregor, 
 explored this tract in 1884-85, ascending the Noa Dihing river 
 from Sudiya, and crossed the Chankau pass (8,400 feet) over the 
 dividing range. From an adjoining mountain, Mokoshat, the 
 Brahmaputra and Irawadi rivers can both be descried on a clear 
 day. The inhabitants of this part of the Upper Irawadi are 
 Kamtis or Shans, and Buddhists by religion; Major Macgregor 
 believes them to be of Siamese stock. The reception they gave the 
 English was friendly, and they appeared to be particularly honest. 
 The furthest points reached by the surveyors were Langdao and 
 Padao (the capital) on the M'Li-kha river (one of the affluents 
 of the Irawadi), a little south of Lieutenant Wilcox's furthest, 
 after which the party returned and crossed the mountains at an 
 altitude of 5,500 feet into the head waters of the Kyendwen, 
 re-crossing eventually by the Patkoi pass (2,860 feet) into Assam.* 
 
 Part of the region to the south-west, intermediate between the 
 Naga hills and the Hukong valley, was explored in 1888 by an 
 expedition under Mr. J. P. Needham, Assistant Political Officer at 
 Sadiya, Mr. Ogle being again attached thereto as surveyor. The 
 starting point was Margherita, the terminus of the Assam Eailway, 
 which was left on the 4th January, and to which the expedition 
 returned on the 28th February, having failed to reach their objective 
 point in the Hukong valley owing to difficulties in obtaining 
 carriage, the lateness of the season, and other causes, but having 
 demonstrated the practicability of reaching the Hukong valley by 
 two routes, viz., 1st, by the Nongyong lake, and 2nd, by the Naga 
 hills route, which "goes through the mountains south of Margherita. 
 The pass over the Patkoi on the outward journey was found to be 
 4,147 feet, while that on the return was 7,192 feet above sea-level. 
 About 1,500 square miles of entirely new country lying south of 
 the Patkoi range (up to which the surveys of 1873-74 had been 
 carried) was surveyed by Mr. Ogle, who has established a reputation 
 
 * See also Proceedings of the Eoyal Geographical Society for 1885, pp. 541 and 751. 
 
80 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 by his successful work in these regions, and the new work was 
 connected with that done further eastward in 1884-85. The Nagas 
 met with south of the Patkoi have some cruel characteristics, 
 and are addicted to human sacrifices ; but they nevertheless were 
 friendly disposed towards our troops, and gave useful assistance in 
 various ways. 
 
 This piece of exploration was the last accomplished by No. 6 
 party, which was finally dissolved on the 16th July 1885. A 
 retrospect of its history since its formation in 1863 is given by 
 Mr. Ogle at page viii of the Appendix to the Report of the Surveyor- 
 General for 1884-85. 
 
 The important survey of Sikkim which was carried out by 
 Lieut. Harman after completion of his work in Northern Assam is 
 described at pages 126 and 127, infra. 
 
 Rajfutana and Simla. — This party (No. 7) was divided in two 
 detachments in 1876-77, Lieutenant E. P. Leach, R.B., being 
 engaged on an elaborately contoured survey of the Observatory hill, 
 Simla, and Mr. R. Todd in prosecuting the detail survey in the 
 desert portions of the Marwar (Jodhpur), Shekawati, and Bikanir 
 States in Rajputana, as well as a large scale survey of the city 
 and environs of Jodhpur and 50 linear miles of forest reserve 
 boundaries in Ajmere and Merwara. On the return of the party 
 to recess quarters the triangulation for the survey of the 
 approaches to Simla and of the several military cantonments 
 between Simla and the plains was taken in hand and carried over 
 120 miles. 
 
 Owing to the failure next year of the rains in Central and 
 Southern India, it was not feasible to send more than a small 
 portion of the Rajputana party to that province, so the remainder 
 were employed in the neighbourhood of Simla, where a total area of 
 104 square miles of roads and adjacent strips of country was 
 surveyed on the 6-inch scale, together with plans of Subathu and 
 Kasauli cantonments. The system of topography employed by 
 Colonel De Free for the hills in these surveys was the same as 
 employed by Lieutenant E. P. Leach in the previous season, i.e., a 
 combination of contour lines, sketched by eye, with other contour 
 lines which had been accurately determined by water level, care- 
 fully followed in succession by the topographers and accurately 
 delineated on the plane-table. Thus on the 6-inch maps the true 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS, 81 
 
 contour lines represent vertical intervals of 250 feet between which 
 were drawn nine eye contours at about 25 feet apart, while in the 
 cantonment maps on the 24-inch scale the true contour lines ran 
 at vertical intervals of 50 feet between which there were four eye 
 contours. This method of contouring proved valuable, enabling, 
 as it did, native surveyors with no aptitude for hill sketching to 
 produce accurate maps of difficult hill country, and reducing the 
 delineation thereof to a comparatively mechanical operation. 
 
 Operations in 1878-79 were resumed in the Bikanir desert, where 
 the ground* was characterised by the regular sand waves formed 
 by the prevalent south-west wind, and a general paucity of 
 vegetation. The country, however, may be said to be culturable, 
 for it only requires for the sand to be scratched up, seed to be 
 sown, and the rainfall does the rest. It is said that when the rain- 
 fall has been good and the locusts do not destroy the standing 
 crops one year's harvest will feed the people for three years. By 
 December the crops are all off the ground, and after that, till the 
 next rains, the Bikanir cultivators remain idle in their houses. The 
 ground traversed during the following season was of the same rather 
 uninteresting description, being varied only by the salt works at 
 Sar and the sandstone quarries at Khari. In the former a coarse 
 salt is produced by solar evaporation, and in the latter a stone 
 of good colour and of compact texture, of which the stratum is 
 horizantal and close to the surface. 
 
 During the following year, as the work moved gradually to the 
 north and west, the country became even more desert-like than 
 before ; but in the Jodhpur State a welcome change ensued, the 
 usual rolling sand hills and ridges of the desert being replaced by 
 extensive plains composed of sandy clay, all more or less fertile, 
 varied by clumps of rocky hills. The wells in this part of the 
 country are of great depth, one measured by Mr. McGrill, who was 
 in charge of the party in 1881-82, being 480 feet deep, and the 
 average depth being 270 feet. 
 
 At the close of the season the Rajputana party was transferred 
 to Burma and merged into the Burma Topographical party, the 
 Eajputana work being handed over to No. 1 topographical party, 
 as mentioned above (see page 70). 
 
 Mysore. — The important survey of the Native State of Mysore* had 
 been commenced in 1874-75, and good progress had been made during 
 
 * See Memoirs on the Indian Surveys, 2nd ed., p. 175. 
 
 I Y 20321. ^ 
 
82 TOl'OGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 the season. But in 1876-77 a serious famine overspread the 
 greater part of Madras, and survey work in Mysore had con- 
 sequently to be restricted to those tracts in the Nandidrug and 
 Nagar divisions where it was easier to obtain water, provisions, and 
 forage. This seriously lessened the out-turn of work of the two 
 parties (Nos. 8 and 9), and at the close of the season, as so many 
 members of these parties had been necessarily deputed to famine relief 
 duties, it was deemed better to amalgamate the remaining survey 
 officers into one party under Major H. R. Thuillier, R.E. (now Sur- 
 veyor-General of India). On taking the field next year the prospects 
 were better than could have been expected, considering the disasters 
 to which the province had been subjected. The tanks were well 
 filled, pasturage was abundant, and but for the deserted look of the 
 villages a stranger could not have imagined that famine and 
 drought had so lately been devastating the country. Nevertheless 
 the season was particularly unhealthy. Fever of a virulent type 
 broke out early in the field season in many parts, and all the 
 European members of the party, except the officer in charge, were 
 laid up, while the menial establishment, without a single exception, 
 suffered more or less. During 1878-79 seven surveyors, assistants, 
 and sub-surveyors rejoined the party after being temporarily 
 employed on famine relief duties, so that it became practicable to 
 split the party again into two detachments. One of these detachments 
 was engaged in triangulating the western part of the State, pre- 
 paratory to a detail survey of the tracts between Mysore and South 
 Kanara, so as to aid in the settlement of the long-debated frontier 
 survey, while the other detachment was occupied in the detail survey 
 of part of the Nandidrng division. In the Malnad, as the country 
 over which the triangulation extended is called, the principal feature 
 is the Western Ghats, rising to a height of over 6,000 feet, covered 
 for the most part with magnificent virgin forest, and forming the 
 source of numerous rivers. The western face of this range is 
 extremely precipitous, so as to be nearly inaccessible from that side, 
 but from the eastern face numerous spurs branch out in all direc- 
 tions, and form more or less continuous chains of hills, which with 
 innumerable undulations overspread the greater part of the State. 
 The Malnad is essentially the country of rain and fog, and two or 
 three months immediately after the monsoon season it is looked 
 upon as most unhealthy for those not acclimatised to it. Its staple 
 products are coffee, betel-nut, cardamoms, and pepper, and the 
 trade is mainly effected by means of pack-cattle, locomotion being 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVKYS. 83 
 
 difficult except along the roads, whicli are few and far between. 
 Great efforts were made to complete the mapping of the Mysore- 
 Kanara frontier during the following season (1879-80), but fever 
 and sickness attacked the party, and at the close of the season two 
 small gaps, aggregating about 25 miles in length, were unavoidably 
 left. Owing to the difficulty of the country the ordinary method of 
 working with the plane-table was in many cases utterly imprac- 
 ticable, and resort was had to special methods, particularly that 
 known as plane-table traversing, in which the plane-table supplies 
 the place of an angular instrument and the measurements are made 
 by chain, a process slow at all times, but especially so when the 
 chain lines, as in this case, had to be cleared through dense forest. 
 The same procedure had to be adopted in 1880-81 in the survey of 
 the western pai-t of the province. The Assistant Superintendent, 
 Captain J. R. McOullagh, R.B., accompanied the Boundary Commis- 
 sioners in their work of demarcation, and inserted on the maps the 
 position of the ■various marks erected by them. The general work of 
 the party was much impeded by fever, from which all its members 
 suffered more or less ; one valued officer, Mr. R. Chew, Senior 
 Surveyor, succumbed to a severe form of malarious fever contracted 
 in the Bhadra valley. He had been 25 years in the Department, 
 and had gained high commendation for his professional skill and 
 steady attention to his duties. 
 
 A large out-turn of topographical work was rendered in 1881-82, 
 this being due partly to the fact that so much triangulation had 
 been accomplished in previous years that sufficient ground had been 
 thereby prepared for the season's detail survey, and partly to the 
 good health enjoyed by the party. As in former years, part of the 
 work lay in the Malnad, where progress was necessarily slow, and 
 part in the easier and more open Maidan country. The former part of 
 the survey lay on the extreme western edge of the province, and 
 included the famous Falls of Gi-ersoppa, which are said to be the 
 most picturesque falls in India. The Sheravati flowing over a very 
 rocky bed about 250 yards wide here reaches a tremendous chasm 
 960 feet in depth, down which it is precipitated in four striking 
 cascades. The Falls are graphically described in the "Mysore 
 Gazetteer."* 
 
 During the seasons 1883-84 and 1884-85 the mapping of Mysore 
 was steadily pushed forward under Major Thuillier. In the latter 
 
 * "volume II., pages 386-390. 
 
 F 2 
 
84 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 year the country was exceptionally diificult, fully half of the area 
 consisting of interminable forest and jungle, very sparsely populated 
 even when villages existed at all. The most ordinary supplies (in- 
 cluding water) were obtained only with great difl&culty ; the heat was 
 intense, severe and continuous physical exertion had to be maintained, 
 the detachments were constantly molested by wild elephants and other 
 beasts, and the unhealthy season prostrated several members of the 
 party and a large number of the menial establishment. The entire 
 survey was finally completed by Major McCuUagh, R.E., in the 
 middle of April 1886, and the whole of the records brought to a satis- 
 factory termination by the 1st of October the same year. The area 
 of the Mysore State proved to be 29,305 square miles, which was 
 over 2,000 square miles in excess of the estimated area. A strip 
 of the country was also surveyed outside and all round the state 
 boundary. The Mysore Survey was based on portions of the three 
 j)rincipal series of triangles known as the " Grreat Arc Meridional," 
 the " Mangalore Meridional," and the " Madras Longitudinal." 
 At the time of its commencement, in addition to the strictly 
 topographical work on the scale of one inch to one mile, special 
 surveys on a large scale of the various State forests within the 
 province were contemplated, but after three of these forests, viz., 
 Bilikal, Nandidrug, and Dwarayadurga had been completed, it 
 was decided that no more should be undertaken. The mapping of 
 the state is contained in 70 standard sheets, 4 sheets of Reserved 
 Forest Surveys, and 19 sheets of Cantonments and City Surveys, 
 chief among which were the surveys of Bangalore and Mysore 
 towns. The survey was originally commenced in November 1875, 
 and thus took 11 years to complete. The cost was entirely borne 
 by the revenues of the State of Mysore. 
 
 On the conclusion of the Mysore Survey the party was transferred 
 to the Madura and Tinnevelli districts of the Madras Presidency, 
 it having been arranged between the Grovernments of India and 
 Madras that the topographical work remaining to be done in the 
 Piesidency, aggregating about 12,400 square miles, should be 
 surveyed on the 1-inch and the forests on the 4-inch scale by 
 the professional Survey Department instead of by the Madras 
 Revenue authorities. The adjoining Native States of Travancore 
 and Cochin were also to be surveyed on the 1-inch scale, the old 
 maps of the mountainous tracts of these States being very deficient. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 85 
 
 The area plane-tabled during the season J886-S7 consisted of a 
 block of hills from four to eight thousand feet in height, including 
 the south-west corner of the Palnis and parts of Madura and 
 Travancore. It is for the most part bare and exceedingly rugged, 
 some of the precipices being tremendous, so that a body falling 
 therefrom with a slight impetus would touch nothing for a quarter 
 of a mile. The following season (1887-88) was exceptionally 
 unhealthy, hardly a man escaped illness, and there were 12 deaths 
 out of a comparatively small establishment. The operations of 
 the triangulation included the locale of the Periyar project, an 
 important and bold undertaking, which has greatly changed the 
 character of the country, once the home of sambhar and of 
 herds of wild elephants, but now swarming with troops of 
 dusky coolies busied in excavating or raising embankments. 
 The project consists in building a gigantic concrete dam, 160 
 feet high, across the Periyar river and cutting a tunnel 2,000 
 yards long, through which the imprisoned water will flow into the 
 channel of a small stream that rushes down the face of the Grhat 
 into thousands of thirsty acres in the Oumbum valley. The cost 
 amounts to about 70 lakhs of rupees.* 
 
 During 1888-89 and 1889-90, the party were engaged exclusively 
 on forest surveys in the Salem, Madura, and Tinnevelli districts, a 
 class of work of increasing importance, which is already absorbing- 
 four parties in the Central Provinces, Bombay and Madras Presi- 
 dencies, as well as a detachment in Orissa. 
 
 Kathiawar and Cutch. — The topographical survey of Kathiawar 
 described at page 134 of the " Memoir " was brought to a conclusion 
 by Major A. Pullan in 1879-80. It is an elaborate and important 
 piece of work, surveyed on the 2-inch for reduction to the 1-inch 
 scale, and consisting of 61 sheets. On its completion the operations 
 of the party were extended into Cutch, and in 1880-81 the Great 
 Rann or Runn was surveyed on the -^-inch scale. This remarkable 
 tract, marked so conspicuously on the maps, consists of sandy waste 
 and salt beds separating Cutch from the province of Sind. During 
 the south-west monsoon the Rann is a shallow inland sea, but during 
 the cold and beginning of the hot season a few roads cross it; 
 at first oozy salt slime and water overlies it in patches, but as the 
 
 * The general appearance and character of the country are capitally and picturesquely 
 described by Mr. E. W. Senior, p. iv. of "Survey Eeport for 1887-88." 
 
86 TOPOGE,APHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 warm weatlier approaches the hot winds blaze across the Rann like 
 the blast of a furnace, clouds of dust render it impossible to advance, 
 and travelling is safe only at night, the whole length of the road 
 being marked out by the bones of the cattle and camels which have 
 died from exhanstion en route ; a heavy fall of rain closes the road 
 for days, and camels caught therein have but little chance of 
 escape. Before 1819 the river passing through the Rann was 
 crowded with boats carrying the produce of Sind down to Lakpat, 
 but in that year an earthquake closed the river and destroyed 
 several villages.* 
 
 During the following seasons the Cutch survey was continued by 
 Colonel Pullan. On one occasion while out surveying he was 
 attacked by a panther and a good deal mauled about ; these brutes, 
 together with lions, haunt the Gir mountains of Kathiawar, and the 
 former are said to be not unfrequent in Cutch. The survey was 
 finally brought to a conclusion by Colonel Pullan in 1886. 
 
 Gujrat. — The Gu jrat survey was organized for the purpose of dealing 
 with a large strip of country extending along the western confines of 
 the Bombay Presidency from the Rann of Cutch in the north to Nasik 
 in the south. From the first Colonel Walker devoted his best 
 eS'orts to utilize the mapping work of the Bombay Revenue 
 surveyors who had already gone over all the cultivated tracts 
 for settlement purposes. But the combination of the two surveys 
 proved a difficult task ; so during the rainy season in 1875 a 
 conference was held at Poena with the view of settling (i) the scale 
 on which the new Topographical Survey maps should be drawn, 
 and (ii) the extent to which the older Bombay Revenue Survey 
 maps could be incorporated and utilised. The Committee were 
 also particularly asked to consider whether the 4-inch scale adopted 
 by Major Haig in Gujrat, or the 2-inch scale adopted by Major 
 Tanner and Captain Samuells in the Deccan and Nasik was 
 preferable. Colonel W. C. Anderson was president, and the other 
 members were Lieut. -Colonel Taverner, Lieut. -Colonel Macdonald, 
 Major Tanner, Captain Samuells, Major Haig, Major-General Bell, 
 and Colonel Merriman. The last two were engineers, all the others 
 were Survey oflBcers. 
 
 * Sir Bartle Freio wrote an iiiteiesling paper on the Rann of Cutch for the 
 Royal Geographical Societj. See R. G. S. Journal, xl,, p. 181. Mr. W. W Hjanfurd 
 al?o discussed the former existence of a sea covering the Rann, Journal Asiatic Soc, 
 Bang., xlv., p. ii., 1876. 
 
TOPOGEAPHICAL SURVEYS. ' 87 
 
 Unfortunately, the Conference did not agree upon a report ; no 
 reply was given to the first question put, and great differences of 
 opinion were manifested in regard to the best scale to be adopted. 
 
 The Government of Indi^P, being thus inops consilii, fell in with 
 the middle course suggested by the Bombay Government ; they 
 decided that the 2-inch scale should be prescribed for the Topo- 
 graphical surveys, and that the Bombay revenue sheets should be 
 utilised wherever they could be used with advantage. At the same 
 time, the Bombay officers were directed to supply in future such 
 additional topographical details as might be required.* 
 
 The Topographical party in 1876-77 was under the care of Colonel 
 C. T. Haig, who in March made over the charge to Lieutenant J. B. 
 Gibbs, li.B. A good amount of topographical work was turned out, the 
 greater portion being in the Native State of Baroda, which occupies 
 a central position in the area allotted to the survey. Lieutenant Gibbs 
 was, however, attacked with cholera on the resumption of the 
 field work, and unfortunately died on the 21st November 1877. 
 Though quite young he was one of the most promising officers 
 of the Department, his abilities were of no mean order, and his 
 descriptions of the Dangsf and other localities surveyed by him 
 showed considerable power of observation. The native establishment 
 of the survey also suffered a good deal in health from the eff'ects 
 of the famine. Lieutenant Gibbs was succeeded by Lieutenant 
 St. G. C. Gore, who was transferred from the neighbouring Bhopal 
 and Maiwa survey, and who surveyed 68 square miles of t^e 
 Dangs Forest tract on the 4-inch scale. The maps of British 
 territory published on the 2-inch scale included, in addition to the 
 details of the ordinary 1-inch scale maps, minor roads, and com- 
 munications, and so many of the field boundary, triple junctions, 
 and other points on the village maps drawn up by the Bombay 
 Eevenue Survey that would facilitate the further incorporation of all 
 the details of those maps, if required for the purposes of any new 
 road, canal, or other engineering work. For this work the Bombay 
 Government supplied a special auxiliary agency, consisting of an 
 assistant superintendent from the Bombay Revenue Survey and a 
 native establishment, at a cost of Rs. 500 per mensem. The same 
 Government also contributed Rs. 30,000 towards the extra cost of 
 
 * Letters from A. O. Hume, C.B., Secretary to the Grovernment of India, Nos. 134 
 and 136, dated Pth February 1876. 
 
 t In the Appendices to the G. T. S. Reports for 1873-74 nnd 1874-75, pp. 32a and 
 36a, respectively. 
 
88 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 tlie Dangs survey, this being divided into four annual instalments, 
 and the Baroda Government contributed Ks. 5,500 per annum 
 towards the expenses of surveying their State, on the condition 
 of 550 square miles per annum being surveyed until completion of 
 the Avhole. In April 1881 Colonel Haig, who had had charge of the 
 party for some years, was deputed to the Geographical Congress 
 at Yenice,"' and the command devolved first on Captain Hobday and 
 then on Lieutenant-Colonel Leach, V.C., R.E. The survey in the 
 Dangs Forest, which in previous years had been found to be attended 
 with much malarious fever, had by this time reached a more open 
 country, and it was thought the field work might be safely com- 
 menced early in the season ; unfortunately the ground is then 
 covered with high dense grass, and all the surveyors, European 
 and native, with a single exception fell ill, thus the experiment 
 failed and the season's out-turn of work fell below what had been 
 expected. During the same year (1880-81) Mr. Le Mesurier and 
 the native establishment of the Bombay Revenue and Settlement 
 Department were re-transferred to their own department after 
 having been attached to the Gujrat Survey for eight years, during 
 which time they had done good service in map-drawing and 
 incorporating the details from the Bombay Revenue Survey maps 
 into those of the professional survey party. In 1881-82 the plane- 
 table work included the northern part of the Baroda State which is 
 watered by the Saraswati river, and to which much historic interest 
 attaches. Patan, one of the chief towns in that locality, is built 
 on part of the site of Anhilwada, the old capital of Gujrat before 
 Ahmadabad was built. Anhilwada is said to have been 18 miles in 
 circumference, and the heaps of old ruins to be found for miles 
 round Patan seem to corroborate the statement. Patan and Sidhpur 
 are both situated on the Saraswati river, which is venerated as a 
 goddess, and the latter town (Sidhpur) is a noted place of pilgrimage, 
 the remains of the Rudra Mala Temple of Shiva being an object of 
 considerable archaeological interest. Another remarkable feature 
 of the season's survey was the hot sulphur spring of Unai on the 
 boundary between the Baroda and Bansda States, into which at 
 certain seasons crowds of people rush and bathe without cessation 
 for two or three days together. The water as tested by Colonel Haig 
 was of the temperature of 138° Fahrenheit, but this is probably 
 
 * Two medals were awarded at this Congress to meritorious Indian native explorers, 
 
 one being assigned to M S {see page 142) and the other to A K 
 
 (p. 156). 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SUEVEYS, ' 89 
 
 lowered by the continuous stream of human bathers, who are further 
 encouraged and fortified by doses of intoxicating hhang. 
 
 The survey of the Dangs forests was completed in 1882-83, and 
 a survey of the Panch Mahals, incorporating the fiscal details of the 
 Revenue Survey village maps and including forest boundaries, on 
 the 4-inch scale was commenced in the same year. Colonel Haig 
 caused a special survey to be made (so far as the scale permitted) 
 of the hill of Pawagarh, which with the remains of the old city of 
 Ohampaner at its base, forms an object of considerable historical 
 and archgeological interest, and of which no previous map existed. 
 It abounds with old Jain temples, more recent Muhammadan 
 fortifications, mosques, buildings, and tanks, and still more recent 
 Hindu temples. Colonel Badgley took charge of the survey in 
 1884-85, and the work during that season consisted practically 
 of nothing but 2-inch scale work. Late rains increased the natural 
 unhealthiness of the country, so that nearly one-fifth of the working 
 season was lost through sickness. The detail survey of Baroda city 
 was finished in 1885-86, and an exceptionally large area of topography 
 was covered during the same season, much of the ground consisting 
 of open plain. The operations were in charge of Mr. J. Newland 
 during the greater part of the time, owing to the paucity of available 
 officers of the senior division. In the next season the party was 
 divided into two sections, one proceeding to Surat and Palanpur 
 to cai'ry on the topographical survey of Gujrat on the 2-inch scale, 
 and the second to Kalyan taluka to commence surveys on the 
 8-inch scale of the Porest Reserves in the Thana district which 
 had been requested by the Bombay Government. The surveyors 
 employed on this work suffered much from fever, which is specially 
 prevalent in those tracts between November and January (both 
 months inclusive). In 1887-88 the 2-inch scale work lay within 
 two of the northernmost sheets of the area of the survey close to 
 the limit of the Gwalior and Central India Survey, one of which 
 sheets includes the cave temple of Menaknath, which lies embedded 
 in the side of a hill seven miles south-east of Danta. It is said to be 
 capable of accommodating 2,000 persons, and is a sacred place 
 of pilgrimage for Hindus. A large scale survey of Disa cantonment 
 and environs was also completed. 
 
 In consequence of the Bombay Government having proposed the 
 organization of a special Forest Survey Branch for the future conduct 
 of forest surveys in that presidency, a conference was held at Poona 
 
90 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 in July 1888, at wMcli the Secretarj'- to tlie Government of India in 
 the Revenue and Agricultural Department, the Surveyor-General, 
 and the Deputy Surveyor- General attended and discussed the matter. 
 A general scheme was arranged, the following being the principal 
 points : — 
 
 (1.) One party of the topographical survey of India to be placed 
 fully equipped and manned at the disposal of the Bombay 
 Government for the purposes of forest sui'veys in that 
 presidency, to be utilised in such manner as that Govern- 
 ment may think fit. 
 (2.) The cost of the party to be debited to forests, by which half 
 the cost will be borne by imperial and half by provincial 
 revenues. 
 (3.) The normal scale for the Forest Survey maps to be four inches 
 
 to the mile instead of eight inches. 
 (4.) The oflBcer in charge of the party to be under the control and 
 supervision of the Survey and Settlement Commissioners, 
 supervision over his work being also maintained by the 
 Surveyor- General of India. 
 These conditions having been accepted by the Government of 
 India, the Gujrat party with slight modifications as to ]jersonnel 
 (the topographical section having been withdrawn and the forest 
 section from No. 10 party added) was placed at the disposal of the 
 Bombay authorities, and the programme for 1888-89 arranged 
 by that Government. The work of the northern circle lay principally 
 on the ridges and spurs of the Ghats, on the low hills of the 
 Konkans, and on the plateaux of the Northern Ghats, while the 
 forests of the southern circle, from the dense nature of the under- 
 growth, were most tedious and imhealthy to map out. 
 
 The area remaining for topographical survey in Gujrat, Rajputana, 
 and the Southern Maratha country was entrusted to the old party, 
 which also worked in two sections under Colonel Hutchinson. 
 Part of the frontier of the Nizam's dominions was mapped, during 
 which an assault was made on the surveyors by some villagers, 
 who mistook them for excise officials. The ringleaders were 
 sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,000 each. 
 The survey and settlement of a large tract of disputed country 
 between Me war and Mar war were also undertaken. 
 
 Kohat. — On the withdrawal of the British forces from Northern 
 Afghanistan in 1880 it was arranged that some of the survey officers 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS, 91 
 
 "who had retuz^ned to India sliould be employed in making a standard 
 topographical survey of the Kohat district, to supersede the prelimi- 
 nary reconnaissance survey which had been made in 1849-51 imme- 
 diately after the annexation*of the Punjab, and to complete the gaps 
 remaining to be filled in on the frontier line up to the recent surveys 
 in the Kuram valley and other contiguous portions of Afghanistan. 
 The time was limited, but some useful work was done. Mr. McNair 
 was deputed early in the season 1880-81 to effect a more satisfactory 
 junction than had been possible during the progress of the military 
 operations between Major Woodthorpe's triangulation in the Kuram 
 valley and the old Kohat secondary triangles, fixed thirty years ago. 
 He also undertook the topography of the Miranzai valley, through 
 which the highway from Kohat to Kabul, by way of the Kuram 
 valley, passes, and of which a good map was much required by the 
 local officials. Major Holdich joined the party about the middle 
 of Februarjr, but soon after his services were needed with the force 
 under Brigadier- Greneral Gordon, C.B., which proceeded from Bannu 
 to operate against the Mahsud Waziris. An area of 2,000 square 
 miles was covered by the Kohattriangulation, and 398 square miles 
 were topographically surveyed on the 1-inch scale in the Miranzai 
 valley, besides rough reconnaissances in the ITrakzai, Tirah, and 
 Bam valleys. A native explorer made a reconnaissance of the 
 Zhob valley, and afterwards did good service with the "Waziri 
 expedition. 
 
 During the recess the party were engaged in making a standard 
 topographical survey of the Kohat district on the 1-inch scale, and 
 also on the final mapping of the surveys in Northern Afghanistan. 
 The Kohat field work was continued by Major Holdich and 
 Mr. McISfair in 1881-82. The latter officer also succeeded in making 
 friends with one of the Waziri chiefs, and was taken under tribal 
 protection to make a reconnaissance of the tract of independent 
 territory lying east of the Kuram river and immediately north of 
 Bannu, which is inhabited by the DareshKhel Waziris, and embraces 
 the Avell-known range of hills culminating in the Kafir Kot, which 
 Mr. McNair is the first European to have visited. The general 
 aspect of the country is wild, and there is very little cultivation. In 
 winter and spring as many as 6,000 fighting men are estimated to 
 occupy the hills, but during the hot months scarcely 500 remain 
 behind. The reputation of these gentry as highwaymen is great, 
 and they are a source of considerable anxiety to the Deputy 
 
93 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 Commissioner,^ of Koliat and Bannn ; they are, however, men of 
 splendid physique, inured to all weathers and of great endurance, 
 and it is a great pity that they do not accept employment under 
 our Government. 
 
 Mr. Claudius surveyed a small area of ground, including Kohat 
 itself, and the hill sanitarium of Mirkhwaili. He states that the 
 whole of Tirah is well supplied with Sniders, and a number of men 
 carry good Martini rifles. They boast that these weapons are 
 plunder, secured during the recent caropaigns in the Khaibar and 
 Kuram routes. Tor the Sniders they have such an abundance 
 of ammunition that cartridges are actually bought from Tirah by 
 our men cheaper than in India. The manufacture of cartridges 
 for the Martinis is even said to have been commenced by them 
 with success. 
 
 The survey was finally brought to a conclusion in 1882-83, and 
 a large scale plan of Kohat city and cantonment was completed 
 the same year. The efforts made to reconnoitre the adjacent 
 frontier under the protection of the tribes proved very successful, 
 and thanks in great measure to the interest taken in the work by 
 Major Holdich, the results were to supply reliable maps of the whole 
 strip of territory extending from the Kabul river on the north to 
 the Grumal on the south, the only exception being a small tract of 
 country near the Gumal pass. With the assistance of Ko. 5 Topo- 
 graphical and No. 3 Revenue parties, Major Holdich was enabled 
 during the recess to complete for publication the whole nine standard 
 sheets of the survey of the Kohat district. The work being 
 completed, the party was broken up, and Major Holdich with most 
 of his assistants were transferred to the Baluchistan Survey. 
 
 Baluchistan. — In September 1879 Major R. Beavan was directed to 
 proceed from Kandahar to Quetta to survey the country between and 
 around Quetta and Sibi. On arrival at Quetta, finding that an expe- 
 dition was about to start to explore the route to Sibi, via the Hanna 
 or Hamra pass, he accompanied them, arriving at Sibi on the 
 12th January 1880, just in time to see the opening of this part of 
 the railway and the arrival of the first railway train. He subse- 
 quently visited Khost in the Dargi valley, and then Tal, from 
 which place he subsequently accompanied military expeditions 
 towards Chotiali and to Baghao and Smalan on the north-east. 
 Major Beavan's reconnaissance on the J-inch scale covered about 
 2,500 square miles, and extended from Quetta to Tal, Chotiali, and 
 
TOPOGEAPHICAL SUEVETS. 93 
 
 down to Sibi. It proved of great use afterwards to the engineers 
 employed in lajdng out the new line of railway. Some valuable 
 survey work around Sibi, Mitri, and Dadur, was done by ]\Iessrs. 
 Coxen and Corkery, assistant surveyors, who showed great tact in 
 dealing with the Pathan and Baluchi inhabitants of the country. 
 The obstacles in the way of survey work in Baluchistan were 
 altogether exceptionally great. The local means of carriage were 
 monopolised for the service of the troops, and the camel owners 
 realised such enormous profits by carrying Government stores at so 
 much a maund that they refused to take service by the month. 
 Dust storms and haze were very persistent at times and prevented any 
 satisfactory observations from being taken, water was often terribly 
 scarce or almost unfit to drink, and as a natural result of bad water 
 and an unequable climate, sickness was rife among both Europeans 
 and natives. Another great drawback in Baluchistan is the 
 extremes of temperature experienced. From March to November 
 the low country is intensely hot, and from November to March the 
 highlands between Quetta and Khelat are intensely cold, while 
 during June, July, and August thick haze prevails. 
 
 By an order of the 12th July 1880 the party under Major 
 Beavan's orders was organized as a regular party for the survey of 
 Southern Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and the adjacent country under 
 the designation of the " Baluchistan Topographical party." 
 
 During October, November, and December 1880 Major Beavan 
 accompanied the expedition into the Marri country, but the unsettled 
 state of the country rendered it impossible to leave the line of 
 march in order to ascend any commanding heights. A. survey of 
 the actual line of route with bearings and paces was taken by 
 Captain W. Gill, B,.E. 
 
 The work of Major Beavan's party was described by him as a 
 geographical reconnaissance on the ;|-inch scale of Sewestau and the 
 Marri hills, and a more elaborate survey on the -^-inch scale of 
 the territories subject to the Khan of Khelat. In a geographical 
 point of view Major Beavan applies the name Sewestan to the 
 district drained by the Nari river and its affluents, one of rugged 
 broken ranges of hills running mostly east and west. Huge cracks 
 or crevices have been formed across the line of hills, and through 
 these the drainage of the country makes its way, presenting the 
 anomalous condition of parallel valleys with rivers running at right 
 angles to them. In many parts the sandstone rocks lie broken and 
 
9-i TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 mixed up in magnificent confusion, lending an appearance of truth 
 to tlie old legend that after the creation of the "world the spare 
 rubbish was shot down here. Major Beavan says it is impossible 
 to give on the map an adequate idea of such a country. 
 
 During the winter of 1881-82 the survey of the country lying 
 between Quetta and Khelat was continued, the season's work com- 
 prising more especially that part adjacent to the Bolan and Rodbar 
 passes. Major Beavan himself accompanied a military expedition 
 under Brigadier-General H. C. Wilkinson to open out the routes 
 between G^al-Chotiali and Dera Ghazi Khan. In addition to 
 making a plane-table reconnaissance of the previously unsurveyed 
 portions of the route which lay via Mandai, Tal, and Chamalang, 
 Major Beavan took observations for the purpose of completing 
 the Sewestan triangulation, and subsequently, accompanied by 
 Mr. Corkery, and under the protection of an escort of Marris, 
 made some useful additions to the survey of that country. 
 
 In the following season the work mainly consisted of triangula- 
 t'on, originating from stations of the Great Indus Series and carried 
 over the Suliman range, the Khetran country, and a portion of the 
 Marri hills, and closing on to the triangulation previously executed. 
 A series of triangles was also commenced over the hill country 
 liotween Khelat and the Kach Gandava plain. The season's topo- 
 graphy was carried on in the hilly country east of Khelat during the 
 autumn and again in the spring months, and during the cold months 
 in the low country at the foot of the hills and also in the lower hills 
 north of Sibi. In all an area of 1,844 square miles was finally 
 mapped. A rapid reconnaissance was carried out by Mr. Coxen 
 jVom Khelat to Nushki with a view to selecting stations for an 
 extension of the triangulation in that direction, and also fixing the 
 position of Nushki, which had been till then doubtful. In 1883-84 
 i.Ue party was divided into three sections, the one under Major 
 Ifoldich, U.B., was employed on the Takht-i-Suliman expedition 
 (:.je page 147), the second under Lieutenant Talbot, E.E., accom- 
 panied Sir Robert Sandeman's mission in South-Avest Baluchistan, 
 w hilst the third, under Mr. Claudius, took up the regular detail 
 s..rvey, and was further strengthened, after the Takht-i-Suliman 
 expedition, by the arrival of Mr. Coxen and Sub-Surveyor Hira 
 Sing. There was a large out-turn of triangulation, as well as a 
 very creditable amount of topography on the l-inch scale in the 
 T;il-Chotiali territory and the Kachi desert. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 95 
 
 Sir E. Sandenian's political mission to the distant town of Kharan 
 in the Baluchistan desert in November 1883 afforded an opportunity 
 for fixing the position of an outlying point of some importance in its 
 relation to the Indian weste^ frontier. The mission started from 
 Khelat in November 1883. Lieutenant Talbot, who, with Lieutenant 
 Wahab, was attached as surveyor to the party, carried his triangula- 
 tion first southerly and then south-westerly, while Lieutenant "Wahab 
 worked at first westerly and then in a southerly direction. They 
 met again at Gar ok, one march eastward of Kharan. Beyond the 
 latter place Lieutenant Talbot extended the triangulation to Washuk, 
 but from thence to Panjgur* the haze made it difficult to see objects 
 five miles off, and a gap of 130 miles occurred in the triangles. 
 Through the plane-tabling, however, a satisfactory junction was 
 effected. 
 
 The requirements of the Afghan Boundary Commission, which 
 was being organized at that time and to which Major Holdich and 
 Lieutenant Talbot were attached, occasioned a considerable reduction 
 in the personnel of the Baluchistan party in 1884-85, in afldition 
 to which Lieutenant Wahab, Mr. Scott, and Yusuf Sharif, who had 
 been attached to the Zhob Valley expedition, did not return till the 
 17th December 1884. Mr. Claudius laid out a series of triangles 
 45 miles in length closing on stations of the Baluchistan Survey 
 east of Khelat, and Yusuf Sharif established a connexion with the 
 Zhob expedition triangulation and the Gr.T.S. points fixed from the 
 Great Indus Series on the Suliman range. The out-turn of topo- 
 graphy included an important bit of hitherto unexplored country 
 stretching from the lower part of the Harnai valley northwards, 
 and the survey proved of great value in determining the best route 
 for the railway through this difficult country. Portions of the 
 Bugfci country, the Derajat frontier, the Kachi plain around 
 Gandava, and the hilly country to the west were also surveyed in 
 detail. Generally speaking, the operations of the party were 
 extended over a very wide area of country, from the Suliman range 
 on the east to the Khelat hills on the west, consisting for the most 
 part of barren rocky hills and equally barren valleys sparsely popu- 
 lated by Baluch and Pathan tribes. Most of the ground west of 
 
 * There is a good deal of information about Panjgur and the Khan of Kharan in the 
 late Sir Charles Macgregor's "Wanderings in Balochistan" (Allen & Co.), 1882. 
 Panjgur was also visited bj Sir llobert Sandenian in 1890-91, in his exploration of 
 the old kqfila route between Lus Beyla and Southern Persia. 
 
96 TOPOGEAPHICAL SORVEYS. 
 
 tlie passes is tolerably elevated, and the surveyors' camps were often 
 over 5,000 feet, but on tiie Vnole tno country was easy to survey. 
 The Kachi plain was the only tract differing essentially from this 
 description, and that corresponds more in climate and general 
 conditions to the adjacent Sind plain. 
 
 The party sustained a loss in the death of Mr. G. R. Copping, a 
 young surveyor of great promise, who had served six years with the 
 party. He was suddenly taken ill, apparently with fever, in one of 
 the most desolate spots on the frontier, and was carried by his 
 khalassies into Sibi to die. 
 
 An interesting description of the Marri country, with its three 
 settlements, Kahan, Mamand, and Kolu, as well as of the Kachi and 
 Harnai valley, was supplied by Captain Wahab, and will be found 
 in the Appendix to the Report of the Surveyor General for 1884-85.* 
 
 During the next season the command devolved on Colonel Wilmer 
 and the operations consisted almost entirely of special surveys for 
 military purposes, viz. : — (i.) A survey on the 2-inch scale of the 
 Khwaja-Amran range, towards Kandahar; (ii.) A survey on the 
 2-inch scale of the country surrounding Quetta ; (iii.) An explora- 
 tion of the routes between Eegistan and the Baluchistan frontier. 
 
 The triangulation in advance of the detail operations of the season 
 was carried by Mr. Claudius southwards from Gulistan and generally 
 along the meridian of 66° over Southern Pishin, the fertile valley of 
 Shorawak, and the Shorarud hills. This triangulation connected the 
 Kandahar, Khelat, and south-west Baluchistan Series, and furnished 
 good bases for further extension westwards. Mr. Claudius wrote an 
 interesting description of the country traversed, which has been 
 printed separately. 
 
 The explorations under (iii.) were carried out by Sub-Surveyors 
 Ahmed Ali and Sheikh Mohidin. The former started from Nushki, 
 succeeded in making a reconnaissance survey with the plane-table of 
 nearly 20,000 square miles, mostly on the J-inch scale. His explora- 
 tion extended up to the Persian frontier, embracing country well to 
 the north and south of the route followed by the Boundary Com- 
 mission in 1884, including 360 miles of the course of the Helmund 
 river, with its numerous villages on both banks. The country 
 explored by Sheikh Mohidin was the portion of Registan immediately 
 Avest of the Khwaja-Amran range. His plane-tabling covered an 
 
 * p. xxii. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 97 
 
 area of about 10,000 square miles on the ^-incli scale, cliiefly desert, 
 through which all the important routes were laid down. 
 
 The general survey was continued by Captain V. B. Long, E.E., 
 and Mr. Claudius in 1886-87, the country triangulated comprising 
 parts of the districts of Khurasan and Jalawan between Khelat and 
 the Sind frontier, while the topographical work lay in portions of 
 the Bugti and Marri hills, the Khetrani hills, the Kachi near Sibi, the 
 Bori valley, and the Luni Pathan country in the north, and the 
 juniper forests about Ziarat. The Bugti, Marri, and Khetrani hills 
 are extremely intricate, and great difficulties were experienced in 
 procuring water and supplies, while the heat in April and May is 
 described as almost unbearable. To the north the country is much 
 less complicated, the valleys are wider and comparatively weU 
 inhabited, and the hill ranges running approximately east and west 
 are well marked and easily delineated. 
 
 The same season saw the transfer of the Rajputana and Central 
 India party to Baluchistan (see p. 70 supra), and Captain Wahab,R.E., 
 who had been temporarily attached to the Himalaya party during 
 the absence of Colonel Tanner with the Tibet mission, was placed in 
 charge a short time prior to the party taking the field. The work 
 included a detail survey on the 6-inch scale of about 27 square miles 
 of country in the neighbourhood of Quetta, a 2-inch survey of the 
 eastern portion of the Pishin plain and the Surkhab, Gwal, and Kach 
 valleys, and the extension southwards of the 2-inch survey of 
 the Khwaja-Amran range. The Baluchistan Survey had by this 
 time (1887) unavoidably assumed such large proportions as to 
 demand a rigorous trigonometrical basis, and it was therefore decided 
 to carry two chains of triangles emanating from the Great Indus 
 Series, one along the parallel of 30° N. latitude, and the other 
 approximately to the meridian of 67° E. longitude, both to meet at 
 Quetta. The latter part of the work was entrusted to Mr. Claudius, 
 who successfully carried it out in a series of quadrilaterals com- 
 prising 19 stations, and spanning a direct distance of about 150 
 miles. The minor triangulation preliminary to detail survey on the 
 ^-inch scale was extended over sheet 23 N.W., which lies east of 
 Kuhak and south of Kharan. 
 
 The severity of the winter and the difficulties in the matter of 
 carriage and supplies were found particularly trying both to the 
 surveyors employed on the triangulation and to those engaged in 
 detail surveying, but nevertheless over 7,500 square miles of topo- 
 graphy were surveyed on the -^-inch scale. For the ensuing season 
 
 I y 20321. tr 
 
98 TOrOGEAPHICAIi SURVEYS. 
 
 it was decided that only one party should be employed in Baluchistan, 
 and that operations should be confined to the extension of the 2-inch 
 survey in the neighbourhood of Quetta and Pishin, and in revising 
 the survey of the country about the Bolan and Harnai routes. 
 
 The field work of the other Baluchistan party (No. 16) included 
 the extension of the general survey of Baluchistan on the scale 
 of half an inch to the mile, and a survey of the town and canton- 
 ment of Quetta on the 16-inch scale, with a record of all 
 properties on the cadastral system. Minor triangulation prepara- 
 tory to further extension of the ^-inch survey was carried on 
 towards Kharan, and of the 2-inch survey south-west of Quetta. A 
 series of secondary triangles was also extended by Mr. MclSTair from 
 the Great Indus Series, near Dehra G-hazi Khan, along the parallel of 
 30" latitude up to Quetta, where it will join the Kalat Series. He 
 carried out his work under trying circumstances with great care and 
 accuracy. The exposure which this energetic and enterprising 
 oflacer endured tried his constitution severely, and he unfortunately 
 fell a victim to typhoid fever, and died at Mussoorie in the summer 
 of 1889. Mr. McNair had joined the Department in 1867, and had 
 served for 12 years in Eajputana and Mysore. From the first he 
 displayed special aptitude for survey work, and during the Afghan 
 War he had mapped out a good deal of new country, including the 
 Lughman valley and other parts of the Upper Kabul valley. At the 
 close of the war he was employed in the risky work of mapping 
 the frontier line from Kohat to Bannu. But his most conspicuous 
 achievement was his adventurous journey into Kafiristan, which 
 gained for him the Murchison Grant of the Eoyal Geographical 
 Society.* He was an able observer ; he had readiness of resource, 
 and a marked aptitude for gaining personal influence over the 
 frontier tribesmen with whom he came in contact. 
 
 The country topographically surveyed by the party on the -|^-inch 
 scale in 1887-88 lies south and south-west of Khelat, and includes the 
 highest part of the Brahui mountain system, which forms the water- 
 parting between the Indus basin and the rivers that flow to the west. 
 A large scale map of Quetta was completed during the recess. During 
 January 1888, Captain Wahab and a sub-surveyor were told ofi" to 
 accompany an expedition under the Deputy Commissioner of Dera 
 Ismail Khan for exploration in the Gumal pass. Unfortunately 
 little or no additional geography was obtained, as Captain Wahab 
 was unable to ascend any commanding hill beyond Kajuri Kach (up 
 
 * See page 149. 
 
TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 99 
 
 to wliicli point the pass had been surveyed in 1883-84 by Surveyor 
 Yusuf Sharif), but he obtained the heights of a number of points 
 along the pass and of several hill peaks, which -will bo useful in future 
 operations. * 
 
 In October 1888 an important reduction "was made by Government 
 in the number of topographical parties, which were thereby brought 
 down to three in lieu of six. This involved the breaking up of 
 iNO. 16 party employed in Baluchistan, and a corresponding reduc- 
 tion in the amount of work turned out by No. 15 party, on whom 
 the entire duty of mapping out this important agency thus devolved. 
 Colonel Holdich took charge, and the equipment and stock were 
 brought from Mussourie to Quetta, which thus became the head- 
 quarters of the Baluchistan Survey. In addition to the regular 
 work, Sub-Surveyor Ahmed Ali made an important and plucky 
 reconnaissance in Western Baluchistan, adding 19,000 square miles 
 of geographical information to our maps, and practically completing 
 all that remained to bo done in that direction. Lieutenant Mac- 
 kenzie, R.B., and Sub-Surveyor Imam Sharif, K.B., accompanied Sir 
 H. Prendergast during Jiis tour in Zhob and Eastern Toba in July 
 1889, and surveyed about 1,100 square miles, and Assistant Surveyor 
 Yusuf Sharif, K.B., mapped a very large area of unknown country 
 in Persia for the Intelligence Branch of the Quartermaster General's 
 Department. On all three of these pieces of exploration separate 
 reports were submitted. In 1889-90, besides ihe regular topography 
 of Baluchistan, an area of 4,500 square miles was surveyed by 
 Colonel Holdich and Lieutenant Mackenzie while attached to Sir R. 
 Sandeman's expedition to the Zhob valley, and surveys were effected 
 in "Western Makran and the Perso-Baluch frontier. 
 
 Himalayas. — Since 1885 the party formerly employed in the 
 Darjeeling Survey, under Colonel Tanner, has been deputed to take 
 up the topography of the Hill States about Simla, and of the 
 Kangra district, on the 4-inch and 2-inch scales. The very 
 high mountainous regions, of which a fair proportion falls within 
 the area of operations, are dealt with on the 1-inch scale. A few 
 soldiers were attached to the party, to be trained in surveying, and 
 Colonel Tanner reported that the experiment answered well, four 
 men having acquired sufficient training in 1886 and 1887 to make, 
 under supervision, a fairly accurate map of any country they might 
 be called upon to survey. 
 
 G 2 
 
100 
 
 V. 
 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 The Revenue Sui-veys of India form the principal basis on which 
 the whole fiscal administration of the country rests. In India the 
 Government is the chief landowner, hence the determination of the 
 area of the fields of the cultivators or of the zemindars,"-'' with whom, 
 as the case may be, the Government " settlement " is made, is a 
 matter of prime necessity to the State. The ideal survey, as truly 
 remarked in the " Memoir on the Indian Surveys," while furnishing 
 complete information for settlement purposes, should be executed 
 throughout on accurate principles and supply at the same time 
 materials for compiling trustworthy maps for general use. A good 
 revenue survey should also supply such agricultural statistics as will 
 give a statesman knowledge to enable him to improve the condition 
 of the people, to increase their means of subsistence, to avert 
 famines, to add to the wealth of the country, and adjust taxation. 
 
 Although revenue surveys have been conducted on different 
 principles in various provinces of India, the introduction and 
 spread during the last 18 years of the cadastralf system indicates 
 that the advantages of the best and most accurate principles 
 of surveying, as understood by the chief Continental nations, are 
 recognised more and more in India. The chapters in the 
 "Memoir" have dealt with the development of the older system 
 and the inauguration of the cadastral method wp to the period 
 just preceding the amalgamation of the three branches of the 
 Indian Survey. 
 
 In 1876-77 the Revenue Surveys were conducted under the 
 general supervision of General D. 0. Vanrenen, Superintendent, 
 by 14 parties, which were thus distributed, viz., two in the Punjab, 
 
 * Landowners. 
 
 t More than one derivation lias been assigned to the word cadastral. The 
 " Dictionnaire des Dictionnaires" derives it from the mediasval Latin word cap«ifa«<»'J<w, 
 but the " Eecueil des Tvois et Instructions sur les contributions directes " defines it as 
 a plan (probably from cadrer, to square) from which the area of land may be computed, 
 and from which its revenue may be valued. 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 101 
 
 ttree in the Nortli-West Provinces, six in Bengal, two in Bombay, 
 and one in Assam. Of these 11 were regular survey divisions, 
 and three smaller parties ejpployed on special work distinct from the 
 regular divisions. The total area surveyed and completed in detail 
 was 12,544 square miles, of which 5,424 square miles were muzawav 
 or village by village survey, at a cost of about 50 Rs. per square 
 mile. The cadastral operations introduced into the North-West 
 Provinces in 1871-72 had entailed very considerable labour in the 
 publication of the maps, so it was arranged that about 5,000 of the 
 sheets should be lithographed at Allahabad under the orders of 
 the Board of Revenue, while an equal number were dealt with at 
 the Surveyor-General's Photographic Branch. The Soane Irriga- 
 tion maps, which were on a still larger scale, were most of them 
 handed to a Calcutta firm for reproduction. 
 
 About this juncture an important question arose as to the success 
 of the Survey Department operations in the Lower Provinces of 
 Bengal, and the Board of Revenue expressed their opinion that the 
 surveys necessary for settlement purposes might be done at far less 
 cost by non-professional agency. This opinion led to the prepara- 
 tion of an elaborate statement by General J. T. Walker, the following 
 extracts from which will give a good general idea of the three 
 classes of operations : — 
 
 1. The Topographical Survey, on the 1-inch scale. 
 
 " This survey is constructed by the method of plane-labling, on a trigonometrical 
 basis, in sueh a manner as to exhibit tlie positions of towns and villages, the courses 
 of rivers, the general features of tlie ground, and as much detail as the scale will 
 admit of, with a sufficient degree of accui'acy for the requirements of a general topo- 
 graphical map on the 1-inch scale. The surveyor goes over the ground with his 
 plane-table, which he sets up at a suiEcient number of points to enable him to * cut in ' 
 all the most prominent objects and to sketch the general features of the country ; the 
 number of these points, called ' plane-table stations,' will vary with the nature of 
 the ground, being few where it is flat and open and numerous when it is hilly aud 
 ruo'ged. In all cases the plane-tabler actually goes over only a comparatively small 
 portion of the ground, the greater part being sketched in from his stations. He 
 surveys no village boundaries, but only the principal boundaries, viz., those of the 
 British districts and the Native States and their sub-divisions when they have been 
 demarcated beforehand." 
 
 The plane-tabling executed during the 10 years 1867-68 to 
 1876-77 was performed at the average speed of 55*8 square miles 
 per mensem for each surveyor employed on that class of work, and 
 the total cost of the surveys during the same period, including 
 
102 KEVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 triangulation, calculation, mapping, and snpsrvision, averaged 
 Ks. 21-12 per square mile. The agency employed was mixed 
 European and Native, tlie former element slightly predominating 
 and taking the greater share of the plane-tabling in hill districts 
 and difficult ground and the lesser share in the plains. 
 
 2. Tlie Village or Muzaioar Survey, on the 4-mch scale. 
 
 "This survey is also constructed by the inetliod of plane-tabling, but on a basis 
 formed by carrying traverses (wilh tlieodolites and chains) round the boundaries of 
 villages, instead of on a triangulated basis. The usual details of the ground are laid 
 down by the plane-tabltr, who is also required to delineate the lim-ts of the land 
 which happen to be respectively cultivated, fallow or waste at the time of survey. 
 For this reason and because of the larger scales of survey, the idane-tablor has to go 
 over the ground very much more closely than in the Topographical Survey, and his 
 rate of progress is proportionally slower." 
 
 The total cost of the survey during the 10 years above mentioned 
 averaged Rs. 53 per square mile. As a rule the whole of the plane- 
 tabling was done by the natives, the Europeans (who were in 
 the proportion of one European surveyor to about four natives) 
 being employed on the traverses anrl calculations and in supervising 
 and checking the natives. 
 
 3. The Cadastral Survey, on the IG-inch scale. 
 
 This survey is described at pages 182 and 183 of the " Memoir 
 on the Indian Surveys." It is constructed on the basis of the 
 traversed boundaries of the villages^ but the whole of the interior 
 details of the fields are obtained not by plane-tabling, as in the 
 previous instances, but by systematic chaining, which is duly 
 recorded in field books, and is thus available for future reference 
 whenever it may be wanted. The agency consisted of about one 
 European surveyor to four Native surveyors, in addition to 17 
 measuring amins. The Europeans were wholly employed on the 
 traverses and calculations and in supervising the natives and 
 testing their work by running check lines over it. The rate of 
 progress was Yerj variable, depending mainly on the average size 
 of the fields, which in certain districts was one acre and in others 
 two acres. 
 
 The work was comparatively new to the Department, having 
 been commenced in 1871-72. Thus, in 1878, only six years' figures 
 were available for purposes of comparison, and as during the first 
 part of the time the surveyors were learning their work, the rates, 
 which gave a general average of Rs. 165 per square mile, were 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 103 
 
 scarcely a fair criterion. It may be observed, however, that even 
 these rates are almost identical with the average rate of the cadastral 
 surveys under the Madras Government which averaged Rs. 162 
 during the nine years 1864 to 1872. 
 
 The relative intrinsic value of the three classes of survey. 
 
 Comparing the foregoing processes, it is seen that the rates in 
 1.878 were Es. 22 for the topographical 1-inch, E,s. 53 for the 
 village or mouzawar 4-inch, and Rs. 165 for the cadastral 16-ineh 
 survey. For a cheap and fairly accurate first survey of India the 
 first-named is best, and as a basis for the engraved general Atlas of 
 India nothing could be more admirable. The muzawar or village 
 survey affords a careful record of the village boundaries and a valuable 
 check on the field measurements by the amins. But the cadastral 
 survey, though it costs about three times as much as the second 
 and seven and a half times as much as the first, has been pronounced 
 by. the Surveyor-Greneral to be the cheapest of all considering the 
 amount of information it gives. In the above rates the cost of 
 publication was not included, and as this was so seriously heavy in 
 the case of the cadastral surveys, a special branch, at a cost of 
 Rs. 30,000 per annum, was added to the Photo -zincographic Office 
 to meet the requirements of the 16-inch North-West Provinces 
 surveys. In Bengal, on the other hand (where extensive tracts of 
 country had been brought under irrigation by the Soane and other 
 canals, necessitating fresh surveys for water assessment purposes), 
 the fields were found to be generally so much smaller than in the 
 North-West that it was necessary to increase the scale in some 
 districts to 32 inches to the mile, a step which involved the 
 production of four times as many maps for a given area as in the 
 North-West Provinces, and au addition of Rs. 20 per square 
 miles to the cost. In the Grovernmont estate of Khurdah, in the 
 province of Orissa, the average size of the fields first surveyed was 
 even smaller than in the Soane irrigation tracts, or only one- 
 seventh of an acre. This and other causes raised the cost of 
 settlement and surveying together to an amount equal to about 
 six years' accumulation of revenue. 
 
 In 1877-78 the number of revenue parties was reduced to 11 full 
 strength and two small parties, who worked in the following 
 provinces, two muzaivar parties in the Punjab, four cadastral in the 
 
104 KEVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 Nortli-West Provinces, four in Bengal, two in Bombay, and one in 
 Assam. 
 
 On tte 31st December 1878 Major-General Yanrenen retired from 
 the post of Superintendent of. Revenue Surveys, after 39 years' 
 service under Government, of which 32 had been passed in the 
 Revenue Survey Department. When that branch of the survey was 
 separated into two circles in 1866 he was appointed Superintendent 
 of the Lower Circle, and subsequently on their re-amalgamation in 
 1876 ho became Superintendent of Revenue Surveys. He left behind 
 him many evidences of valuable work which had been carried out 
 under his supervision, first as an executive ofl&cer, and afterwards as 
 administrator of a large department. He was succeeded by Major 
 J. Sconce, S.O. 
 
 The Pionjab.— The Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, and Rawal Pindi 
 Districts Revenue or Muzawar Survey on the 4-inch scale was 
 continued by Major-General Johnstone, C.B., up to the close of 
 the season 1877-78, when he retired after 35 years' service, during 
 23 years of which he. had been in charge of a party. General 
 Johnstone is mentioned as a talented and able officer, with con- 
 siderable experience of the frontier and the tribes inhabiting the 
 same. 
 
 Two surveyors belonging to this party, Messrs. G. B. Scott and 
 A. J. Gibson, were attached to the expeditionary columns under 
 General Keyes and Ross into the Jowaki country, and with the 
 exception of about 50 square miles of the hills occupied by the 
 Hassan Khels (being the easternmost portion contiguous to British 
 territory) the whole of this country was surveyed on the 4-inch scale. 
 Captain Beavan and Mr. Scott also made a rough but fairly accurate 
 map of the Kohat pass, with the hills, villages, and other adjacent 
 features. In the following year the Bannu district was completed 
 under Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonald, and the survey of the military 
 camps near Murree was undertaken, in addition to the ordinary 
 work, in 1881. In 1882-83 the Tlial countiy of Muzaffargarh 
 district, at the extreme south of the area of work, was taken in hand 
 by one section of the party while the other surveyed the Kala Chitta 
 Pahar, a wild gloomy tract in the north of the Rawal Pindi district, 
 which a quarter of a century ago had a bad reputation as a place of 
 refuge for robbers and murderers, but which has since settled down 
 under the quieting eflfects of British rule. 
 
EEVENUE SUBVEYS. 105 
 
 This completed the work in the three districts of Dera Ismail 
 Khan, Muzaffargarh, and Eawal Pindi, and in October 1882 
 Lieutenant- Colonel Macdonald and his party were transferred to the 
 Hissar district of the Punjab. Here it was arranged that the 
 survey should be on the 2-inch in lieu of the 4-inch scale, but 
 including the survey of village boundaries and the determination of 
 village areas. A special feature was the inclusion by traversing of 
 points (to be marked permanently) in the interior of village lands 
 at a distance of about half a mile one from another, so as to serve 
 as a basis of a cadastral survey to be carried out by jpatwaris''^ under 
 the Settlement Department. This is something like the system of 
 marks placed in the case of the British Burma cadastral surveys ac 
 selected stations where extensions of cultivation are likely to occur, 
 but in Burma the marking has not been done in the same regular 
 and systematic manner as in Hissar. Two sets of topographical 
 maps were arranged to be drawn, one showing all the details as 
 surveyed for reproduction on the 2-inch scale ; the second set with 
 the details somewhat generalised for reduction to the 1-inch scale. 
 Village boundaries were to be shown on both sets of maps. The 
 theodolite stations, after a good deal of discussion, were finally 
 arranged to be marked by concrete blocks, which Colonel Macdonald 
 caused to be manufactured under his own personal supervision. A 
 receipt was taken from the patwari in every village for the number 
 of blocks used in his village. The Hissar operations were completed 
 on the 10th April 1884. 
 
 In the season 1884-85 the operations of the party (now in charge 
 of Lieutenant-Colonel F. Coddington) were greatly modified. The 
 objects of the survey were (1) to furnish a basis for and a check on 
 the patwari measurements under progress in the Sub-Himalayan 
 districts of the Punjab ; (2) to obtain a new and revised series 
 of the existing topographical maps, which were very old and 
 deficient in details, by utilising the settlement maps prepared by the 
 patwaris ; (3) the survey of all the riverain tracts subject to 
 fluvial action. To these ends the following procedure was &o-reed 
 upon, viz., (a) that in the districts which had been recently surveyed 
 by the patwari agency an attempt should be made to construct 
 topographical maps on the 2-inch scale from the patwari maps on 
 the basis of the old professional survey traverse data ; (i) that in 
 districts in which the patwari survey had not yet been made, 
 
 * Village accountants who keep the land records of the villas-e. 
 
106 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 skeleton traverses should bo run, fixing as a minimum two points 
 in each village to serve as checks on the patwari measurements, and 
 as a basis on which the topographical maps could be framed from 
 the patwari maps when oonstructed ; (c) that the topographical 
 maps so compiled should be locally tested and the details corrected 
 and completed when necessary. The work lay in the districts 
 of Firozpur, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, and TJmballa, and in the 
 Kapurthala State, and the result of the year's experience was to 
 show that the patwari maps of the settlement survey were capable 
 of being utilised for the construction of topographical maps on a 
 small scale when based on a scientific framework comprising all the 
 trijunction marks of villages. Tlie errors of survey were not greater 
 than such as became eliminated in the process of reduction. 
 
 In 1885-86 work was pushed forward in each of the above- 
 mentioned districts, as well as in Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur. The 
 reductions from the settlement survey maps when tested were found 
 to be very correct representations of the ordinary topographical 
 features, and only a few omissions had to be supplied by new 
 surveys. During this and the following seasons up to 1888 the 
 nature of the detailed work was thus described : — 
 
 (1.) The skeleton traversing of villages for the purpose of 
 determining the co-ordinate distances of trijunction 
 points, and the projection of maps of the trij unctions on 
 tlie scale of two inches to the mile. 
 
 (2.) The insertion of topographical details on these maps by 
 reduction from the settlement survey village maps. 
 
 (3.) The testing and correcting (where necessary) the reduced 
 maps by examination in the field. 
 
 (4.) The drawing of fair maps on the 2-inch scale. 
 
 (5.) The re-drawing of the old 1-inch maps of the Sikh States to 
 complete the portions of those territories falling within the 
 present continuous series of standard maps. 
 
 Eeductions to the scale of the Atlas of India have been drawn from 
 all the standard-sized sheets compiled, covering a total area of 
 11,880 square miles, and furnishing materials for the revision of six 
 of the engraved plates of the atlas. 
 
 Captain E. H. Steel's party (No. 2 Eevenue), completed the 4-inch 
 village survey of Rohtak in 1876-77, and continued that of Sirsa in 
 that and the following season, rendering an excellent out-turn in 
 1877-78. The cultivated tracts close to the rivers were often 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 107 
 
 difficult to distinguisli, for land -whioli to an ordinary traveller would 
 appear nothing but a sandy "waste is often a mass of cultivation, and 
 barley may be seen forcing y^s way up througb. several incbes of 
 drift sand. In the following season the survey of Sirsa was com- 
 pleted, and the party abolished in accordance with the reductions 
 then determined on. 
 
 On the completion of the Ganges Dearah Survey, Major Wilkins's 
 party was transferred to the district of Saharanpur, in the Norfch- 
 West Provinces, for the purpose of re-surveying it on the 2-inch 
 scale (in connexion with other districts of the North-West Provinces), 
 so as to show the pargana or fiscal boundaries, the village trijunction 
 masonry platforms being used as theodolite stations for the traverse 
 survey, and the village boundaries being inserted from the settle- 
 ment maps. As the survey was for topographical purposes and not 
 as a check upon settlement operations, it was held unnecessary to 
 crowd in minuie details of cultivation, culturable waste, or jungle 
 lands, and it was arranged that the survey should include large 
 patches of waste, barren as well as culturable, the general outlines 
 of cultivation, tracts of jungle, limits of forest reserves, roads, 
 drainage in all its ramifications, tanks, village sites, temples, 
 embankments, &c. In short the same details as those required in 
 the usual village by village 4-inch muzaivar survey, but generalised. 
 The Grovernment forest lands having been elaborately surveyed by 
 the Forest Survey Branch on the 4i-inch scale from the Siwaliks to 
 the base of the hills, there was no necessity for going over this 
 ground. The details of the two surveys where they met agreed on 
 the whole very well. The traverse survey was connected with four 
 principal and nine minor stations of the Great Arc Series, these 
 being all that could be identified, a matter which could cause but 
 little surprise, considering that 50 years had elapsed since the 
 triangulations took place. Endeavours were made to use the 
 azimuths of the sides of the principal triangles, but the heliotrope 
 flashes could not be seen, the probable reason being that the view 
 was intercepted by trees that have grown up during the last 50 
 years. 
 
 During 187.8-79 the survey of the Muzaffarnagar district was 
 commenced, and that of Saharanpur district was completed with the 
 exception of the village boundaries on the Jumna and Ganges 
 rivers, which were adjusted and mapped during the following year. 
 A 4-inch survey of the riparian villages in the Umballa district was 
 
108 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 also undertaken, so as to supply accurate maps of the alluvial valleys 
 adjoining some of the larger rivers, which would show village 
 boundaries and the course of the stream, with the accretion and 
 decretion of lands since the last surveys were made. The Muzaff- 
 arnagar district was completed dui'ing 1879-80, and the special 
 survey on the 4-inch scale of the villages subject to fluvial action 
 Avas extended so far as the Jumna forms the common boundary of 
 the Karnal district of the Punjab and the Meernt district of the 
 North-West Provinces. 
 
 The success of the system of transferring the village boundaries 
 from the settlement field maps to the survey maps was found to 
 depend entirely on the accurate identification of the points adopted as 
 trijunctions of village boundaries by the settlement survey. In 
 1880-81 the topographical survey operations were continued in the 
 Meerut district as well as the 4-inch survey of the line of villages 
 on both banks of the Jumna river. In the following year Major 
 Wilkins was transferred to Burma, and, after a brief interval, Mr. E. 
 T. S. Johnson assumed charge. The work was continued on the 
 same lines as in previous seasons, and areae were traversed in districts 
 Bulandshahr and Aligarh, in preparation for the next year's topo- 
 graphy. Mr. Johnson retired on the 29th April 1883, after a lengthy 
 and useful service under Government. After Aligarh, Btah district 
 was next undertaken, but at the close of the season the work was 
 suspended, as the Government arrived at the conclusion that the 
 existing revenue settlement maps, in spite of their imperfections, 
 would answer all revenue requirements, and that surveys in other 
 provinces were more urgently required. The party was therefore 
 withdrawn from the Btah district, and it was arranged that they 
 should be employed in the ensuing season on the Ajmir-Merwara 
 district boundary survey. 
 
 North-West Provinces. — The revenue survey of Moradabad in 1876- 
 77 was on the cadastral system, which is described at pages 182 and 
 183 of Mr. Markham's " Memoir on the Indian Surveys " (2nd 
 edition). The scale was 16 inches to the mile, and the work was 
 connected with the fixed points of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. 
 The operations were also extended into District Budaun, but here 
 the scale was reduced to four inches to the mile, and the survey was 
 of the ordinary niuzawar or village by village character. The 
 cadastral measurements in Moradabad were completed in 1877, and 
 the village survey of Budaun in the ensuing year. Ghazipur was the 
 
KEVENUE SURVEYS. 109 
 
 next district taken in hand, but here it was decided that the 16-inch 
 cadastral scale should be reverted to. Various improvements in the 
 procedure were devised, one being a change in the scale of the 
 general maps reduced from thelfiadrastral surveys, from four inches to 
 two inches to the mile, and an alteration in the style in which they were 
 drawn, admitting of their being further reduced to the 1-inch scale 
 in the photographic oflace at Calcutta, without the necessity of being 
 drafted afresh. Another improvement effected was that no field 
 books of field measurements were prepared, the measurements 
 being plotted instead on the original plans at once in the field, 
 while the Settlement Officer, instead of being supplied, as for- 
 merly, with skeleton hhusras, or field registers, was supplied with 
 copies of the field area calculation books, which required no 
 additional labour in their preparation, as they are made in 
 duplicate. It was calculated that from these two simplifications, 
 viz., doing away with the field books of measurements and the hhusras, 
 about 100 additional square miles were surveyed during that season, 
 and the cost of the work was reduced by 30 rupees per square mile. 
 In 1882 Grhazipur was completed and Ballia (commenced in the 
 previous season) was continued, but in the case of some of the 
 villages in the latter district, the small size of the fields necessitated 
 an increase in the scale to 32 inches to the mile. A 4- inch survey 
 of a line of villages in the Shahabad and Sarun districts of Bengal, 
 on the banks of the Granges, and Grogra, opposite to Ghazipur and 
 Ballia, was also put in hand, the Government of Bengal having taken 
 advantage of the presence of the survey officers to have a reliable 
 map of the low-lying country liable to inundation, with full details 
 of the village and estate boundaries, in one series of maps for both 
 provinces. 
 
 In 1882-83 the operations had reached the Benares district, and 
 here a very important change was introduced, in that the field 
 surveyors, who hitherto had prepared maps only, had now the duty 
 assigned to them of also writing the hhusras or field registers, 
 including the names and record of rights of the proprietors and 
 tenants. The additional work of hhusra writing had already been 
 given during the preceding season to the cadastral party employed in 
 the Mirzapur district, but there the system differed somewhat from 
 that adopted for Benares. In Mirzapur the hhusra-writmg and 
 nothing more was done during the season of survey, the jamabandi* 
 * Eent-rolls showing the numbers of tlie fields belonging to each tenant, and the rents. 
 
110 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 slips being compiled from the hhusras during the ensuing recess, and 
 both hhusras and slips being then completed by having the field areas 
 entered in them. The papers vs^ere then ready to be handed to the 
 settlement staff, who took the field the following season to attest the 
 jamahandi entries, and complete all other papers connected with the 
 record of rights. The Benares system was for the settlement staff 
 to take the field along with the survey staff, and for the two depart- 
 ments to work in co-operation, so that all the papers could be 
 prepared in one season. Briefly stated the system was : — 1st, the 
 settlement staff supplied the survey amins with such information as 
 would enable the entries in the hhusras, regarding the shares of the 
 proprietors and the occupancy rights of the cultivators, to be correctly 
 recorded. 2nd, the village patwari accompanied the amin during 
 the survey, and wrote a copy of the hhusra exactly similar to the 
 amin's copy (except that it was in the Nagri instead of in the Persian 
 character), writing also concurrently in the Jarnahandi slips, which 
 had been previously distributed to each cultivator, the " numbers " 
 of the fields as they were surveyed. 3rd, the pativari's copy of the 
 Ihusra and the jamahandi slips were at once made over to the settle- 
 ment staff, with a manuscript tracing of the village map to allow of 
 any disputes being settled. 4th, the computations of field areas were 
 then carried out in the survey oSice, so as to complete the Persian 
 copy of the hhusra, which was then made over to the settlement 
 staff, who in due course transcribed the areas on the Jamahandi slips, 
 and thus prepared these for final attestation. The exact procedure is 
 explained in a joint memorandum drawn up by Mr. F. "W. Porter, 
 Settlement Ofiicer, and Major W. Barron, Deputy Superintendent of 
 Survey, which is given at jiage 88 of the appendix to the Surveyor 
 General's Eeport for 1882-83. 
 
 After six months' trial of the system, these two officers submitted 
 1 oporis on its working, showing conclusively that very great 
 advantages ensued from the joint inter- working of the settlement 
 r.iid survey staffs, while the additional duty of khusra-writing did 
 rot add to the cost of the survey. 
 
 In 1883-84 Basti district came into the field of operations, and 
 ^lajor W. Barron, who had conducted the work for several years 
 with great zeal and ability, was granted furlough to Europe through 
 ill-health, Mr. G. H. Cooke, first, and Major S. H. Cowan, next, 
 assuming charge. In 1884-85 certain modifications were introduced 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 into tlie Benares system, and the entire preparation of the rough 
 record, including the Hindi portion, and all such assessment statistics 
 as could be compiled with sufficient accuracy previous to attestation, 
 were made over to the Surve']^ Department. The settlement decided 
 to retain, however, a staff of settlement munsarims* to check the soil 
 demarcations and the records of certain villages as they were being 
 written, and to submit special reports on the accuracy of the 
 Jchanapuri.f 
 
 The cadastral survey of the Basti district was completed in 1888, 
 having been begun in 1883-84. The total number of villages was 
 7,G1.5, the area in square miles was 2,815, and the number of fields 
 5,260,420. Regarding the value of the village papers prepared by 
 the survey party during previous seasons, the Settlement Officer of 
 Basti, in illustration of the satisfactory manner in which the rights 
 of the occupancy tenants were safeguarded on this occasion against 
 the designs of the zamindars, prepared a table for five parganas, 
 viz., Amonha, Nagar West, Nagar East, Basti "West, and Basti Bast. 
 The tabular statement of the total areas for these five parganas 
 recorded in the papers of different " Fasli " years were as follows : — 
 
 Areas held by Occupancy Tenants. 
 
 According to Annual Statements prepared in the Office of District 
 Sadar Kanungo. 
 
 According to Survey 
 
 Records after Attestation 
 
 by Settlement. 
 
 F. Year 1289. 
 53,766. 
 
 F. Year 1290. 
 67,180. 
 
 F. Year 1291. 
 44,650. 
 
 F. Year 1292. 
 100,199. 
 
 From the above it will be seen that the total area was far less in 
 the year 1291 (the year before survey) than in previous years, which 
 shows that the zamindars had got the patwaris to enter a number of 
 occupancy tenants as " non-occupancy " tenants, in the hope that they 
 would be similarly recorded by the survey. The figures for 1292 
 show how eminently successful the new and accurate system of 
 survey was in defeating this fraudulent attempt. 
 
 * Inspectors. 
 
 f Filling up the columns of the hhusra. 
 
112 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 Besides tlie Basti operations, cadastral and topographical surveys 
 by three sections of the same party were carried on in Mirzapur 
 district. The patwaris were here trained and partially employed 
 under professional supervision, so that they might be capable of 
 measuring the fluctuating cultivation year by year or as might be 
 necessary. 
 
 Under the supervision of Colonel F. C. Anderson, No. 5 Eevenue 
 Survey party was engaged in 1876-77 on the cadastral survey of the 
 Mathura and Banda districts of the North-West Provinces. During 
 the following seasons the permanently settled district of Mirzapur 
 as well as portions of the Terai were also surveyed by the same party 
 up to 1883, when Colonel Anderson retired. He had been connected 
 with the Department for ;^1 years, and had held charge of No. 5 
 party for 27 years, during which he had conducted the 4-inch 
 surveys of districts Leiah, MuzaflPargarh, and Shahpur in the Punjab, 
 and districts Partabgarh, Eai Bareilly, Sultanpur, Sitapur, Kheri, 
 and Gonda in Oudh ; and had been connected with the departmental 
 cadastral surveys since their introduction in 1871-72. In 1860 
 Colonel Anderson was appointed one of two British Commissioners 
 for the settlement and demarcation of the boundary between Oudh 
 and the territory ceded to Nepal, and received the thanks of the 
 Government of India for his services on that occasion. 
 
 The party was then transferred to Gorakhpur district, North-West 
 Provinces, where Major J. E. Sandeman assumed charge, the system 
 of survey and record writing being generally that followed in 
 Benares, with this important modification, that — 
 
 (1.) The Survey Department completed the records and was 
 
 responsible for their accuracy. 
 (2.) The attestation was made after the completed records had 
 been lodged. 
 
 It was felt that it was a defect in the Benares system that the 
 attestation of the records had to be done before the areas were 
 entered. This was remedied in the Gorakhpur system, while there 
 was a great check on bribery and corruption from the fact that the 
 patwari prepared a duplicate record on the spot for every field and 
 a duplicate of the dispute list. These modifications were devised by 
 Mr. J. D. La Touche, Settlement Oflicer, and Major Sandeman. The 
 classification of the natural soils was undertaken for the first time 
 by the Survey Department, who had also to compile the statistics 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 113 
 
 for assesgment purposes comprising the soils, irrigated and dry ; 
 the details of soils under cultivation ; the tenures of the holdings ; 
 tlie culturable and barren areas ; the areas under different crops ; 
 the cultivators, showing the numbers in each caste and the 
 areas cultivated by each caste, and all agricultural statistics with 
 respect to wells, ploughs, cattle, &c. The duties and responsibilities 
 of the survey officers were much increased by these arrangements, 
 but there was every prospect of an increase in the accuracy of the 
 records and eventual economy. The boundary disputes Avere very 
 numerous during the following season (1884-85), no less than 1,800 
 of the villages surveyed being affected thereby. These disputes 
 appeared to be due to the old defective field maps, which when 
 adjacent invariably overlapped each other, so that the same ground 
 appeared in both, and much litigation and ill-feeling was thereby 
 caused among neighbouring zamindars. 
 
 The total cost of the operations done by the Survey Department 
 amounted in 1884-85 to 4 annas 3 pies per acre, a rate which com- 
 pared very favourably with the old rate for field survey alone. This 
 was not due to larger fields, for the average size of those in Goralihpur 
 was only half an acre, but it proved what survey oflBcers have always 
 urged, that the work would be done not only better but more cheaply 
 if the Survey Department recorded the rights of proprietors and 
 tenants at the time of survey, for it has been conclusively proved 
 that correct field boundaries cannot be obtained otherwise, as the 
 people will not attend unless they know that their rights are being 
 recorded. The expenditure of the Settlement Department was 
 exceptionally high, due to complicated tenures, minute holdings and 
 numerous disputes, and this served to raise the cost of the complete 
 operations to Rs 410 per square mile. 
 
 The survey was continued on the same lines in 1885-86, but in 
 1886-87 an endeavour was made to employ the district hanungos^ in 
 place of the survey munsarims ; the experiment however failed, as 
 the men were found to l)e too ignorant for the purpose. Here, again, 
 in the case of one tahsil,-f the survey operations resulted in the dis- 
 covery of twice as many occupancy tenants as had been returned by 
 the kanungos four years previously, the fact being that the presence 
 of European surveyors encouraged the tenants to assert their rights 
 more fearlessly than they could otherwise have done. The survey of 
 
 * Revenue oflicial under the tahsildar. 
 
 f Potion of a ilistriet divided off for revenue purposes. 
 
 ■ 1 Y 2032 1 . H 
 
114 REVENUE SUKVEYS. 
 
 Gorakhpur was completed in 1887-88 after five seasons' work, 
 and a further grant was sanctioned by the North-West Provinces 
 Government which it was expected would enable the cadastral and 
 topographical survey of the Tarai district, already commenced, to be 
 finished during the next season. A scheme, submitted by Colonel 
 Sandeman, was also approved for the reconstruction of maps and 
 revision of records of the Jhansi district, entirely through the agency 
 oipatwaris, who, it was anticipated, Avould carry out the survey and 
 write the records, each in his own circle, in two years. The cost was 
 estimated at Es. 40 per square mile. 
 
 Bengal. — The Eastern Soane Irrigation cadastral survey in the Gaya 
 and Patna districts was practically all but completed by Mr. E. T. S. 
 Johnson in 1876-77, and the party transferred to the North-West 
 Provinces to take up the cadastral survey of the Jaunpur district, 
 beginning at its south-western extremity, bordering on Oudh and 
 Allahabad. Operations were continued through four seasons, and 
 finally concluded in 1881. The general maps of the district reduced 
 from the cadastral sheets consist of 23 standard-sized maps on the 
 2-inch scale. 
 
 A part of the establishment previously employed on the Jaunpur 
 cadastral survey was deputed to Sylhet for the purpose of testing 
 the accuracy of the old mahahuar* maps, prepared by a local 
 establishment in 1862-64. Three blocks of villages in different 
 parts of Sylhet were selected, the test consisting of a complete 
 cadastral or field survey, while the surveyors were required to 
 prepare at the same time the village registers or hhasras. The old 
 surveys had been laid off by magnetic bearings, taken at each bend 
 of the thaldmst or village boundary, a system which often resulted 
 in errors, so that the polygon would not close, while contiguous 
 malialii^' either overlapped or would not meet on the map. It was 
 evident from the comparisons that a large amount of careful and 
 laborious work had been done during the mahalwar survey, but 
 there were also numerous and large discrepancies brought to 
 light. 
 
 A cadastral survey of the Khurdah estate in the Pooree district 
 of the Lower Provinces, on the scale of 32 inches to the mile, was 
 commenced in 1876-77. The cost was high owing to the small 
 size and intricate nature of the fields, and the difl&culty in inducing 
 
 * Mahal, a separate estate. 
 
REVEJSUE SURVEYS. 115 
 
 the Ooriyas or men of the country to act as amins. Tho operations 
 were in charge of Mr. R. B. Smart, an officer of considerable 
 experience. In 1878-79, ho-v»ever, the Bengal Board of Revenue, 
 on account of the high cost of the operations, advocated a new 
 system, under which a large portion of the work hitherto performed 
 by the professional party would be undertaken in future by the 
 Settlement Department. A meeting of civil and survey officers 
 consequently assembled at Cuttack in February 1879, and after 
 consideration a still larger transfer of duties to the Settlement 
 Department than at first contemplated was decided upon, it being 
 arranged that for the remaining villages of the Khurdah estate 
 the professional party should execute a traverse survey of the 
 village boundaries and prepare skeleton maps of villages. These 
 skeleton maps were to be made over to the Settlement Department 
 to enable them to carry out all interior measurements. But any 
 hills falling within the villages were to be surveyed by the 
 professional party on the 4-inch scale. The chief tract remaining 
 for survey in 1879-80 — the mals or forest lands of Banpur — was 
 known to be at all times unhealthy, and during that season everyone 
 who entered the jungles was sooner or later struck down with fever. 
 These mals had never before been demarcated, and the inhabitants 
 of the scattered hamlets had hitherto cultivated the open patches 
 of land without let or' hindrance, escaping all taxation. It was not 
 surprising, therefore, that they looked upon the survey as an 
 innovation, and as far as possible avoided giving help, but thanks 
 to the effiDrts of the Collector all difficulties as to supplies, &c. were 
 surmounted. The whole of the Khurdah estate was completed during 
 the season of 1879-80, the general maps on the 4-inch scale being 
 65 in number, of which 48 were surveyed by the Department and 
 19 by the Settlement Department. 
 
 The 8th or Western Soane Irrigation party was engaged in 
 1876-77 on cadastral surveys in the Shahabad district. It was 
 supposed that the entire irrigable area of the district would be 
 surveyed, but during October 1877 the programme was changed, 
 and the area in Shahabad was greatly reduced. Major Sconce was 
 in charge of the party as well as of a section left to complete the 
 cadastral survey of Patna district, and under his general supervision 
 the work in both districts was completed. 
 
 Major S. H. Cowan, who had assisted Major Sconce, was deputed 
 during the following season (1878-79) to raise a small party for 
 
 H 2 
 
116 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 the survey of Cachar, and with the nucleus of some men from the 
 "Western Soane party this was done. The operations in Cachar 
 had become necessary on account of the pending re-settlement of 
 the district, but owing to the old boundaries not having been 
 permanently marked they could not be identified on the ground. 
 Consequently a settlement establishment had to precede the pro- 
 fessional survey party, demarcate the mehal boundaries, and prepare 
 maps of the boundaries by aid of the compass and chain for 
 comparison with the maps of the cadastral survey. Under these 
 circumstances the out-turn was not large, and after a conference 
 at Shillong it was decided that in future the professional basis of 
 the village boundaries of the cadastral maps should be continued 
 through the agency of a small professional detachment under the 
 orders of the Settlement Officer. 
 
 In the Midnapur district a 4-inch survey muzawar was 
 progressing in 1876-77 under Mr. W. Lane, who retired early in 
 the season after a useful and lengthy service of nearly 40 years, 
 and was succeeded by Captain W. H. Wilkins. At the close of the 
 season a very small area in the jungle Mehal hills was all that 
 remained to complete the district, and this was assigned to 
 Mr. J. Todd for the next year, the rest of the party being 
 reconstituted for a cadastral survey of the irrigable lands of Cuttack 
 in the vicinity of the Mahanadi river. The survey was undertaken 
 for the Irrigation Branch of the Public "Works Department to 
 facilitate the collection of canal water rates, and the entire expense 
 was defrayed by that Department. Captain D. C. Andrew was 
 placed in charge till he was invalided by a sun-stroke and succeeded 
 by Mr. B. C. Barrect. Operations were much delayed by the fact 
 that the demarcation had not been pushed forward and disputes 
 had not been adjusted in advance, but the survey was finished in 
 1879^, the greater part of the work being on the 32-inch scale. 
 • In November 1879 a cadastral 16-inch survey of the Bassein 
 district of British Burma was started under the superintendence 
 of Major D. C. Andrew. The country is largely intersected with 
 creeks, all communication is necessarily carried on by water, and 
 boundary lines had to be very frequently cleared through dense 
 jungle. Major Steel, who had charge in the following season, 
 reported promisingly of the Burman and Kareni surveyors, but 
 this favourable opinion was not endorsed by Majors Wilkins and 
 Hutchinson in the succeeding years, as they found them slower than 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 117 
 
 Ilmdustariis, and without iniicli ambition to become useful. A 
 school for the training of Burmans as surveyors was established, 
 and 89 youths qualified themselves by field training in the principles 
 of filling in cadastral survey details, the British Burma Government 
 having made the possession of this certificate a sine qua non to civil 
 employment, but Major Hutchinson did not come across a case 
 of a Burman desiring to make field surveying a means of livelihood. 
 In 1882-83 the survey of the town of Bassein on the 64-inch scale, 
 at the expense of the municipality, was undertaken, and in the 
 following season operations were extended into the Henzada district, 
 the surveys of both districts being brought to a close in 1885. The 
 party was then transferred to Behar to inaugurate an experimental 
 cadastral survey of the Muzafi'arpur district under Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Barron, Major Hutchinson being transferred to Akyab. 
 
 The cadastral survey of Muzafi'arpur in Bengal, with preparation 
 of a record of rights, was undertaken experimentally under the 
 Bengiil Tenancy Act, and as the operations were of considerable 
 importance, involving as they did the great question of a thorough 
 statistical and geographical survey throughout the permanently 
 settled districts of Bengal, a brief account of the circumstances 
 which led to the institution of the survey is here desirable. 
 
 The Indian Famine Commission, who reported in 1880, had laid 
 special stress on the necessity of appointing village accountants in 
 Bengal, and of instituting cadastral or field surveys in the same 
 province.* This weighty matter, closely connected as it was with 
 the question of the relations between landlord and tenant in Bengal, 
 very soon branched ofl: from the more, general recommendations 
 of the Commission, regarding the establishment of Agricultural 
 Departments and the organisation of famine relief, and became the 
 
 * " We rocomraend that the body of village accountants should everywhere be put 
 on a sound and satisfactory footing as responsible public officers, with a clearly defined 
 set of duties, but with due consideration to the importance of their permanent con- 
 nexion with their own villages, and that whereas in parts of Bengal and Sindh the 
 
 class has ceased to exist through long desuetude it should be resuscitated 
 
 The field survey, wliich supplies the basis of all agricultural stntistics, should be 
 pushed on in the provinces where it is now in progress, and should be set on foot in 
 Bengal, where hitherto it has not been introduced. In that province the expenditure, or 
 the major part of it, should be borne by the landholders, who alone derive advantage 
 from the increasing value of the land, and who cannot without such a survey properly 
 perform the duties imposed on them by their position." (Command Paper C.-2o9], 
 1880, p. 40.) 
 
118 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 subject of an important and lengthy correspondence spread over 
 several years between the Government of India and the Secretary 
 of State. The experiment of a cadastral survey and of the esta- 
 blishment of village records in the Patna division of Behar was 
 sanctioned by Lord Hartington in 1882,* but pending the larger 
 question of the amendment of the Bengal Rent Law, nothing was 
 done to give effect to that sanction. In 1884, Mr. Reynolds, one of 
 the members of the Bengal Board of Revenue, submitted a full 
 explanatory memorandum (based largely on a note of Mr. Bernard) 
 describing the proposed survey and record of rights, and also the 
 proposed maintenance of the survey and records by introducing into 
 Bebar the North-west Provinces . system of patwaris and Icanungos. 
 For this purpose a Patwari Bill was brought into the Bengal 
 Legislative Council, and the survey and record operations were 
 started in the district of Muzaffarpur. But in 1886, Lord Randolph 
 Churchill, who was then Secretary of State, in reviewing the whole 
 situation, expressed his opinionf that the cost of survey and record 
 operations in Muzaffarpur should be borne wholly by the Govern- 
 ment, on the ground that " as the measure at present is purely 
 " experimental it would not be right to lay any part of the expense 
 " on the people." At the same time, Lord Randolph made a reser- 
 vation as regarded the cost of the patwaris, which he had no 
 objection to see defrayed from local funds if there were found any 
 "existing customary source " capable of being made fairly available 
 for the payment of the new class of village accountants. The 
 Government of India, however, in their reply plainly objected to this 
 new idea of defraying the expense from general revenues, so that 
 Lord Kimberley, who had in the meantime taken office, thought 
 that there was no choice left but to abandon the survey, which was 
 accordingly done.| 
 
 The stoppage of the survey gave rise to much general regret. 
 It had been desirable, in the first instance, to test the feelings 
 oC the people in Behar with regard both to mapping the holdings 
 and to the concurrent inquiries into occupancy rights, as well as to 
 ascertain the probable cost of the operations with the view of 
 
 * Despatch Xo. .54 (Revenue), dated 17tli August, p. 190 of volume of Selections 
 from Despaiches for 1882. 
 
 f In his Despatcli Xo. 1 (Legislative), dated Yth January 1886. 
 
 J Despatch to Government of India (Legislative), No. 21, dated 15th .Julj' 1886. 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 119 
 
 their being extended, if matters should be found favourable, to 
 other permanently settled districts of the Lower Provinces of 
 Bengal. The result of the experiment, so far as the temper of the 
 people "was concerned, had b?en in every way satisfactory. The land- 
 lords offered no opposition, as had been feared they might have done, 
 through their regarding the formal recording of the rights of the 
 tenants as a restriction of their proprietary rights. The tenants 
 did not object, as had been partly expected, to the measuring of 
 their fields, through apprehension of an increase of rents, though 
 it was also evident that they were still ignorant of the great 
 advantages accruing to them from the accurate record which was 
 being made of their holdings. Generally they were found to be 
 passively indifferent to the operations. The cost of the survey had 
 been at the total rate of Rs. 269 per square mile, being Rs. 140 for 
 survey proper and Rs. 129 for writing and compiling the records. 
 These rates, however, were exceptionally high, owing to the opera- 
 tions being new, and several of the hands untrained. For the 
 ensuing season it was confidently expected that the cost would have 
 been reduced to less than Rs. 200 per square mile, or below 5 annas 
 per acre. 
 
 But so useful and important a measure was not destined to be 
 permanently abandoned, and the subject soon came to the front 
 again. The Grovernment of India, on inquiry into all the circum- 
 stances, arrived at the same conclusion as that formed by the 
 Surveyor-General, that the experimental survey in Muzaff'arpur had 
 really been a success and deserved to be extended.'^' And when the 
 matter came before Lord Cross, as Secretary of State, he accepted 
 this favourable opinion, and finally reversed the decision of Lord 
 Randolph Churchill as to the cost in the following terms : "I fully 
 " agree in your opinion, that if the work is undertaken at all the 
 " cost of the survey and of the subsequent maintenance of the 
 " village record must be kept within the narrowest possible limits 
 " of cost, as the expenses will have to be defrayed by the classes 
 " and localities concerned."f 
 
 There is therefore every prospect that this survey will be resumed 
 as soon as the people have recovered from the loss caused by the 
 scarcity of 1889. A beginning will thus be made with a proper 
 cadastral and statistical survey of the permanently settled districts 
 
 * Sir E. Buck's letter to the Government of Bengal, dated ]6tli June 1S8S. 
 •f Despatch to India, No. 66 (Revenue), dated 16tb August 1888. 
 
120 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 of Bengal, wticli has been hitherto one of the most urgent prelimi- 
 nary desiderata for acquiring a thorough knowledge of the resources 
 of the country, and thus minimizing the devastations of famine.* 
 
 The Dearah Survey, on the 4-inch scale, in the districts of 
 Faridpur and Bakargaiij was continued and brought to a close 
 in the year 1876-77, the operations lying mainly adjacent to the 
 Megua river, where the country consisted partly of heavy jungle 
 and partly of densely populated tracts with bamboo, betel, and 
 cocoa-nut groves, and innumerable tanks. One of the principal 
 objects of the survey was to fix and render permanent the village 
 boundary trijunctions on and adjoining the large sand-banks and 
 islands, and 536 of these were so fixed during the season. The 
 weather throughout was unusually wet and stormy, and as the 
 country under survey consisted of sand-banks and islands intersected 
 by immense rivers, the crossing of these in small country boats is 
 a matter of no small risk. Captain Samuells, who was in charge, 
 stated that the zemindars obstructed the survey as much as they 
 could by refusing to attend or point out their boundaries until 
 summoned to do so. The process of summoning caused a delay of 
 15 days, when an agent would be sent to attend, who either pointed 
 out a wrong boundary or professed entire ignorance and finally 
 told the surveyor to put down any boundary he pleased. 
 
 It was arranged that the party should undertake, during the 
 following season, the topographical survey of district Saharanpur, 
 one of the 21 districts of the North-West Provinces, of which most 
 of the records were destroyed in the Mutiny. The scale of survey 
 was to be two instead of four inches to a mile. Village boundaries 
 were to be omitted, but parganaf and thana^, boundaries were to be 
 surveyed and mapped. 
 
 In 1888-89 no fewer than seven parties and one detachment were 
 altogether employed on cadastral surveys. Of these six continued 
 the operations of the previous year in the Bilaspur district of the 
 
 * Compiue the paper on liuliati Agriculture, read by Mr. C. R. Markbarn, C.B., before 
 the Society of Arts, on the 21st May 1875 : — " When we find the cultivators well off in 
 " one district, depressed by poverty and want in another, or on the verge of starva- 
 " lion in a third, we may feel pure that these differences are to a great extent due to 
 " want of exact knowledge on tlie part of the rulers." And Mr. Markiiani goes on to 
 point out very clearly that a cadastral survey is the only satisfactory basis for ac(iuiring 
 such knowledge. 
 
 f Subdivision of a district for revenue purpo.'ies. 
 
 1 Subdivision of a district for police purposes. 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 121 
 
 Central Provinces (where the work was brought to a conclusion), in 
 Bengal, the North-West Provinces, Assam, and Burma, while the 
 seventh party was transferred from the North-West Provinces to 
 start the survey of Jalpaigun in Bengal. A small detachment was 
 also formed for the commencement of the survey of Chittagong. 
 
 Traverse surveys in the Punjab and Central Provinces were also 
 carried on by six parties, those in the former being occupied in the 
 construction of topographical maps by reduction from the village 
 maps of the settlement surveys, and those in the latter in furnishing 
 skeleton plots of villages for field surveys by patwaris working 
 under settlement officers. Four parties were also engaged in forest 
 surveys in the Central Provinces in the Bombay and Madras 
 Presidencies and in Lower Burma respectively, as well as a detach- 
 ment in Bengal working in conjunction with the cadastral party 
 engaged in the survey of Angul in Orissa. 
 
 Rugli River and Calcutta. — The want of a reliable survey of 
 the Hugli rivei" had been long felt, and had been pointed out by 
 the Torpedo Committee in 1871, by the Bengal Chamber of 
 Commerce in 1872, by the Port Commissioners in 1875, and finally 
 by the Port Officer of Calcutta, who had shown in 1881 that an 
 exact triangulation and topographical survey of the banks of the 
 river were also much needed as a basis for new river charts, and 
 that the co-operation of the Survey Department was desirable. 
 The Surveyor- General of India accordingly took advantage of the 
 completion of the cadastral survey of Jaunpur district to depute 
 the party to take up the work on the Hugli. The tract to be 
 surveyed on either bank varied from a quarter of a mile to a mile 
 or more in width, and extended from about the 23rd parallel, near 
 Kanchrapara Station of the Eastern Bengal Railway, to close on 
 22° 30', or about the latitude of Saugor lighthouse. Calcutta and 
 its suburbs as well as the whole of Saugor island were included in 
 the area. From Atchipur southwards the scale adopted was 
 six inches, while above Atchipur it was 16 inches to the mile. The 
 river soundings which did not extend above Calcutta were supplied 
 by the Marine Survey Department under the supervision of 
 Lieutenant Petley, R.N. The Hugli survey was completed during 
 the season of 1882-83 by Major S. H, Cowan, the 16-inch portion 
 being contained in ] 15 sections of uniform size, including one 
 minute of latitude by one minute of longitude, and the 6-jnch series 
 comprising 14 maps. 
 
122 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 In consequence of tlie growtli of the capital, a re-survey of 
 Calcutta had become necessary, the former plan, executed in 1847, 
 by Mr. F. W. Simms, C.E., having been on too small a scale, and 
 having since become quite out of date. In 1851 a survey of the 
 boundary of holdings was commenced by Mr. W. Heysham, whose 
 -work lasted four years, and who converted Mr. Simms's topographical 
 maps into maps showing the holdings, with index numbers referring 
 to a register of owners and areas. These, however, in process of 
 time, had become useless through changes in proprietorship, but a 
 newer and more correct set of registers had been begun in 1877. 
 
 The " Calcutta Survey Act, 1887," became law on the 15th 
 January in that year. The Deputy Superintendent in charge of the 
 operations was empowered to inquire into and lay down boundaries. 
 The scale adopted was 50 feet to 1 inch, surface features being 
 shown with the greatest minuteness, and the underground lines of 
 sewers, gas, and water pipes being subsequently added. There has 
 been a great deal of delay caused by the failure of proprietors to 
 attend when their boundaries were being laid down, and there is 
 still a good deal of work remaining to be done, including the house 
 to house inquiry as to names of proprietors and boundaries of 
 buildings, and the drawing of the fair sheets. The principal field work 
 has been completed, but owing to the great difficulty in getting 
 proprietors to attend, when the boundaries are being laid down, it is 
 almost impossible to say when the last sheet will be published. 
 
 Bombay. — Owing to the famine the operations in 1876-77 of Major 
 H. C. B. Tanner's party in the Poona and Satara districts had to be 
 diverted to a part of the country which was quite unprepared for 
 survey, and where no triangulation had been done in advance, and 
 this resulted in a smaller out-turn than usual. The nature of the 
 survey was, as before, topographical, on the scale of two inches to a 
 mile, based on triangulation and traverse. The levels and charts 
 carried out by the irrigation officers were incorporated into the 
 survey sheets, and all the heights were connected with those brought 
 up from the coast by Captain Baird's Tidal and Levelling party, so 
 that the true heights above mean sea-level were ascertained in each 
 case. Every effort was made to utilise the maps of the Bombay 
 Government Eevenue Surveys, but as the work in this year happened 
 to lie in hilly ground, where these maps were found to be, as a rule, 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 123 
 
 defective, tlie eflforts were unsuccessful, tliougli good use was made 
 of tliem in the succeeding season. In 1878-79 Major Tanner was 
 employed with the Khaibar column of the Afghanistan Field Force 
 and Major H. S. Hutchinson* ook charge of the South Deccan party. 
 For one of the southernmost sheets (54) the scale of survey was 
 increased to four inches to the mile ; but in other parts the old 2-inch 
 scale was adhered to. 
 
 Major Hutchinson found it impracticable to utilise the topo- 
 graphy of the Bombay maps, owing to the drainage and other items 
 being imperfect and varying much in quality in different localities, 
 according to the time at which it was done and the ofl&cer who did 
 it. In 1880-81 the opportunity was taken by Major Andrew, who 
 had assumed charge, to survey some western portions of the Nizam's 
 dominions which adjoined the area of the party, as no maps were 
 forthcoming of the tract among the records of the old Haidarabad 
 Survey. The general work was steadily continued up to 1886, when 
 the South Deccan party was withdrawn from the Bombay Presi- 
 dency and transferred to the Central Provinces to carry on a 
 traverse survey there in aid of a settlement survey. It had been 
 employed in the Bombay Presidency since October 1872, and during 
 the 14 seasons of its employment had surveyed in all, under suc- 
 cessive officers, a total area of 24,867 square miles, leaving about 
 11,953 square miles incompleted. 
 
 The 10th or Nasik, Poona, and Ahmadnagar party, under Major 
 Macdonald, was occupied in 1877 in topographical survey in Ahmad- 
 nagar district, the eastern part of which adjoined Haidarabad territory. 
 The country was generally flat and open, though here and there inter- 
 sected by a network of large and small streams. In the west the 
 ground was broken and undulating, while in the immediate vicinity of 
 the Grhats it was a mass of hills, some very rugged and precipitous. 
 The skeleton survey was a combination of triangulation and 
 traversing, by which the country was first covered by a network of 
 triangles having sides averaging 10 miles in length ; the distances 
 between the triangulated points were then traversed with the chain, 
 thus enclosing main circuits, of which the bearings and co-ordinates 
 obtained by traverse were corrected to agree with the values of the 
 points derived from the triangulation. The city of Ahmadnagar 
 was mapped on tho scale of 66 feet or one chain to the inch for the 
 municipality, by whom the extra cost was defrayed. An excellent 
 
124 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 descriptive report of the Deecan, its appearance, physical geography 
 geological structure, chief towns, ports, manufactures, &c., is 
 attached to the Surveyor-General's Report for 1877-78.* 
 
 The area allotted to this party having been nearly completed, the 
 survey of the Konkan or country between the Western Ghats and the 
 sea was assigned to them in January 1879. The system and scale of 
 survey (2-inch) were the same as those adopted for the Deecan 
 topographical survey, and the triangulation was based on the South 
 Konkan Meridional Series of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. 
 Triangulation was carried on under great diflBculties, as the agri- 
 culturists burn the village refuse to supply ashes for the rice 
 fields. The smoke of the fires added to the dense atmosphere near 
 the sea coast covered the tops of the hills with a dense haze, and 
 after 10 in the morning even the luminous signals were not visible 
 for over six or eight miles. The Deecan dacoits too roamed about 
 the country cutting down signals and destroying marks. 
 
 Captain B. W. Samuells was in charge of this party up to the 
 11th September 1878, when he availed himself of two months' 
 privilege leave to recruit his health. Before the termination of his 
 leave the Afghan war had commenced, and he and Major Tanner 
 had to accompany the Khaibar column. Captain Samuells, after 
 narrowly escaping from the enemy's artillery fire while surveying 
 during the battle of Ali Musjid, fell a victim to fever on the 
 21pt December 1878. He had entered the Department in December 
 1863, and had held charge of different parties for about six years 
 altogether. He had served in Bengal, Assam, the Deecan, and on a 
 special boundary survey of the Oudh and Nepal frontier, and was 
 an energetic and zealous officer. 
 
 In 1879-80 the North Deecan party was divided into two sections, 
 one being engaged in completing the portion of the Deecan allotted 
 to the party, with which was included the Ashti taluk of the 
 Nizam's dominions, as it is surrounded by Deecan country. The 
 second section commenced the topographical survey of the Konkan, 
 where preliminary triangulation had been done during the previous 
 season. The 2-inch scale was continued as in the Deecan, but the 
 village boundaries were obtained by direct survey, as it was found 
 that the transfer of the boundaries in such hilly country from the 
 Bombay Revenue Survey maps would not have been satisfactory. 
 
 * Appendix, p. 129. 
 
REVENUE SURVEYS. 125 
 
 A picturesque description of the Konkan, from the pen of Colonel 
 J. Macdonald, finds place in the Surveyor- General's Eeport for 
 1879-80.'^ Colonel Macdonald remarks on the few remains of fine 
 buildings throughout the Kontan, showing the traces of Muhammadan 
 occupation, and he observes that, considering the importance they 
 attached to the trade and intercourse with Egypt, Persia, and Arabia, 
 and that they were supreme in power from the fourteenth to the close 
 of the sixteenth century, it is strange there are not more traces of a 
 governing race which built like giants and finished like jewellers. 
 Of the Marathas, who date from the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, the great hill forts are the most characteristic structures. 
 All these are constructed on the same principle, the top of the fortified 
 hill being surrounded by a bastioned wall, and any necessary outwork 
 being connected by an excavated passage with the main work. Some 
 of these forts show stupendous labour in rock-cutting. The eastern 
 districts are terribly denuded of forest trees. Every efibrt is made 
 to promote jungle growth, but Colonel Macdonald considers that 
 centuries must elapse ere the injury to agriculture caused by the 
 folly and greed of one unthinking generation can be quite forgiven 
 by nature, and that the rainfall in the upper basin of the Godavari 
 and Kistna rivers will be most precarious for many years to come. 
 
 The progress was slow in the following year owing to the high 
 and difficult hills covered with forest or marshy fiat country cut up 
 by tidal creeks, about which the work lay. The suburbs of Bombay 
 were very intricate, and the hill sanitarium of Matheran and Bombay 
 harbour also proved difficult pieces of work. The fort and city 
 were not surveyed, but mapped from a photographic reduction of 
 Colonel Laughton's survey in 1874. Major Lees Smith, who had 
 taken over charge from Colonel Macdonald, unfortunately succumbed 
 to fever in 1882. He was an officer possessed of considerable mathe- 
 matical talent, and his loss was much regretted. During 1882 and 
 1883 the scale of survey in the Thana coUectorate was raised from 
 two to four inches to meet the requirements of the Forest Department, 
 and the country alternated between difficult mountainous jungle- 
 covered districts and flat and marshy tracts along the seacoast, both 
 of which proved very unhealthy to the party. The portions of the 
 Konkan allotted to the party were completed in 1885, and a com- 
 mencement was made of the topographical survey of the Southern 
 Maratha country, the object being to undertake a topographical 
 2-inch survey of Bombay territory south of the parallel of 16° N. 
 
 * See Appendix, p. 10. 
 
126 REVENUE SURVEYS. 
 
 atitude, together with a skeleton traverse survey of the forests, 
 to serve as a basis for the construction of working plans by forest 
 officers. The chief place of importance falling within the season's 
 work was Belgaum, with its cantonment and fort. During the 
 ensuing years the work was carried on by two separate sections, but 
 in 1887-88 the Bombay Government represented that the skeleton 
 boundary maps gave very meagre results compared with their cost, 
 so after a conference at Poona between the Secretary to the Govern- 
 ment of India, the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 
 the Surveyor-General, and officers of the Forest and Survey Depart- 
 ments, the procedure was altered, and one entire party for forest 
 topography was formed out of the forest sections of Nos. 10 and 17 
 parties, while the second party was to be employed exclusively on 
 general topography.* 
 
 Assavi and SilcJdm. — In Assam a small party under Mr. W, H. 
 Patterson had been deputed in 1877 to ascertain the areas of plots of 
 land held by the lalcUraJdarsf preparatory to adjusting their claims 
 and allotting what they were actually entitled to. The work consisting 
 of three stages, viz., (1) the professional survey of interior details, (2) 
 the adjustment of areas and boundary, and (3) the final demarcation 
 and boundary survey, was carried on until 1878-79, but in that year 
 the operations, so far as the Indian Survey Department was concerned, 
 were brought to a close, as it was considered that the mere calculation 
 of the areas could be eflfectually done by ordinary amins under the 
 Settlement Commissioner. 
 
 On completion of Lieut. Harman's work in 1877-78 in Northern 
 Assam, that officer's party was transferred to the Darjeeling district 
 for the purpose of completing certain miscellaneous surveys required 
 by the Bengal Government, the most prominent of which were a 
 large scale survey of Darjeeling station and a survey of the route 
 leading into Tibet from Rhenok to the Jelep-la pass. In October 
 1879 Lieutenant Harman started for Northern Sikkim and Mr. Robert 
 for "Western Sikkim to undertake a geographical survey of that 
 State J, while the remaining surveyors, European and Native, were 
 left to complete the field work in the Darjeeling district. The result, 
 however, was unfortunate in various respects, for Lieutenant Harman 
 was badly frostbitten in his feet, and the surveyors at Darjeeling 
 were called upon to perform a variety of pressing duties in the 
 
 * See page 90. 
 
 t Holders of land rent free. 
 
 J See footnote on following page. 
 
REVENUE SUEVEYS. 127 
 
 neiglibourliood as soon as their presence became known to tlie local 
 officers and tea-planters. This comprised a large amount of survey 
 work in the station of Darjeeling, in the Hope Town estates, and 
 Government Khas lands, in the lands east of the Teesta river required 
 for tea cultivation, and other places. The blocks of land newly- 
 taken up for chinchona cultivation in Sittong were also surveyed. 
 
 -For the survey of Sikkim Lieutenant Harman undertook in 
 person the whole of the country lying east of the range running 
 south-east from Kanchanjanga, assigning the country to the west to 
 Mr. Robert. He proceeded in the first instance to the snowy ranges 
 on the frontier between Sikkim and Tibet, hoping to survey them 
 during the brief interval between the cessation of the rains and the 
 setting in of the winter with its heavy snowfalls. On ascending the 
 Donkia-la pass, on the boundary, his feet were badly frostbitten, 
 and he eventually losb four and a half of his toes, but with great 
 persistence and energy he bravely continued his work, going about 
 as best he could on coolies' backs, ponies, or crutches. He also 
 visited the Kangra Lama pass, which lies north-west of the Donkia-la, 
 and penetrated into parts of Sikkim which no European had pre- 
 viously explored. He was in Sikkim about three and a half months, 
 during which he surveyed an area of over 1,000 square miles on the 
 J-inch scale. Mr. Eobert succeeded in surveying about 600 square 
 miles on the same scale in "Western Sikkim, including the boundary 
 with Nepal. From the numerous commanding points on this 
 mountain frontier he could see most of that part of Nepal which 
 lies east of the southern spurs of Mount Everest, and sketched an 
 area of about 900 square miles there besides fixing a large number 
 of points on the surrounding hill ranges and in Sikkim. Mr. Robert's 
 work was found to combine very well with that of Dr. Hooker.* 
 
 Lieut. Harman was an officer of immense enterprise and energy 
 and untiring self-devotion ; he greatly overtaxed himself in his 
 arduous work, and at last his health broke down, and he had to 
 retire from the service. He lived to join his family in Italy, but 
 died soon afterwards. 
 
 * The survey of Sikkim was not sanctioned without a good deal of preliminary 
 discussion, the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal being at first opposed to the under- 
 taking. The papers on tlie subject contain some interesting information regarding 
 Sikkim and Tibet, especially in connexion with Mr. Ware Edgar's researches. See 
 Proceedings of the Government of India (Surveys), September 1879. It is needless 
 almost to say that the survey subsequently proved of the greatest importance and use 
 at the time of the Sikkim imbroglio with Tibet. 
 
128 
 
 VI. 
 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 There is no department of the Indian Surveys in which more 
 progress has been made during the last fifteen years than in the 
 ex-ploration and gradual opening up of the regions adjoining the 
 periphery of British India. The admirable plan of training natives 
 for surveying wild and unsettled countries, where a British officer 
 would have but little chance of escaping molestation, has been 
 greatly developed and crowned with the most complete success, while 
 the hostilities in which we have unfortunately been involved with 
 Afghanistan, Burma, and other powers have nevertheless been 
 accompanied with a great development in our topographical, 
 scientific, and general knowledge of these important countries. 
 Finally, our political negotiations with Russia over the question of 
 the northern frontier of Afghanistan, have resulted in a substantial 
 enlargement of our stores of information respecting that region. 
 Although a complete account of the Afghan Boundary Commission, 
 and the multifarious inquiries and researches pursued in connexion 
 therewith, has yet to be written, nevertheless, a great many 
 scattered reports, scientific papers, and other contributions to tlie 
 literature of the day have been published by the officers who took 
 part in it. The summary of results given in the following pages 
 will show that the information amassed by the British and Native 
 members of the Commission probably ranks as the most important 
 data ever collected respecting the Indian trans-frontier regions. 
 
 The extension of our geographical knowledge of Afghanistan, 
 and the rectification of the hurried surveys which had been made 
 during the first Afghan war but had never been properly combined 
 together, had long been desiderata of great importance. So long, 
 however, as it was considered the safest and best policy to prevent 
 any attempt being made to survey beyond the British frontier, in 
 Older to avoid risk of collision with the independent tribes beyond, 
 it was impossible for the survey officers to do more than fix all the 
 most prominent points on the hill ranges beyond, which were visible 
 from within the frontier, and to fill up the details of the country 
 from native information or by the secret agency of native explorers. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 129 
 
 But on the declaration of war witli the Amir in 1878 it became 
 necessary to attach surveyors to each of the four columns invading 
 Afghanistan. To review, however, their geographical operations, it 
 is more convenient to divide them into three groups, viz., 1st, those 
 in Southern Afghanistan with the columns under the command of 
 Generals Stewart and Biddulph ; 2nd, those in the Kuram valley 
 and generally to the south of the Safed-Koh range with the column 
 under General Roberts; and 3rd, those in the Kabul valley and to 
 the north of the Safed-Koh range with the column under General 
 Browne. 
 
 Seven officers proceeded to rendezvous at Quetta, and much survey 
 work was forthwith set on foot, the more important being Captain 
 Beavan's route survey from Kandahar to Girishk on the Helmand 
 river, and Captain Rogers's route survey from Kandahar to Kalat- 
 i-Gilzai and back by the Arghandab valley. In March 1879 
 Captains Heaviside and Holdich accompanied the column under 
 General Biddulph, which was under orders to return to India by 
 the direct and hitherto unexplored route by the villages of Tal and 
 Chotiali. The rapidity of the marches made it impossible to carry 
 a continuous triangulation across the whole breadth of country, 
 thus, after a while, Captain Holdich had to depend on his plane- 
 table alone, but the final connexion with the fixed points of the 
 Indus Series showed that the work was very accurate for a 5-inch 
 survey. It embraced altogether about 5,000 square miles. Lieu- 
 tenant Gore carried out a survey of the Pishin valley, and Major 
 Campbell, who was the senior survey officer in Southern Afghanistan, 
 made a survey through the Shorawak valley (between Pishin and 
 the great western desert) closing on Quetta. He also surveyed 
 the Toba plateau, and his report thereon was printed for the 
 Quartermaster-General's Department. 
 
 Captain "Woodthorpe was attached to the Kuram valley column 
 under General P. Eoberts. and for four months was the only Survey 
 Department officer serving with it. In March 1879 he was joined by 
 Captain Gerald Martin. Woodthorpe accompanied the first advance 
 of General Roberts's force to the Paiwar pass in November 1878, and 
 took part in the fighting on the 28th November and 2nd and 3rd 
 December. He had a marvellously narrow escape during the action 
 of the 2nd, as in the dusk of the morning he went up by mistake to 
 a breastwork occupied by the enemy, who did not discover his 
 presence till he was within six yards, when they fired a volley at 
 him. The stock of his pistol was smashed by a bullet which grazed 
 
 I Y 20321. I 
 
130 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 his side and drove a piece of his clothes into his sketch book, which 
 was considerably damaged, but he himself escaped unhurt. He 
 completed a reconnaissance up to the Shutargardan pass, the position 
 of which proved to be considerably in error on the old maps, and 
 returned through the Mangal country to Kuram. In January he 
 accompanied the expedition into the Khost valley, and nearly the 
 whole of Khost was mapped ; subsequently ascents were made of 
 various prominent peaks, including Sikaram, the highest point of 
 the Safed-Koh range, and from that commanding position a good 
 deal of topography was sketched in. 
 
 To the Peshawar or northern column. Major Tanner, Captain 
 Samuells, and Mr. Scott were attached, Captains Leach and Strahan 
 joining subsequently. Each of the first three officers took part in 
 the advance on the fort of AliMusjid, Captain Samuells distinguish- 
 ing himself by carrying on his plane-tabling under a heavy fire ; 
 unhappily he caught typhoid fever and died soon after at Peshawar.* 
 Major Tanner carried a continuous survey from Ali Musjid to 
 Jalalabad, which was found to be about five miles nearer to Peshawar 
 than previously accepted. 
 
 In May Major Tanner attempted an exploring trip into Kafiristan 
 through the Kunar valley, and after several perilous adventures 
 succeeded in reaching Aret in the Chugani or Kohistan country, 
 which is on the southern confines of Kafiristan. Overcome with 
 fatigue and exposure and prostrated with fever he was compelled 
 to abandon his design and return to Jalalabad. An interesting 
 account of his journey was read before the Royal Geographical 
 Society. f Captain Leach joined the force in January, and during 
 the two months he was at work surveyed a good portion of the 
 Bazar valley and the country round Jalalabad, chiefly in the 
 Shinwari country and on the northern slopes of the Safed-Koh range. 
 At the end of March he was compelled to withdraw, in consequence of 
 a severe wound received during an attack on his party by Shinwaris ; 
 his gallantry on that occasion won him the honoured distinction 
 of the Yictoria Cross. His place was supplied by Captain Charles 
 Strahan, who with Mr. Scott did good work along the country south 
 of the Kabul river. North of the Khaibar pass Mr. Scott happened 
 to be attacked while surveying by a considerable number of 
 Momands, and with difiiculty made good his retreat to Fort Michni 
 with a loss of one corporal and one Sepoy killed and wounded. The 
 
 * See also Revenuo Surveys, chapter, p. 124. 
 
 t On April 11th, 1881. liee page 278 of Proceedings, R. G. S. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 131 
 
 fight, a hand-to-hand affair, lasted the whole afternoon, and the 
 safety of the party was due to Mr. Scott's gallantry.* Later 
 on Mr. Scott visited the peak Sekh-ram (Sikaram), the highest 
 point of the Safed-Koh range, where he obtained observations to 
 numerous distant peaks, including a lofty pyramidical-shaped peak 
 away to the north overtopping all the surrounding peaks of the 
 Hindu Xush. The further identification of this important peak is 
 a task reserved for some future traveller. 
 
 "While Captain Strahan was surveying near JugduUuk pass, where 
 the remnants of the Cabul division made their last desperate stand in 
 January 1842, he found that his assistant, Akram Khan, was the son 
 of the man in whose house Captain Souter (father of Sir P. Souter of 
 Bombay) had been detained as prisoner. Akram Khan remembered 
 " Souter Sahib " and his teaching him a few English words, and 
 produced a touching letter written by Captain Souter to Captain 
 Fenwiok at Jalalabad, bearing a postcript in pencil : — " I write this 
 " as I believe it to be Sunday the 30th January 1842. * * * * 
 " I have neither seen nor have been able to hold any intercourse 
 " with Major Grriffiths since the first day I arrived, now nearly three 
 " weeks — a long time to wear a bloody shirt." Captain Souter and 
 Major GriflBths were eventually taken with the other prisoners 
 into Lughman by Akbar Khan. 
 
 The work completed by the surveyors attached to the northern 
 column covered altogether an area of about 2,200 square miles, 
 extending from Forts Michni and Jamrud on the British frontier 
 near Peshawar to the Surkhab river west of Gundamak, and 
 including a little of the northern and most of the southern portion of 
 the basin of the Kabul river. Some blanks remained on the northern 
 slopes of the Safed-Koh in the country of the Shinwaris and 
 Khugianis, which were unavoidable owing to the conditions under 
 which the survey in an enemy's country was conducted. A good 
 deal of information was also obtained across the Kabul river in the 
 Lughman plain and neighbouring tracts. 
 
 With respect to the lessons of the campaign, so far as survey 
 matters were concerned, one of the most difficult proved to be the 
 question of equipment and men. In a few instances it was possible 
 
 * Mr. Scott received a sword of honour and an honorarium from the Government 
 of the Punjab for his services in 1868. He also received an honorarium for tlie 
 exploit described above. 
 
 I 2 
 
132 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 to send men from headquarters fully equipped, but where officers 
 were summoned from England or distant parts of India this was 
 not possible, and some dissatisfaction was expressed, though the 
 results showed that much excellent work was done by officers who 
 raced up to the front as fast as they could, picking up men and 
 instruments, camp equipage, and horses wherever they could find 
 them on the road, and depending on border natives and even 
 Afghans to fill up the personnel of the party. 
 
 The usefulness of the plane-table for military route surveys during 
 the advance of the troops Was fully proved. It ia light, portable, 
 and enables the ground to be mapped on the spot. If a good plane- 
 tabler be given a base to start from of which the length and 
 azimuth are known, with a fair proportion of commanding positions 
 end hill peaks susceptible of ready identification, he can survey 
 with great rapidity as he goes along and to a distance much beyond 
 the positions which he may have reached. When, on the other 
 hand, the troops march very rapidly and the route lies through a 
 plain or else a country with hills which are inaccessible, the plane- 
 table is at a disadvantage compared with a theodolite. In all rapid 
 surveys occasional checks in the shape of astronomical observations 
 for latitude and azimuth and longitude observations as well are 
 desirable. For this occasion several officers in Afghanistan were 
 supplied with a 6-inch transit theodolite, an instrument with a 
 complete vertical circle and an eye-piece fitted with a pair of 
 " sub-tense micrometers," which are intended to measure small 
 angles subtended by distant objects in the field of the telescope. It 
 is described in General Tlmillier's " Manual of Survey for India " 
 (3rd edition, page 132), also in " Hints to Travellers " by the Royal 
 Geographical Society (4th edition, page 33). It may be called a 
 universal instrument, for it is not only well fitted for astronomical 
 observations as well as the ordinary measurement of horizontal 
 angles, but it enables the distances of objects of known length to be 
 detei'mined very readily with the aid of the sub-tense micrometers, 
 thus permitting measuring chains to be dispensed with in running 
 traverses and measuring base-lines. It weighs 31 lbs. when packed in 
 its box, the stand weighing 10 lbs. more, and is, probably, the lightest 
 instrument yet constructed capable of such universal applicatioi} . 
 
 On the conclusion of the Treaty of Gandamuk the surveyors were 
 engaged at Mussoorie, bringing up their calculations and completing 
 their maps, when the sad intelligence arrived in September 1879 of 
 the massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari and the members of the British 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 133 
 
 Embassy at Kabul. An immediate advance was ordered, and 
 two survey parties were organized, one under Major Woodthorpe to 
 proceed under General Sir^F. Roberts, the other under Captain 
 Holdich to join the column under General Bright via Peshawar and 
 Jalalabad. Eventually both parties met at Kabul, where they made 
 the most of every opportunity of acquiring a geographical know- 
 ledge of the adjoining country, and in continuation of the preceding 
 surveys operated westwards and southwards up to the Pugh- 
 man range and over almost all the country which is drained by 
 the Logar, Shiniz, and other affluents of the Kabul river. In 
 Southern Afghanistan some additional geography was obtained 
 between Kandahar and Girishk and along the valleys to the west 
 and north-west of Kandahar. A connexion with the operations in 
 Northern Afghanistan was also made by the survey of the route 
 from Kandahar to Ghazni through the Khushk-i-rud, Tarnak, and 
 Ghazni valleys. In Baluchistan a rough reconnaissance was made 
 of a considerable portion of the country north of Sibi inhabited by 
 the Marri tribes, and detailed surveys were commenced in the 
 plains around Sibi and Dadur. 
 
 The party under Major Woodthorpe reached Ali-Khel on the 
 4th October, a few days after the force under General Sir P. Roberts 
 had advanced on Kabul. It was not till the end of the month that 
 they proceeded on to that city, an interval which, enabled Major 
 Woodthorpe to connect the triangulation of the Kuram valley with 
 tbat of the Logar and Kabul valleys, and thus establish the 
 continuity of the series from Thull round by way of Kabul to 
 Jalalabad. Mr. Ogle, of Major "Woodthorpe's party, was detained 
 in th.e Kuram valley, and accompanied General Tytler's column into 
 the Zaimukht country, west of Kohat, where he secured topography 
 to the extent of 880 square miles in country which was very little 
 known, after which he joined the rest of the party at Kabul, where 
 Captain T. H. Holdich, R.E., as the senior departmental officer, 
 had assumed charge of the operations in Northern Afghanistan. 
 
 On the occupation of Kabul and partial investment of Sherpur by 
 Mahomed Jan's forces in December, the officers of the survey had 
 to help in the constmction of defensive works, but after the defeat of 
 Mahomed Jan Captain Holdich and Major "Woodthorpe accompanied 
 a brigade to the Koh Daman and mapped a portion of the country 
 on the i-incb scale and established two trigonometrical stations 
 there. The former then joined General Bright's division in the 
 Lughman valley, between Kabul and Jellalabad, on the north side of 
 
134 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 tlie river ; on this tract some interesting notes were collected by 
 Captain Holdicli. It is on the summit of the great white peak of 
 Kund overlooking Lughman from the region of Kafiristan that 
 Noah's Ark is said to have rested after the Flood, and the valley 
 of Dara-i-Nur, which lies on the border of Kafiristan territory, 
 still bears his name. The famous ziarat or shrine of Lamech 
 (Michtar Lam) is in the adjoining Alishang valley, and numbers 
 of pilgrims annually repair thither from Jalalabad. There are 
 evidences of a former Buddhist population in the caves bordering 
 the river, both at Deronta and elsewhere. The Lughmanis too 
 have ever been the connecting link between Kafiristan and the 
 southern world in the matter of trade, and Kafir slave girls brought 
 down from the mountains to the Dara-i-Nur were introduced by 
 Lughmanis through the markets at Jalalabad and Kabul to the 
 harems of the wealthy. 
 
 Captain Holdich then accompanied General Sir F. Roberts on his 
 march through the Logar valley, taking advantage of the oppor- 
 tunity to make a leisurely re-survey of the valley on the -|-inch 
 scale. The valley is described by Captain Holdich as very beautiful 
 at times, the white-walled, square-towered villages, each with its 
 bastioned fort, being literally buried in groves of dark gi-een 
 mulberries and palm trees. Poplar avenues and wide fields knee- 
 deep in clover or waving with wheat and fenced off with low mud 
 walls or hedges of the wild yellow rose, form a pleasant contrast 
 to the rough background of hills. Near the junction of the Logar 
 and Kabul rivers there are Buddhist remains in -plenty, one minar 
 conspicuously erected on the ridge overlooking the Kabul and Khurd 
 Kabul plains being 95 feet high and 62 feet iti girth at the base. 
 The Logar valley triangulation was at the same time improved and 
 extended by Major Woodthorpe, who also fixed a number of points 
 on the Altimor, Pughman, Deh-i-Sabz, and Karkatcha ranges. The 
 same officer subsequently accompanied Greneral Eoss's division on 
 its march towards Ghazni to meet Sir Donald Stewart advancing 
 from Kandahar, and having extended the triangulation towards the 
 head of the Logar river, effected a junction at Saidabad with the 
 work of Lieutenant St. G. C. Gore, who had left Kandahar on 
 the 30th March. 
 
 Amongst other surveys executed in Northern Afghanistan during 
 the year should be mentioned Captain Martin's mapping of 700 
 square miles in the Koh-i-Daman and Kohistan, in the course of 
 which he obtained information regarding the course of some of the 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AMD EXPLORATIONS. 135 
 
 rivers issuing from the Hindu Kush. and flowing down througli the 
 Kabul valley. Mr. Claudius completed the topography of the 
 country from Grundamuk t(j Kabul on the f -inch scale, and under 
 the escort and guidance of a friendly Khan of Tezin he mapped 
 an important bit of country which borders the route across the 
 Lataband and Haft-Kotal passes. This part of his work was 
 executed at considerable personal risk, and he was badly frost- 
 bitten in carrying it through. Mr. W. W. McNair (who subse- 
 quently gained much credit for his adventurous journey into 
 Kafiristan) completed the survey of portions of the Asphan and 
 Hisarak valleys west of Gundamuk and the Lughman valley, 
 both on the 1-inch scale, and later on he executed a larg^e 
 amount of excellent topography in the Logar valley on the -g-inch 
 scale. The native sub-surveyors were found particularly iiseful 
 throughout the campaign from the fact of their being able to move 
 about the country without personal risk, even in disturbed tracts ; 
 their services were also largely utilised in pushing forward the 
 military survey of the country round Sherpur and Kabul on the 
 4-inch scale. The " Munshi " particularly distinguished himself by 
 mapping the Sherpur cantonments and the adjacent country 
 during the actual siege and immediately after it, and thus did most 
 useful topographical work before any European could possibly be 
 so employed. He also undertook, an exploration by way of the 
 Kunar river into Kafiristan, travelling as a native doctor ; there 
 was every reason to suppose he could have succeeded in reaching 
 Kafiristan (for he was never suspected at any time) but for an 
 unfortunate rise of the Safis and Dehgans, which took place most 
 unexpectedly. Returning to Kabul he was next employed in 
 mapping (which he accomplished most successfully) a part of the 
 district adjoining Kabul stretching through the Chardeh plain to 
 the district of Pughman, which had been entirely closed to 
 European officers and appeared likely to remain a blank. 
 
 The total area mapped in Northern Afghanistan during the season 
 was estimated at 10,300 square miles, or adding 880 square miles 
 of the Zaimukht country, 11,180 square miles, of which 64 square 
 miles were done on the 4-inch scale, 1.276 on the 1-inch, and 
 the remainder on the -j-inch and |-inch scales in about equal 
 proportions. 
 
 Southern Afghanistan. — The officers deputed for survey work in 
 Southern Afghanistan were Captains Rogers, Beavan, Heaviside, 
 Holdich, and Lieutenants Gore and Hobday. Route surveys were 
 
136 GEOQEAPHICAL SUllVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 carried from a trigonometrical station on the frontier near Kusmoro 
 along the Dera Bugti road, via the Bolau Pass, Quetta, and Kandahar 
 to Girishk on the Helmand on the one side, and to Kalat-i-Ghilzai 
 on the other. Captains Heaviside and Holdich were subsequently- 
 attached to General Biddulph's column, which was returning to 
 India by what is often called the Tal-Chotiali route, an important 
 and direct line of communication between Multan and the Pishin 
 valley, by which it had been originally intended that the Multan 
 column should enter Afghanistan. The reconnaissance was a very 
 rapid one, the average rate of marching being 12 miles a day, but 
 a fair survey on the J-inch scale was nevertheless secured, embracing 
 about 5,000 square miles.* 
 
 On completion of the survey of Pishin, Lieutenant Gore proceeded 
 to Kandahar, via the Barghana route, which had not been previously 
 surveyed, and mapped that route as well as a good deal of the 
 surrounding country about Kandahar, and along the banks of the 
 Argandab and Dori rivers to their junction. He also extended 
 the triangulation towards the important village of Girishk, where 
 the road to Herat crosses the Helmand river. An examination of 
 part of the Arghastan valley above its junction with the Lora was 
 also made, and the fact was elicited from natives that the latter 
 river takes the overflow drainage from Lake Ab-i-istadeh, and on 
 such occasions becomes very salt. 
 
 In the spring of 1880 Lieutenant Gore set out with the 1st Brigade 
 of Sir Donald Stewart's force to Kabul, and advanced up the 
 Tarnak valley. In the valley of the Ghazni river the famous battle 
 of Ahmed-Khel was fought, and here much inconvenience was 
 experienced, from a surveyor's point of view, owing to the difficulty 
 of obtaining guides. When the fighting commenced. Lieutenant 
 Gore's Hazara guide was with difficulty restrained from making ofi" 
 to get his share of the plunder. At last a richly-caparisoned horse 
 trotting past proved too much for his cupidity and he finally 
 decamped. Up to Shahjui, in lat. 32° 31', Lieutenant Gore's work 
 was based on trigonometrically fixed points, but beyond he had to 
 rely on plane-table fixings and traversing until he joined Major 
 Woodthorpe's work in the Wardak valley above Ghazni. 
 
 Major Leach, who had been invalided to Europe in consequence 
 of a wound in the first campaign, was sent to Kandahar on his 
 return, and executed some useful reconnaissances in the Argandab 
 * A picturesque description of the country was given by General Sir M. A. Biddulph 
 before the Royal Geographical Society on the 9th February 1880. The paper in the 
 Proceedings (p. 212) is illuMrntcd with numevous sketches of the country. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SUEVEYS AND EXPLOEATIONS. 137 
 
 and Khakrez valleys, and obtained valuable information concerning 
 the passes into and across the Hazara country. Unfortunately the 
 whole of this material, together with some important notes on the 
 Hazara tribes, was lost during the retreat from Maiwand, and durmg 
 the subsequent evacuation of the Kandahar cantonment. But 
 Lieutenant the Hon. M. G. Talbot, R.E , and Lieutenant P. B. Long, 
 R.E., replaced the survey portion by a subsequent exploration of 
 theirs, and Major Leach drew up, mainly from recollection, a resume 
 of the lost notes,* and a sketch map of a country which had been 
 up to that time a perfect blank. Major Leach accompanied Greneral 
 Burrows's force to Girishk on the Helmand, and did good service on 
 the staff dilring the disastrous battle of Maiwand and retreat to 
 Kandahar. He was then appointed Brigade Major of Engineers, 
 and served in that capacity throughout the defence of Kandahar and 
 in the subsequent battle of Kandahar, when the enemy, under Ayub 
 Khan, were defeated by Sir F. Roberts. Lieutenants Talbot and 
 Long accompanied the General in his memorable march from Kabul 
 to Kandahar, and were also present at the battle of Kandahar. 
 
 During the following year a committee was formed at Kabul, 
 under the orders of Sir Donald Stewart, for the purpose of consider- 
 ing the equipment necessary for a survey party in the field. The 
 committee consisted of Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart, of the Guide 
 Corps, as president, and Major Woodthorpe and Captain Holdich, of 
 the Survey Department, as members. Their recommendations were 
 as follows : — 
 
 1. A survey party should consist of one officer (who should be both accustomed to 
 triangulate and to use the plane-table) and of two assistants (one of -vvhora should be 
 competent to triangulate) as topographers for each column operating on an independent 
 line in a country where no survey has hitherto been made. 
 
 The native establishment for a party of this size should be as follows : — 
 
 l!or 1 c r ^ I inclusive of interpreters and permanent guides. 
 
 „ 2 officers 10 „ J 
 
 The addition of native sub-surveyors must depend entirely on the nature of the 
 country under survey, but when they are employed, extra public followers, at the rate 
 of at least one per sub-surveyor, will be necessary. 
 
 2. The instruments for the equipment of such a party will be as follows : — 
 1 six-inch subtense theodolite with full vertical circle and tripod stand. 
 
 5 plane-tables, viz., one for the officer in charge and two for each assistant. 
 The two for each assistant should be interchangeable on one stand and should be of 
 different sizes and portability. The committee are of opinion that the plain deal table, 
 30" X 26" has, on the whole, been found to be of the greatest use on account of its 
 
 * Will be found in the Survey Proceedings of the Government of India for February 
 1882. It forms an interesting description of the Hazara country and people. 
 
138 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 superior size and stability. It can be slung with its stand on a mule or pony without 
 difficulty andean be used with cavalry. But each assistant should also be provided with 
 a lighter, smaller, and more portable table, which can be conveniently slung on a man's 
 back ; a really portable table of this sort has yet to be devised, as also the best kind of 
 stand. 
 
 Each officer or assistant should also be provided with the following minor instruments 
 and books, viz. : — 
 
 Two trough needles, 1 sight-rule, 1 telescope or binocular, I aneroid barometer, 1 
 prismatic compass and stand, 3 thermometers for determining the boiling point of 
 water, ordinary air thermometer, 1 Gunter scale, 1 beam compass, 1 small box 
 instruments, 1 Shortrede's log tables, 1 Chambers's log tables, 1 auxiliary tables 
 for facilitating the computations of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. 
 The office)' in charge should carry in addition — 
 
 One Abney's level, 1 set scales, 1 maximum and minimum thermometer, 1 nautical 
 almanac, 1 prismatic subtense instrument, 1 parallel ruler, 1 pantagraph, 
 1 manual of surveying, 2 sets measuring tapes (steel), 1 perambidntor, lamps 
 for observing, 1-6" heliotrope, 1 chronometer watch, 1 portable sun-dial, spare 
 compass and drawing pens. 
 ******* 
 
 5. In addition to the usual personal baggage scale, the following will be required for 
 the headquarters camp — 
 
 Office tent - - - - 150 lbs. 
 
 „ table 20 „ 
 
 Stationery and small instruments - 160 „ 
 
 Maps and data 50 „ 
 
 For public followers 1 sepoy's pal, holding 17 persons, or its equivalent in smaller 
 tents. 
 
 These recommendations were made on the following assumptions 
 regarding the nature and extent of the work to be undertaken by 
 the survey officers : — 
 
 A. — That a large extent of country, embracing several thousand square miles, may 
 be either actually visited or sketched from a distance, during the course of a campaio-n. 
 
 15.— That every surveyor should be equipped to act independently, if necessary. 
 
 C. — Tliat there may be no opportunities of visiting any portion of the ground twice, 
 and therefore that all surveying must be done pari passu with the more or less rapid 
 movements of troops along the main lines of communication. 
 
 D.— That maps are to be compiled and traced in the field, so that all the work of the 
 survey can be put into the hands of the generals concerned as speedily as possible. 
 
 E- — That the topographical operations are not to consist merely of surveys of the 
 lines of route, but are to embrace as much as possible of the surrounding country, and 
 must therefore be executed on a trigonometrical basis ; consequently, that the surveyors 
 must always work together in pairs, one doing the trinngulatiou, the other the topo- 
 graphical sketching ; for, when the troops are marching rapidly, it is impossible for any 
 single man to do both, and each is required to supplement the other. 
 
 F.— That the survey office with the army will be the general depot for all maps of 
 the country which may be published by the Surveyor-General's Department and be 
 supplied for distribution as required. 
 
 G. — That the sanctioned allowance of baggage and equipment for every officer in the 
 n,ld who is employed in (rans-ort, commissariat, or any other duties which oblige him 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 139 
 
 to carry his own camp equipage and make it impossible for him to join a mess, is 
 400 lbs. 
 
 The above recommendafciojis were influenced by the protracted 
 military occupation of Afghanistan ; much valuable work in the way 
 of military survey and reconnaissance may of course be done by 
 officers equipped more lightly with fewer and smaller instruments ; 
 indeed in rapid marches through an enemy's country it would be 
 necessary to restrict the equipment of each survey officer to what 
 he and one or two attendants could carry. Much depends on 
 the character of the surveying to be done : the geographical and 
 smaller scale survey being more valuable for rapid strategical 
 movements over a large area of country, while the topographical 
 survey of the military roads and lines of communication, and of the 
 ground in the immediate neighbourhood, is usually to aid a general 
 officer in determining the best disposition of his troops in action or 
 wherever liable to be attacked by an enemy. 
 
 In the first Afghan war a large amount of route surveying was 
 executed, mostly on the scale of one inch to one mile, and some was of 
 very good quality, but few, if any, attempts were made to carry 
 on a general geographical survey of the country pari passu with the 
 military route surveys. Thus when the latter came to be combined 
 together, large gaps were found to exist, and even what had been 
 done could not be accurately combined, the result being that Kabul 
 and Kandahar were shown on the maps as 7 and 15 miles west 
 of their true positions. 
 
 In the next Afghan war (1878-79) the survey officers were 
 directed to obtain as much information as possible respecting the 
 country at large, and not merely to operate on the military lines 
 of communication. For this they were directed more especially 
 to make general maps of the country on scales of half an inch or 
 quarter of an inch to the mile, by plane-tabling on a trigonometrical 
 basis, also to carry route surveys on the 1-inch scale with the most 
 suitable instruments available over the principal routes traversed 
 by the troops. It was arranged that larger scale work should be done 
 by some of the numerous field engineers and staff" officers attached 
 to the army. Such were the general lines and general division of 
 labour laid down for the Afghan campaign, and the system was 
 found to work well. 
 
 From the invasion of Afghanistan in 1878 the area surveyed 
 in more or less detail by the officers of the Department amounted to 
 39,500 square miles, while a further area of 7,000 square miles was 
 
140 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL SDRVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 explored by native agency. In Baluchistan an area of about 
 7,800 square miles was surveyed. 
 
 One of the broad results was to show that the positions of Kabul, 
 Ghazni, and Kandahar as determined during the first Afghan war 
 were correct in latitude but erroneous in longitude as mentioned 
 above. A large number of heights also entered on the old maps turned 
 out to be considerably in excess of their true values. They appear 
 to have been mainly derived from barometric observations taken by 
 Dr. William Griffiths, who was a skilful and accurate observer, 
 but who unfortunately did not live to reduce his own observations. 
 The method of reduction adopted did not take account of the 
 well-known hourly, daily, and monthly variations of barometric 
 pressure, a neglect which is liable to affect the results very materially. 
 Thus while certain height determinations proved to be very satis- 
 factory, others, particularly those in the high lands around Ghazni 
 and Kabul, wei'e found to be materially erroneous; thus : — 
 
 
 
 As deduced 
 
 Positions. 
 
 As since 
 determined. 
 
 from 
 Dr. GritEths's 
 ObserTations. 
 
 Quetta 
 
 5,515 
 
 5,537 
 
 Kandahar 
 
 3,400 
 
 3,484 
 
 Mukur, latitude 32° 51', longitude 67° 47' 
 
 6,561 
 
 7,091 
 
 Obeh, latitude 33° 0', longitude 67° 56' 
 
 6,986 
 
 7,325 
 
 Grhazni - - . . 
 
 7,279 
 
 7,726 
 
 Shashgao, latitude 33° 45', longitude 68° 32' 
 
 8,184 
 
 8,697 
 
 Shekhabad, latitude 34° 1', longitude 68° 45' - 
 
 6,884 
 
 7,473 
 
 Kabul 
 
 5,780 
 
 6,395 
 
 Butkak, east of Kabul 
 
 5,980 
 
 6,248 
 
 Khui-d Kabul - 
 
 7,500 
 
 7,466 
 
 Gandamak 
 
 4,500 
 
 4,616 
 
 Jalalabad 
 
 1,950 
 
 1,964 
 
 Peshawar 
 
 1,135 
 
 1,068 
 
 Norlh-wcst frontier and adjacent regions. 
 one of the trained native explorers of the 
 
 -During the year 1876 
 Great Trigonometrical 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 141 
 
 survey, named " the Mullah," ascended the Indus river from tte 
 point where it enters the plains of the Punjab at Attock to the point 
 where it is joined by the Gilgit river. Other portions, of course, 
 of the Indus from the table lands of Tibet, where it takes its rise, 
 down to the ocean had long since been surveyed, but the part referred 
 to had been always shown by a dotted line on the maps. The great 
 river here traverses a tract about 220 miles in length, descending 
 from a height of about 5,000 to 1,200 feet above sea-level. It flows 
 tortuously, in a deep narrow-cut gorge, through great mountain 
 ranges with peaks rising from 15,000 to 26,000 feet in height. 
 The positions and heights of all the most commanding peaks had 
 been fixed by Captain Carter's triangulation, but no European had 
 penetrated into the region. Very difficult of access from all quarters 
 it is inhabited by a number of hill tribes, each living independently 
 in secluded valleys, and suspicious of its neighbours. Each 
 community elects its own ruler, and communicates with the outer 
 world only ttirough the medium of a few privileged traders. The 
 Mullah happened to possess the privilege and was thus enabled 
 to explore the Indus and some of the lateral valleys. This work 
 done, he proceeded in accordance with his instructions to Yassin, 
 marching through the Grilgit valley but not surveying it, as the late 
 Mr. Hayward (who was there murdered) had furnished a good map 
 of those parts. From Yasin he surveyed the southern road to Mastuj, 
 through the Ghizar and Sar Laspur valleys, supplying an important 
 rectification of the topography. At Mastuj he struck upon his 
 old route from Jalalabad over the Hindu Kush to "Wakhan in 1873, 
 and proceeded in a north-easterly direction back to Yasin, crossing 
 the Tui or Moshabar pass, which is conjectured to be 16,000 feet in 
 height. On his return journey he again passed through Sar Laspur, 
 explored the Tal pass, and traversed the length of the Panjkora 
 valley, the whole journey having added much to our knowledge 
 of the Trans-Indus frontier regions. 
 
 During the course of his travels in 1876 the Mullah had acquired 
 much information respecting the regions surrounding the Swat 
 valley ; the exploration of the valley itself was undertaken in 1878, 
 and to facilitate matters and disarm the suspicion of his being in 
 Government employ, which had arisen during the former journey, 
 the Mullah placed himself in communication with a trader from 
 Swat and assumed the part of a timber merchant anxious to make 
 purchases at Lamuti and Kandia, whence large quantities are annually 
 floated down to Peshawar and Attock. The Mullah entered the 
 
142 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 S^at valley near its junction with the Panjkora, and then proceeded 
 up the former valley, making excursions up the principal lateral 
 glens on the right bank, until he reached Kolam in the Kohistan, 
 in which the sources of the river are situated. He then surveyed 
 the route leading over the water-shed into the Panjkora valley at 
 Lamuti, in order to connect his fresh explorations with the previous 
 ones, after which he returned to Kolam and ascended the Swat river 
 until he approached the water-parting of the range running east and 
 west, and separating the waters of the Gilgit river from the 
 streams to the south. He then crossed the Palesar pass into 
 the Kandia valley, one of the tributaries of the Indus, and worked 
 down to the latter river, where he joined on to his previous route, 
 and turned southwards, along a route running parallel with the 
 Indus river, but several miles to the west, crossing the whole of the 
 lateral valleys on the right bank of that river and acquiring much 
 supplementary information to add to his original survey. Finally 
 he crossed over the range to the right and closed his work on to the 
 line of his survey up the Swat valley. The journey was encompassed 
 with many hardships, and, lying through a country to which Europeans 
 have never penetrated, it was one of considerable interest. The 
 northernmost point reached was the Palesar pass across the great 
 water-shed separating the Yasin and Gilgit countries from Bashkar, 
 Darel, and Tangir, near to a point where the range turns to the 
 southward. It rises abruptly in great scarps from the very banks 
 of the Indus at Bunji, in the east, with an average height of from 
 16,000 to 19,000 feet as it approaches the Kunar valley. This 
 range is a very important geographical feature, for it separates the 
 rainless tracts of Grilgit, Hunza, and Yasin to the north from the 
 well-watered countries of Bashkar, Swat, &c. to the south. To the 
 north the vegetation is limited to a narrow belt of pines, cypresses, 
 and birch, while to the south the forests are described as magnificent 
 with a profusion of deodar. In another particular this mountain 
 range has an importance, for it forms broadly a great boundary line 
 between the adherents of the Shiah and Sunni religions. 
 
 The general route-survey work accomplished by the Mullah fits in 
 fairly well with the peaks previously fixed by triangulation, and the 
 detailed narrative is a genuine story, told with touching simplicity, 
 of perils and privations faced and patiently surmounted. 
 
 In 1877 M S , a native gentleman of the Muhammadan 
 
 faith, and of much repute among his co-religionists, was about to 
 make a journey from Kashmir across the Hindu Kush mountains 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 143 
 
 and the Oxus river to Kolab in Badakshan, to visit tlie shrines of 
 his ancestors and transact some business of his own, when he 
 learned from one of his friends that he might obtain employment 
 in geographical exploration *in connexion with the Indian Survey 
 Department if he would volunteer his services and go through a 
 course of training. His services were readily accepted, as he was 
 a man of considerable intelligence and good education, so having 
 been put through a course of training under the veteran explorer 
 Pundit JSTain Sing, he started for his destination via Kashmir, Grilgit, 
 and Yasin, where he arrived on the 14th December 1878. At the 
 latter place he was detained on one excuse and another till 
 September 1879, when he was permitted to depart and proceeded 
 up the Darkot valley and over the Baroghil pass to Sarhad and 
 Ishkashim, At this point it was his intention to have proceeded 
 down the valley of the Panj or Oxus to Shignan and Darwaz, but 
 owing to the feud between the rulers of these two States he was 
 unable to reach Kolab by that road, and had to proceed via 
 Faizabad. His route from thence coincided partly with that of 
 the Havildar in 1874, but embraced a far larger area of new 
 ground. He ascended the Doaba Dara, a tributary of the Yakhsu, 
 to its source, and followed the great bend of the Upper Oxus or 
 Ab-i-Panjah river to Yarv, where the Havildar had been turned 
 back, and where he too was stopped on the same plea, that of 
 hostilities between the people of Darwaz and their neighbours in 
 Shignan and Roshan. He then retraced his steps to the Dara 
 Imam, and crossing the Panjah ascended the table-land of Shiva, 
 a large expanse of country lying within the bend of the river, and 
 till then wholly unknown. This took him right across the central 
 regions of Badakshan, and enabled him to complete his survey of 
 
 the upper course of the stream. M S also ascended the 
 
 Bartang or Murghabi river to its source in the Sarez Pamir, a 
 distance of 100 miles. On his return he was laid up for five 
 months with rheumatism at Kila Bar Panjah, after which he 
 proceeded to explore the Shakh Dara valley, with the intention of 
 crossing into Wakhan over the intermediate ranges, but the passes 
 were found to be blocked with sand and impracticable, conse- 
 quently he retraced » his steps and returned by way of the Ab-i- 
 Panjah to Ishkashim. He diverged from the route he had followed 
 on his outward journey to visit the Ghazkol lake, which lies at 
 the point of convergence of the Muztagh and Hindu Kush ranges, 
 and which some suppose to have a double outlet into the Ishkaman 
 and Mastuj rivers, and having determined its position he closed 
 
144 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 his work at the Darkofc pass, having contributed enormously to the 
 
 existing geographical knowledge of Badakshan. M S was 
 
 presented with one of the two medals which were placed at the 
 disposal of the Surveyor- General of India by the Venice International 
 Geographical Congress for award to meritorious Native explorers. 
 
 At the time that the late Colonel Montgomerie and his assistants 
 had been employed in surveying on the north-western confines of 
 Kashmir, operations had not been extended across the Indus owing 
 to the unfriendliness of the Gilgit people, but in 1878 matters 
 were so improved that on his return from Southern Kafiristan 
 Colonel H. C. B. Tanner was deputed thither with two native 
 surveyors. His first task was to extend the regular survey over 
 Gilgit and the vicinity, where he mapped an area of about 2,000 
 square miles on the J-inch scale. The great ridge referred to 
 in the preceding paragraph proved to be most difficult to map, 
 the central backbone being like a huge broken table-land running 
 up into wave-like ridges, rising but a few hundred feet above the 
 general level of the range, and practically impossible to distinguish 
 apart. This, added to the inclemency of the season, snowstorms 
 being exceptionally frequent, prevented many of the peaks being 
 satisfactorily identified. 
 
 Colonel Tanner was returning to recess quarters to bring up his 
 mapping and calculations of work done during the summer of 1880, 
 and had reached Lahore when he was ordered back to Srinagar, 
 and placed in command of a body of troops in the service of the 
 Maharajah of Kashmir under instructions to proceed to Gilgit for 
 the relief of Major Biddulph, the Political Officer stationed there, 
 who was threatened by a general rising of the surrounding tribes. 
 This prevented the completion of the mapping, but with the assist- 
 ance of his native surveyor, Ahmed Ali Khan, he made a survey of 
 an area of about 2,000 square miles, and extended the limits of the 
 Gilgit map as far as Astor to the south-east, northwards to the 
 great range separating little Guhjal from Gilgit, southwards to 
 Chilas, and westwards to th.e mouth of the Wurshigum river at 
 the entrance to the Yasin river. The positions of several distant 
 peaks on the Hindu Kush range were fixed, among them the 
 summit of the notable Tiraj (Tirich) Mir north of Chitral, first 
 brought into prominence by Major Biddulph.* Its height as deduced 
 by Colonel Tanner from his calculations is 26,425 feet above the sea. 
 
 * Major Biddulph is the authoi- of an interesting work, " The tribes of the Hindoo 
 Koosh," containing much valuable information accumulated by him during his sojourn 
 in those regions. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 145 
 
 Colonel Tanner's description* of the wilderness of mountains and 
 peaks of every possible form by which he was surrounded is 
 exceedingly graphic, and giv^ a good idea of the remarkable and 
 lof fcy region in which he was working. He was very anxious to 
 get a near view of the great mountain of Kangaparbat, near Astor, 
 and after a most perilous passage over a narrow, rugged ridge 
 surrounded by enormous precipices, which tried his nerves to the 
 utmost, he found himself confronted by what is probably the most 
 magnificent snow view on the globe, embracing as it does a slope 
 of very nearly 24,000 feet (vertical measurement), with glaciers, 
 snow-fields, ice-cliff"s, and jagged needles of naked rock extending 
 from the summit of this king of mountains down to the Indus, 
 which flows in a deep channel at its base. Colonel Tanner says he 
 is unable to convey an adequate description of the superb and 
 impressive view which he contemplated from the edge of a tre- 
 mendous precipice, whose summit is 16,000 feet above the sea, and 
 which rises sheer and unbroken from the forests and vineyards of 
 Gor, situated at an immense depth below. 
 
 During the season 1880-81 the survey of G-ilgit was completed 
 by the sub-surveyor Ahmed Ali Khan, who also continued the 
 map of the Astor country towards the chief passes which lead into 
 the Indus valley on the one hand, and those leading into Kashmir 
 on the other. All the passes leading out of the Grilgit valley into 
 Darel, Chilas, and the adjacent parts of the Indus basin were also 
 mapped. His work during the following season (1881-82) lay 
 about the Indus-Kishenganga watershed, and in 1882-83 he com- 
 pleted the survey of Chilas and fixed the position of the passes 
 leading from the valley of the Indus into the Kaghan, Kishenganga, 
 Astor, and Gilgit basins, as well as the positions of all villages and 
 forts. His survey of Dardistan, as this region has been sometimes 
 called, includes an area of about 2,000 square miles, mapped on 
 the ;f-inch scale, an out-turn reflecting much credit on Ahmed Ali 
 Khan, as on several occasions he had to pass the night without 
 a tent, on ground buried in snow, at heights from 14,000 to 16,000 
 feet above the sea.f His survey of the upper part of the 
 Kishenganga valley was completed in the following year (1883-4). 
 
 * Appendix to Surveyor- General's Eeport for 1879-80, p. 42. 
 
 f An account of Dardistan, the nature of tlie country, trees, produce, and cattle, the 
 religion, customs, dress, anus, dwelling - places, and commerce, will be found at 
 page xxiv. of the Indian Survey Report for 1 883-84. 
 1 Y 20321. ]^ 
 
146 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 The withdrawal of the British forces from Afghanistan in 
 September 1880 brought all surveying operations to a close in that 
 part of the country. But in March 1881 the conduct of the 
 Waziris, who inhabit the tracts adjoining the British districts of 
 Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, and have proved such unruly neigh- 
 bours since our annexation of the Punjab, necessitated the despatch 
 of a fresh expedition into their country, and this gave opportunity 
 for additional survey work. One column under Brigadier-General 
 Gordon advanced from Bannu up the Khaisar valley towards the 
 Eazmak valley along the northern part of the country, and returned 
 through the Shikto valley to the plains of Bannu. The other 
 column under Brigadier-General Kennedy advanced from Tonk into 
 the southern and western Waziri valleys, and then proceeded via 
 Kaniguram to the Razmak plateau, and returned via Palosin to 
 Tonk. To the first column Major Holdich and Lieutenant the Hon. 
 M. G. Talbot were attached as survey officers, and Captain G. W. 
 Martin accompanied the second column. These three officers, aided 
 by the native surveyor, Imam Baksh, who was taken under tribal 
 protection into tracts closed to Europeans, surveyed an area of 
 about 1,200 miles in and around Waziristan, and filled up blanks 
 for portions of the country which had not been visited during 
 Sir Neville Chamberlain's expedition in 1860, and which had never 
 before been seen by Europeans. The plane-tabling by Lieutenant 
 Talbot of the watershed between the Khaisar and the Dawar Dour 
 formed a useful continuation of Colonel TVoodthorpe's work in 
 Khost with Sir F. Roberts's expedition. The survey officers were 
 able to ascend several mountains on the western confines of the 
 country, including the peaks of Pirghal and Shuidar 11,000 feet in 
 height. Fortunately the atmosphere was generally clear, and points 
 were fixed as far as 200 miles distant, which in spite of the hurried 
 character of the movements of the troops combined to give good 
 results. A valuable reconnaissance of the Zhob valley and the upper 
 branches of the Gumal valley towards the Ab-i-istadeh lake was 
 also made by a native explorer. His map covered an area of 
 7,140 square miles, and though a good deal of this was rough and 
 only sketched in by the eye, it supplied some important corrections 
 to the previous geographical knowledge of the country. Some 
 interesting notes on the tribes and the roads were compiled from 
 the explorer's information by Lieutenant Talbot.* 
 
 See Appendix lo Surveyor-G-eneral's Report for 1880-81, p. 36. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SUZlViiYS AND EXPLOEATIONS. 147 
 
 Generally speaking, the operations in Waziristan had. an im- 
 portant bearing on the Kuram and Khost surveys, and formed a 
 connecting link between the triangulation in northern and southern 
 Afghanistan. * 
 
 The survey arrangements with the Zhob valley expedition were 
 originally placed in the hands of Major Holdich ; but when he was 
 suddenly called upon to join the Afghan Boundary Commission the 
 charge devolved on Lieutenant R. A. Wahab, R.E., who had a short 
 time previously accompanied Sir R, Sandeman into south-west 
 Baluchistan and carried a series of triangles towards Panjgur. For 
 the Zhob valley operations Mr. Gr. B. Scott and Sub-Surveyor 
 Muhammad Yusuf Sharif were attached to Lieutenant Wahab's 
 survey party. The operations lasted two months, during which about 
 400 square miles of country were surveyed or reconnoitred on the 
 ^-inch scale, and from 5,000 to 6,000 square miles on the 
 |-inch scale. The valley was surveyed in detail from its head 
 to Mena, and the mountainous tract to the north as far as the water- 
 shed dividing it from the Kwandar valley was reconnoitred and 
 sketched. Efforts were made to extend the triangulation into the 
 Kwandar basin, but this was found impracticable. A large part 
 of the Bori valley and the country separating it from the Tal 
 valley was surveyed on the -|-inch scale, and parts of the Musa- 
 Khel country and the Nalai and Mekhtar valleys.* 
 
 In November 1883 an expedition was organized to the Takht-i- 
 Suliman mountain, west of the town of Dera Ismail Khan. The 
 object of the survey expedition was to explore the Takht-i-Suliman 
 mountain and complete as much of the topography as possible of the 
 Sherani country, keeping up a continuous border survey with that 
 already completed to the north, which terminated about the line of 
 the Gumal valley, and to fix points to the west. These objects were 
 generally secured, though the innumerable lines of hills traversing 
 the central Afghan plateau were much dwarfed when seen from the 
 lofty elevation of the Kaisarghar, and no peaks appeared specially 
 prominent. Many important geographical features in the Birmal 
 hills, the Gumal and Zhob valleys, and the Musakhel country of the 
 
 * Lieutenant Wahab's reports are contained in the Proceedings of the Government 
 of India, Kevenue and Agricultural Department (Surveys), March 1885, Nos. 19 
 and 20. The Zhob valley has since been mapped by Colonel Holdich. 
 
 K 2 
 
148 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 Upper Vihowa (recently explored by tlie Hakim and the Bozdar) 
 were easily identified, and the general correctness of the geography 
 certified. Yusuf Sharif's survey of the Gumal pass connects the 
 work with "Waziristan on the north,* and a subsequent exploration of 
 his filled in further details in continuation of the Bozdar's topo- 
 graphy; so with the exception of tbe Dabua pass the topography 
 of the country was continuous and complete from Kohat to the 
 Eeminuk pass.f The expedition had enabled the northern and 
 highest peak of the Takht-i-Suliman group, Kaisarghar (11,300 feet 
 above the sea), to be scaled, and much of the surrounding togography 
 to be checked and amplified by Major Holdich and his assistants. 
 The only opposition encountered was from some hot bloods of the 
 Khiderzai clan, who by means of a flank movement were dispersed 
 with but little trouble. In this manoeuvre the British force was 
 guided mainly by the local knowledge of Sub-Surveyor Imam Baksh, 
 Bozdar, who also completed the largest share of the topography of 
 the adjoining country. 
 
 This distinguished native officer during his 25 years' active 
 service took part in eight different campaigns or expeditions, and 
 besides the Takht-i-Suliman surveys rendered most useful service in 
 surveys of the Zhob river, the Yihowa basin, and Musakhel country, 
 and also in Grilgit and Hunza, under Colonel Tanner. He was given 
 a grant of 250 acres of land in the Dera Ghazi Khan district, and in 
 1884, on his retirement, the title of " Khan Bahadur " was conferred 
 on him by the Viceroy. 
 
 In the Jowaki hills a tract of country left unsurveyed during 
 the military expedition of 1877-78 was mapped out by Yusuf 
 Sharif, with great courage and tact, the neighbouring chiefs being 
 particularly enraged at the open manner in which he used his plane- 
 table, and in spite of musket shots insisted on completing the last 
 bits of the survey so as to fix the position of Musadarra. Further to 
 the west some useful work was done by Mr. Claudius, who disguised 
 himself and relying on the protection of the Chiefs, without com- 
 panions or servants of any kind, but equipped with a small plane- 
 table, unscrewed and in pieces, advanced up the valley of the Bar 
 
 * Captain G. F. Young made some useful contributions to the knawledge of 
 Waziristan in his Notes on the Shaktu Valley, which had been previously quite 
 unknown. See Proceedings Royal Geogrnpliical Society, p. 537, of 1882. 
 
 I Appendi.x, p. x.xxviii., Keport of Surveyor-General of India for 1883-84. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 149 
 
 Marai and ascended a lofty peak commanding the Urakzai Tirah. 
 Fraternising with the people, he obtained all the opportunities he 
 required, and retraced his steps across the border. He then set 
 out on a second expedition up the Bizoti and Bara valleys, but his 
 disguise was detected and he was turned back by armed tribes. 
 The topography of the border was however extended as far south as 
 Bannu. The tract extending to the Gumal valley was taken in hand 
 by Mr. McNair, who sketched the valleys of the Kaitu Kuram, the 
 Baran, the Tochi, and the Khaisar, the high lands of the Batanis, &c. 
 This work was rendered especially trying by the orders given that 
 surveyors were never to camp outside the border ; thus men were 
 often tired out with a long march before the day's work began. 
 Behind this strip of frontier survey continuous maps were produced 
 by native explorers working bit by bit on one half the scale of the 
 other surveys. The " Hakim " brought in a reconnaissance of the 
 Tochi valley and fixed the position of the Kotanni pass which leads 
 into the Ghazni basin. The " Syud," a well-known explorer, 
 traversed the direct route between Bannu and Grhazni, but at the 
 latter place his disguise was detected, and he was seized and 
 imprisoned, bat eventually was sent to Kabul and taken before the 
 Amir, who allowed him to return to British territory by the Khyber 
 route. Unfortunately some of his original documents were lost, but 
 he brought valuable information regarding the direct route from 
 India to Ghazni. The veteran the " Bozdar" was not , actively 
 employed during the season 1882-83, but various oppoHunities 
 enabled the accuracy of his work during the previous season, when 
 he explored the affluents of the Gumal, the Sharan, and the Kandil 
 rivers, to be confirmed. 
 
 In March 1883 Mr. McNair and the "Syud" started on a most 
 adventurous journey into Kafiristan, the former assuming the dress 
 and disguise of a Jiahim or native doctor, for which purpose he shaved 
 his head and stained his face and hands and wore the dress peculiar to 
 the Mians or Kaka Khels, a clan who possess influence throughout 
 this part of Afghanistan and Badakshan. The party consisted of 
 40 people in all, including muleteers, and 15 baggage animals, and 
 among the goods a prismatic and magnetic compass, a boiling-point 
 and aneroid thermometer, and a specially constructed plane-table 
 were secretly stowed. The latter article was in constant use 
 throughout and answered capitally, as in case of surprise the paper 
 in use was slipped inside and' the plane-table became a doctor's pre- 
 
150 GEOGKAPHICAL SURVEtS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 scription book. On one occasion wMle observing on the summit of 
 tbe Laram Kotal, Mr. McNair was within an ace of being detected 
 by the sudden appearance of four men armed with matchlocks, but 
 in the twinkling of an eye the ruler or sight- vane was run up his 
 long open sleeve, and the pretended doctor was absorbed in hunting 
 for roots. 
 
 Crossing the Swat valley and passing through Dir the party 
 advanced over the Lahori pass and up the Kunar valley to Chitral, 
 where they waited with presents on the Badshah, Aman ul Mulk. 
 Mr. McNair was allowed to go up and reconnoitre the Dora pass 
 over the Hindu Kush ; he says it is a little over 14,000 feet, the 
 ascent is very gradual anQ quite feasible for laden animals, but 
 owing to the people of Muu jan and the Kafirs of the Bogosta valley, 
 traders prefer the route via the more difficult Nuksan pas.^. Neither 
 pass is open for more than three months in the year. Mr, McNair 
 also made an excursion westward of Chitral, by way of Rumbur and 
 Bamburath over the water-shed into the valley of the Arnawai river, 
 where he was well received by the Ludhe* villagers. A report was 
 however spread about by a rival Kakar Khel, Rabat Shah, that two 
 Europeans had come disguised into the country, and the ruler of 
 Chitral having sent for Mr. McNair, the latter was compelled to 
 return and abandon all further attempts at exploration. He returned 
 to Kashmir by way of Mastuj and Yasin. the route followed by 
 Major Biddulph. A full account of this journey was given by 
 Mr. McNair (who has since died) before the Royal Geographical 
 Society,f and the following year the Society awarded him the 
 Murchison grant for the same.J 
 
 The depredations and unruliness of the tribes about the Black 
 Mountain on the Hazara border necessitated the despatch of a 
 punitive expedition in November and December 1888, which was 
 accompanied by Captain R. A. Wahab, R.B., and two sub-surveyors, 
 Imam Sharif, K.B., and Ata Mahomed Khan. The last-named 
 surveyor, however, died at Kotkai, and the work consequently fell 
 
 * This is evidently the Lut-dih territory mentioned by Major Raverty, at page 149 
 (Section III.) of his " Notes on Afghanistan," &o. The pass leading InLo the valley 
 of the Oxus is called Apaluk by Major Raverty, and is said by the major to be fairly 
 easy, but I have never seen any otlier reference to it. 
 
 I On the 10th December 1883, see Proceedings R. G. S. for 188i. 
 % Kafiristan has since been visited from the Chitral side by Dr. Robertson and 
 Mr. Kitchen, Assistant Surveyor, in 1889-90. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 151 
 
 on Captain Wahab and Imam Sharif, wlio succeeded in mapping an 
 area of 423 square miles on the ^-inch scale, including practically 
 the whole course of the Ind«s to a point considerably above the 
 groat bend of the river near Thakot, and a good deal of ground 
 across the Indus adjoining Buner. These operations combined with 
 the results of the expeditions in 1852-53 and 1868,* and with the 
 survey of the Mullah {see page 141) enabled a new sketch map of 
 the Black Mountain district to be compiled on the 1-inch scale. 
 Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. — The country between Sikkim, Shigatze, 
 
 and Chetang was traversed by the explorer L , who started from 
 
 Darjeeling in March 1875, with the intention of reaching the Tsanpo 
 and making a route survey along as much of its, course as was practi- 
 cable. The direct route from Sikkim to Shigatze had not been 
 previously surveyed, as it crosses a frontier line which is guarded with 
 much jealousy by the Tibetans. Shortly after crossing the Kangra- 
 lama La or Lachen pass he was taken prisoner and sent to Shigatze, 
 where he was kept five months. He was then allowed to join a party 
 of merchants and travelled eastwards to the Yamdok-tso lake, after 
 which he turned northwards and followed the river to Chetang, but 
 was warned that further progress along its banks was useless unless 
 in company with a strong body of men to protect him from the 
 robbers and wild tribes, so he turned southwards and tried to return 
 to India by the route via Tawang taken by Pundit Nain Singh in 
 1874-75. The authorities at the latter place however, stopped his 
 further progress and confined him in the public flour mill. Event- 
 ually he was enabled to return to Darjeeling via Ciangtse Jong, 
 Phari, and the Ohumbi valley, which had been partially traversed by 
 Captain Turner in 1783. 
 
 But the most remarkable of the journeys made by any of the 
 
 Indian native explorers was that of A k in Great Tibet in 1878- 
 
 82, in the course of which he traversed the entire breadth of the 
 Tibetan plateau from its origin in the Himalayas to where its 
 northernmost spurs die away in the Mongolian deserts, and explored 
 a large tract of unknown ground on the confines of South-Eastern 
 Tibet and "Western China. 
 
 A k, whose real name is Krishna or Kishen Singh Milm-wal, is 
 
 by caste a Eawat Kajput, and first cousin to the late Nain Singh, 
 C.I.B., by whom he was trained. The family have been established 
 for many generations in Milam in Kumaun, where they are held in 
 
 * See Paget's Eecord of Expeditions against the N.W. Frontiei' Tribes ; revised by 
 Lieutenant A. H. Mason. London (Whiting & Co.), 1884. 
 
152 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 esteem and from whence they derive their designation of " Milm-wal." 
 In 1812, when Milam was in Nepalese territory, Messrs. Moorcroft 
 and Hearsey were travelling in \¥estern Tibet disguised as fakirs, and 
 under the assumed names of Mayapuri and Hargiri. They visited 
 Hundes and Gartok, but on their return journey were taken 
 prisoners and detained at Daba Jong, some 80 miles N.W. of the 
 Mansarowar lake. Deb Singh and Ber Singh (father and uncle 
 of Kishen Singh) hastened to proffer their good offices, a kindness 
 which Moorcroft and Hearsey acknowledged in the following 
 testimonial : — 
 
 " This certifies that Deb Singh and Ber Singh, sons of Dhamoo, an inhabitant and 
 man of consequence in the town of Melim in the country of Jooar, have shown to us 
 great attention and civility. Under an ideii that we were in want of funds they 
 offered us a hoondee on Sreenuggur for a tliousand rupees, to be paid at whatever period 
 might suit our convenience, and either in money or goods as might be most agrecaUe 
 to us. Althougli the state of our finances rendered the loan unnecessary, we ha,vemuch 
 pleasure in recording llie circumstance and in giving this testimonial of the goodwill 
 they boro towards u<. 
 
 Northern foot of the Himachal mountains, near ] (Signed) W. Moohcroft. 
 Daba, in Chinese Tartary. 25th August 1812. J ,, H. J. Huarsky. 
 
 A second testimonial signed by Mr. Moorcroft alone, bearing the 
 same date, recommends that the Honourable Company's officers will 
 afford all due facilities to Deb Singh and Ber Singh in enabling them 
 to dispose of their merchandise on the British side of the frontier. 
 The release of Messrs. Moorcroft and Hearsey was eventually effected 
 by the interposition and on the security of Deb Singh and Ber 
 Singh, but the certificate from Moorcroft giving the particulars of 
 the incident has unfortunately been lost. The other certificates are 
 still in the possession of Kishen Singh. 
 
 Kishen Singh had made several successful explorations before 
 undertaking his fourth journey, viz : — 
 
 (1.) 1869. — From Milam in Kumaun to Rakas Tal lake in Great 
 Tibet and thence southward along the Karnali river to 
 Kathai Ghat in British territory, 400 miles. 
 (2.) 1871-2.— From Shigatze lo the Tengri Nur and thence to 
 
 Lhasa, 300 miles.* 
 
 (3.) 1873-4. — From Tankse in Ladak to Kashgar and beyond, 
 
 thence south-east to Polu and south to Noh in the Pangong 
 
 and back to Tankse, 1,250 miles. f 
 
 On the occasion of his fourth and greatest journey Kishen Singh 
 
 was accompanied by a Bodh fellow-villager called Chambel, who, 
 
 * Keport of Great Trigonometrical Survey for 1873-74, Appendix 2. 
 
 t See page 442 of " Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873." Calcutta, 1875. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 153 
 
 thougli not SO b-iglily educated as Kishen Singh, and a good deal older, 
 displayed the most unswerving fidelity throughout th.eir wanderings. 
 
 A -k and two compaaiciis left Darjeeling on the 24th April 
 
 1878, and proceeding as Captain Turner did in 1783 by way of the 
 Jelep La pass and the Chumbi valley, he passed through Giangtse 
 and the Yamdok-tso lake, which he described as shaped like a horse- 
 shoe. The Sanpo was crossed by the famous suspension bridge 
 north of the lake, and on the 5th September 1878 the party arrived 
 at Lhasa and replenished their merchandise. During his stay there 
 
 A k employed his time in learning the Mongolian language and 
 
 in collecting a large amount of information regarding the city, the 
 people, and their customs. It was not till the 17th September 1879 
 
 that A k was enabled to join a caravan proceeding to Mongolia. 
 
 The party consisted of 105 persons, 60 of whom were Mongolian of 
 
 both sexes and the rest Tibetans, including A k's party of six. 
 
 Great care had to be exercised to avoid the roaming bands of armed 
 and mounted robbers, sometimes 300 strong, which infest Northern 
 Tibet, and this necessitated the adoption of a more westerly route 
 than the regular line of march to Sining. At the Ma-chu river, one 
 of the tributaries of the Upper Yangtse-kiang, a caravan pi'oceeding 
 to Lhasa was met, but it was subsequently turned back by snow, and 
 
 A k's party fell in with it again on descending from the Angir- 
 
 takshia or Kuen Lun mountainsf into the Naichi valley. The last 
 part of the journey had proved very severe, and several of the beasts 
 of burden had succumbed. The Naichi valley is several thousand feet 
 lower, and is covered with rich pasturage, which affords sustenance 
 to large herds of ponies, thick-tailed sheep, Bactrian camels and 
 goats. It forms part of the Tsaidam depression, the drainage of 
 which appears to have a general westerly flow, but no outlet into 
 the Lob basin.* The Mongolian nomad inhabitants proved to be 
 very hospitable, and they invited the members of the caravan to 
 lodge with them. At Thingkali the caravan was attacked by 200 
 mounted robbers ; a battle ensued, and after a somewhat desultory 
 firing the robbers fell upon the party with swords and spears, so 
 
 ^ k and his friends fled with only their arms and instruments. 
 
 At Hoiduthara the party were very kindly treated by a Tibetan 
 of Giangtse, and remained with him three months. They then 
 
 * This I infer from the heights on the late General Frshevalsky's map. 
 t An exhaustive memoir, by Captain G. Kollm, oh the Kuen Lun range will be found 
 in the Zeitschrift of the Berlin Geographical Society (Band XXVI., 1891, Ko. 3). 
 
154 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 turned to the nortli-west througli the region traversed by General 
 Prshevalsky in 1880. In some of the valleys adjoining the Saithang 
 plain (between 38° and 39° N. latitude) wild men are said to exist 
 
 (Prshevalsky mentions having seen one). A k states that these 
 
 men wear skins and live in caves and glens and ander the shelter of 
 overhanging rocks. They are ignorant even of the use of arms, and 
 lie in wait for their prey near pools or springs of water, and are 
 remarkably swift of foot. They kindle fire with flints and flay the 
 animals they kill with sharp-edged stones. In this region wild 
 camels and wild horses are also found. 
 
 At Yembi, in Saithang, the party remained three months, but here 
 
 M g, one of A k's companions, treacherously deserted with 
 
 150 rupees in coin and five ponies, and this compelled A k to 
 
 take service for five months. Their next important resting place Avas 
 Saitu, called Sachu by the Mongolians (Shachau of Marco Polo). 
 Fruit and vegetables are here abundant ; cotton is also cultivated, 
 and the Chinese Governor has lately established a manufactory for 
 weaving silk cloth. The climate is generally healthy and like that 
 
 of Yarkand, though A k was attacked by a peculiar disease in 
 
 the legs, said to be due to walking barefoot on a particular kind of 
 soil. In August 1881 the travellers left Sachu, and retracing their 
 footsteps crossed the continuation of the Kuen Lun rangef by a 
 more easterly route than that they had previously taken, and found 
 themselves on the Tibetan plateau, close by the sources of the 
 Hoang Ho, which were afterwards visited by Prshevalsky on his 
 last journey in 1884-85. They crossed the Ma-chu, as the upper 
 waters of the Hoang Ho are here called, and travelled southwards 
 by a lonely, uninhabited route leading across the Di-chu or Upper 
 Yangtse-kiang to Kegudo, which is a place of trade. From this 
 
 place A k proceeded almost due S.E. in company with a trader 
 
 for Darchendo or Tasienlu, and which was reached after a long 
 journey on the 5th February 1882."'' This city is a market, chiefly 
 for tea, which is grown in gardens to the east and carried to Lhasa 
 and to various places in Tibet, and even to Kashmir itself. The 
 city is governed by a Chinese ofiicer, assisted by several subordinate 
 ofl&cials ; there is also a Tibetan ofiicer who possesses a jurisdiction 
 over the original inhabitants. A k was kindly received by two 
 
 * This part of the journey coincides roughlj' with that of Mr. Rookhill, formerly 
 Secretary to the American Legation in T'elciu. {See Proceedings of the IJoyal Geo- 
 graphical Society, p. 730 of 1889. Also Mr. R.'s book, published by Longmans, 1S9L) 
 
 t See note on previous page. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 155 
 
 Jesuit "Fathers who lived outside the city, and by one of them he 
 was presented with an introductory letter to his clerical, brethren at 
 Bathang and Darjeeling, andiHwith a small gift of money. The same 
 
 priest also apprised the Survey or-Greneral by letter of A k's 
 
 safety, which was a great relief to Greneral Walker, as some alarming 
 rumours had reached India in the meantime, owing to the absence of 
 any precise intelligence. 
 
 A k then set out on his retui'n journey to India, proceeding 
 
 due east by the regular official road through Lithang to Bathang. 
 At the latter place the party diverged in a S.W. direction, and the 
 Di Chu (Yang-tse-kiang), Chiamdo Chu (Mekong), and the Giama 
 Nu Chu (Salwen)* were traversed in succession. The first of these 
 rivers was crossed by a ferry, the second by a slanting leather rope 
 to which men and even animals are attached in a sort of sliding 
 cradle of rope. The Nu Chu, which is deep and rapid and 200 paces 
 wide, was crossed by rafts propelled by oars, and prevented from 
 going down the stream by some of the boatmen holding on to a 
 rope stretched across the river. The Tila lia pass westward 
 (16,100 feet) gave the travellers their first access into the basin of 
 the great rivers of Bengal, the river Zayul Chu which drains the 
 valley being the same as "Wilcox's Brahmakund and T. T. Cooper's 
 Brahmaputra. The latter traveller succeeded in ascending the 
 
 stream as far as the village of Pran.f A k descended it as far 
 
 as Sama, which is about 20 miles from the Assam boundary, and 
 which is the place where Krik and Boury, the two French missionaries, 
 were murdered in 1854.| The Zayul district belongs to a distinct 
 hydrographical basin, and is warmer than any other part of Tibet. 
 Criminals sentenced to transportation for life are sent thither. The 
 inhabitants speak a very different language from that of the Tibetans, 
 which, however, they understand. Many of their customs are more 
 akin to those of the Hindus, and they raise two crops, harvested in 
 the autumn and spring respectively. 
 
 * This river has been generally hitherto tissumefl to be the upper course of the 
 Salwen river, and this is the view I endeavoured to establish in my letter to the Eoyal 
 Geographical Society {see Proceedings for 1883, p. 664). General Walker, however, 
 thinks that it is more probably the source of the Irawadi ; see Proceedings of the 
 E.G.S. for June 1887. 
 
 t See The Mishmee Hills (London : II. S. King & Co.), p. 228. 
 
 J See Memorandum by Monseigneur de Mazure in Journal of the Asiatic Society, 
 Vol. XXX. 
 
156 GEOGEAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 At Sama A k was informed that he would certainly bo killed 
 
 if he tried to pass through the Mishmi country, consequently he was 
 reluctantly obliged to return by a northerly and circuitous route to 
 Lhasa leading over the Neching Gangra range, which appears to 
 be the eastern prolongation of the Himalayan chain.'* The route lay 
 in a northerly direction, and to the west of the Giama Nu Chu ; 
 many of the streams crossed draining into it. At the fort of Lho 
 Jong the great high road from Darchendo to Lhasa was struck, and 
 thence the route lay westward and fairly coincident with that 
 followed by the Abbe Hue on his return journey from Lhasa to 
 China, but instead of revisiting the capital, A k travelled south- 
 wards to Ohetang on the Brahmaputra, and finally arrived at 
 Darjeeling on the 12th November 1882. 
 
 Such are the main features of this remarkable journey, which 
 extended over 3,000 miles of country, and lasted over four years and 
 a half. There is much of considerable interest in Mr. J. B. N. Hen- 
 nessey's Eeport,t which it is impossible to reproduce here, but one 
 important result was to demonstrate the fact that the great Tibetan 
 river, the Sanpo, does not flow into the Irawadi basin, and that it 
 has no other possible exit than through the channel of the Dihong. 
 
 During the course of his travels A k took observations for 
 
 latitude at 22 stations, and heights by boiling point at 69 places. 
 He displayed great ingenuity in secreting and preserving his instru- 
 ments throughout all his troubles, and his perseverance and pluck in 
 the face of disasters and privations earned for him the highest praise 
 from his employers, and from all geographers. He was rewarded 
 with a grant of a jaghir of land from Grovernment, the title of Rai 
 Bahadur, a grant of money from the Royal Greographical Society, 
 a gold medal from the Paris Greographical Society, and one 
 awarded by the Venice Geographical Congress. Still more meri- 
 torious were A k's courage and perseverance amid difficulties 
 
 sufiicient to have daunted most men. Not only was he plundered 
 
 * A k triivelled clown the Zayul liver to about 10 miles below Rimii ; there ho 
 
 ascertained from native information only that it is the source of the Lohit Brahraapatra 
 which ilows into Assam. The accuracy of this information having been questioned, 
 Mr. Needham, a Britif;h Police Officer in Assam, made an adventurous journey up the 
 Lohit Brahmapatra to a point within a mile of Rima, and conclusively ascertained that 
 the Zayul is the source of that river. See General Walker's paper on the Lu river of 
 Tibet, in the Proceedings of the R.G.S. for June 1887. 
 
 ■j- Report on the Explorations in Great Tibet and Mongolia, made by A k in 
 
 1879-82. Uehra Dun, 1884. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 157 
 
 by the Chiamo Grolok robbers of nearly all bis possessions, including 
 the goods which had been provided, as usual, to enable him to 
 traffic and pay his way, but when, still refusing to turn back and 
 exploring further northwards, he was deserted and again robbed, 
 this time by one of his two companions, who left him and his faithful 
 
 comrade L c practically paupers. He was then more than 1,000 
 
 miles, as the crow flies, from British territory, friendless and 
 dependent on charity, yet he pressed on, keeping his face from home. 
 
 Though for 2,000 miles he and L c literally begged their way, 
 
 yet he continued his observations to the very end with regularity, 
 care, and skill, so that lie rejoined the survey headquarters with all 
 his little notebooks and instruments intact. His work proved to be 
 of excellent quality and complete in every respect. Ordinarily 
 explorers pay their way through their goods, and when these are 
 expended, borrow money from friends or incur obligations which 
 
 have to be made good. A k was absent full twice the time of 
 
 any other explorer, but when asked for the usual contingent bill, 
 replied that he had paid nothing, and had no claim to prefer. Both 
 
 A k and L c (who is the elder of the two) were quite 
 
 incapacitated by the hardships and anxieties undergone from under- 
 taking any similar work in future. 
 
 It should be mentioned that a small portion of A k's route 
 
 was subsequently traversed by Mr. A. D. Carey, of the Bombay 
 Civil Service, whose journey, though not that of a member 
 of the Indian Survey Department, may be briefly noticed here, 
 
 especially as he bears testimony to the accuracy of A k's 
 
 work. Mr. Carey started from Leh in August 1885, and, in company 
 with Mr. Dalgieish, who acted as interpreter, proceeded to Kiria, 
 in the Tarim basin, through the uninhabited tract of Tibet lying 
 between the Pangong Lake and Polu. He then travelled to Khotan 
 and traversed a large portion of the great desert, first following the 
 Khotan river to Shah Yar, and then the course of the Tarim river 
 to Lake Lob. From thence he travelled southwards, ascending the 
 various huge L-anges of mountains which here buttress the northern 
 face of the Tibetan highlands, till he reached a lonely point called 
 Mugzisolma, near the upper waters of the Yangtze-kiang, and south 
 of the Angirtakshia pass over the Kuen Lun range. He then turned 
 northwards through the Naichi valley, where good grazing a,nd 
 plenty of firewood and water were obtained,. and having abandoned 
 the intention of proceeding further south in the direction of Lhasa 
 
158 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 on account of the difficulty of getting supplies, he returned through 
 the Sirthang plain and Sachu (both of which had been visited by 
 
 A k), and from Nainshe crossed the desert to Hami. From the 
 
 latter place he followed the usual route along the foot of the Tian 
 Shan mountains through Turfan, Karashahr, Kuchar,Aksu, Yarkand, 
 and the Karakoram pass to Ladak. 
 
 The journey forms an extremely interesting link between the 
 discoveries of Prshevalsky in his two Tibetan journeys of 1879-80 
 
 and 1884-85 and those of the Indian explorer A k, and was of 
 
 such importance as to earn for its author the gold medal of the 
 Royal Geographical Society. 
 
 A great deal of geographical and general information respecting 
 Tibet has been collected within the last few years by two native 
 officials of the Bengal Educational Department, viz., Babu S. 0. D. 
 and the Lama U. Gr. In 1879 S. C. D., being about to journey to 
 Shigatze on business of his own, and anxious to make the most of 
 his opportunities for acquiring new geographical information, under- 
 went a course of training in surveying and observing, under the 
 Pundit Nain Singh. He then set out from Jongu, in Sikkim, and, 
 traversing the north-east corner of Nepal, crossed into Tibet by the 
 formidable Chatang La pass and travelled northwards to Shigatze, 
 on the Sanpo. He returned by much the same way to near 
 Khamba Jong, and re-entered Sikkim by the Donkia pass. His 
 journey was fruitful of information, the observations of bearings and 
 distances were carefully taken and recorded, and of much value 
 for mapping. 
 
 S. C. D. is the author of a " Narrative of a Journey to 
 " Lhasa, 1881-82," with a supplementary paper on the Government 
 of Tibet.''' The work, though at times overladen with traditions 
 and legends, is a most interesting and valuable description of the 
 journey, of the country, and of the people, though the geographical 
 information is rather meagre. The route followed by him and his 
 companion in 1881 starts from Darjeeling and runs byway of the 
 Kongla-chen pass, Tashi-Lhunpo, Dong-tse, and the Samding 
 monastery to Lhasa, and thence back again to Darjeeling. 
 
 S. C. D. intended to publish a second volume, containing a 
 narrative of his journey round Lake Palti, a series of papers on the 
 
 * Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1885. 207 pages. The Secretary to the 
 Eoyal Geographical Society has informed me that they propose to bring out a carefully 
 edited abstract of this work. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 159 
 
 history, antiquity, customs, manners, &c. of the people of High 
 Asia, and an account of the explorations of Lama U. G., but 
 the author does not appear to have carried out this intention. Of the 
 Lama U. Q.'s second journey So record appears to exist, though the 
 results of all the three journeys were embodied by Colonel Tanner in 
 the S.W. section of sheet 6 of the N.E. Transfrontier Series 
 of maps. Of the third journey a short account has bee a prepared 
 by Colonel T. H. Holdich.* One of the most interesting features 
 of this journey was the Lama's complete account and survey of the 
 famous Yam-dok-tso or Palti lake.f This lake first appeared on the 
 map prepared by D'Anville from the Lama survey, and published 
 by Du Halde in 1735. It was there shown as a ring-shaped lake, 
 and so represented on all latei' maps, but the explorer L., who 
 
 travelled in Tibet in 1875 and 1876, and A k, who passed 
 
 it on the 31st August 1878, both remarked that the so-called island 
 in the centre was in reality connected with the mainland. The true 
 name of the lake was reported by the Lama to be Yamdok or 
 scorpion lake, an appellation which shows that the Tibetans must 
 have had some maps, giving a fairly correct idea of its shape. 
 Villages and monasteries are dotted on the margin of the lake, which 
 is embosomed by mountains, except at its eastern extremity, where 
 there stretches a far-reaching plain of rich sward, on which graze 
 thousands of cattle, horses, and beasts of the chase. On the hilly 
 peninsula, which is encircled by the two scorpion claws, is an inner 
 lake about 24 miles in extent and 500 feet above the level of the 
 Yamdok lake, and on its shore is the great Samding monastery, 
 where S. C. D. was very nearly breathing his last. J The question 
 of an outlet to Lake Yamdok is still left in uncertainty, though the 
 probability is that its waters find an outlet down the Rong-chu into 
 the Sanpo. The Lama brought back a wonderful native story, that 
 occasionally the waters of the Sanpo rise and those of the lake sink, 
 so that the flow of the Eong-chu is then the other way. The altitudes, 
 however, make this an impossibility. The Lama then proceeded 
 southward by the Pho-mo-chang-thang-tso lake (16,050 feet), 
 respecting which he was the first traveller to bring back any infor- 
 mation, to the Men da La pass (17,450) feet, which leads over the 
 
 * Eeport on Explorations, &c. in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet. Delira Dun, 1889. 
 
 f A good deal of interesting information respecting the Palti lake will be found in 
 a note on page 244 of Mr. C. E. Markham's Tibet: Bogle and Manning (Triibuer). 
 
 X See page 116 of "Narrative of a Journey to Lhasa in 1881-82." Calcutta, 
 1885. 
 
160 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 water-shed of the central Himalayan cliain^-' into the valley of the 
 Lhobra Sanpo river or upper Manas. Here he had struck into 
 the Indian hydrographical basin, and very soon he entered a well- 
 peopled and highly cultivated valley, resembling Sikkim, and said 
 to be the most fertile in Tibet. At Lhakhang-Jong, a little north of 
 the frontier, the Lama's goods were searched and his true character 
 as an explorer was revealed to the authorities, but by dint of judi- 
 cious bribes and his skill in meeting cross-qaestioning, he was 
 allowed to dppart, his fair note book being alone destroyed. He 
 then made his way north-e;istward, and passing through Chetang, on 
 the banks of the Sanpo, and the great Sam-ye monastery, probably 
 the most important in Tibet, he arrived at Lhasa, where he stayed 
 for a few days and had a friendly interview with the Nepalese agent. 
 He returned to India by way of the Yamdok-tso and Pho-mo-chang- 
 thang-tso lakes, and the Chumbi valley to Darjeeling, which he 
 reached on the 15th December 1883. 
 
 The valley of the Arun river was traversed in 1880-81 by a Hindu 
 explorer, G. S. S., up to the water-shed between Nepal and Tibet. 
 Crossing the mountain range he advanced to the Tibetan village of 
 Karta, beyond which he was not allowed to go. He brought back 
 some new information respecting routes in Nepal, though his 
 observations were few and disconnected. 
 
 During 1884—85 the designation of the Darjeeling party was 
 altered to that of the Himalaya party, and under the superintendence 
 of Colonel Tanner a variety of work was performed. The blocks for 
 tea cultivation in the Darjeeling hills were demarcated with perma- 
 nent pillars, progress was made with the demarcation of the Nepal 
 boundary, and triangulation over 550 square miles was executed in 
 the Simla Hill States.f The most important part of the operations, 
 however, consisted in the triangulation carried on in the following 
 localities, so as to extend our knowledge of the Himalayas, viz., (a) 
 on the Gandak river, (b) from stations of the North-Bast Longi- 
 tudinal Series in the plains facing Eastern and Central Nepal, (c) 
 in the terai along the Mechi river, and in the Daling hills from bases 
 
 * See my article Himalaya Mountains in the " Imperial Gazetteer of India," for a 
 "eneral view of the structure of the mass of the mountain range referred to. Colonel 
 Godwin- Austen also submitted an elaborate map and address on t)ie same subject 
 before the British Association at Southport in 1883. See Proceedings, Royal 
 Geographical Society, 1883, p. 610, and 1884, p. 83. 
 
 I See also p. 99. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 161 
 
 derived from the Darjeeling survey, (d) from the stations facing; 
 Western Bhutan, based on the data of the Assam Longitudinal Series, 
 and (e) from the stations in Eastern Kiimaun facing Western 
 Nepal and Tibet. * 
 
 The last-named operations were conducted by Colonel Tanner in 
 
 person, assisted by R N -. They crossed the Lipu Lek pass 
 
 (16,800 feet) at the north-eastern corner of Kumaun, but were 
 ordered back by the Tibetan Governor of Taklakhar, on approach- 
 ing that place. Colonel Tanner says that the Lipu Lek pass is one 
 of the easiest between India and Tibet, and though the surrounding 
 tracts are not so populous as Eastern Tibet and the road between 
 the pass and Kumaun most arduous, the trade in grain, salt, and 
 borax is already very considerable. The Jong Pon or Governor of 
 Taklakhar asked Colonel Tanner what object the English had in 
 making roads in Kumaun, and why they wished to leave the beautiful 
 plains of India for such a barren country as Tibet ? How was it 
 that the English were always craving for the territories of others ? 
 Colonel Tanner replied that the English did not in the least desire 
 to occupy such a comfortless and bleak land as theirs. " Bleak, do 
 '• you call this ? " was the rejoinder, " Why, you are now in the 
 " very garden of Tibet ! If you call this barren what would you say 
 " of other parts where there is literally nothing but rock and ice? 
 " Go back now to India, you have seen the most inviting (!) part of 
 " our country, the rest is not worth a visit. Our Government don't 
 " allow the English in Tibet ; but you, one and all, try to push 
 " your way past our frontier posts, and never consider that, if you 
 " succeed, our governors and oflBcials on the frontier lose their. heads 
 " for not stopping you ! " 
 
 The scenery a few hours below the Lipu Lek is remarkably fine. 
 Below Budi, in the Kali valley, a series of stone steps or ladders 
 commences, over which the traveller has to make his way for a day 
 and a half before he reaches an ordinary mountain-path. This 
 extraordinary trade route consists of a kind of winding staircase, cut 
 into the rocky face of the cliffs, and in many places overhung with 
 crags, with a seemingly bottondess abyss below. On Colonel 
 Tanner's return to India the whole flight of steps was literally 
 crowded with thousands and thousands of laden sheep and goats, 
 making their way up into the high lands of Tibet ; and the perils were 
 increased by the sheep obstinately rushing past regardless nf the 
 consequences to themselves or others. Many animals are annually 
 
 I y 20321. ^ 
 
1G2 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 precipitated over the cliifs, and how the trade has been carried on 
 under circumstances of such exceptional difficulty is a marvel. 
 
 -R N , who was Colonel Tanner's companion through the 
 
 above work, also completed the very arduous undertaking of a circuit 
 round the great Kanchanjanga mountain, not only supplying a sketch 
 of the peak and its dependent spurs, but also a delineation for the 
 first time of the boundary between North-eastern Nepal, Sikkira, and 
 
 Tibet. 
 
 In 1887-88 the reconnaissance and approximate triangulation 
 of Western Nepal were extended eastwards from the Kumaun 
 boundary to the Gandak river, which has formed a sensible addition 
 to our geographical knowledge of that country. But a good deal 
 still remains to be done. Materials are most scanty where the 
 Gandak and Baghmati rivers break through the Himalayas into 
 the plains, and most abundant, of course, in the tracts adjoinmg 
 Kumaun and Sikkim, whither observers have been able to gain 
 access without difficulty. The greater part of the operations in 
 1887-88 were done by Sub-Surveyors Rinzin Nimgya and Ram Saran 
 by distant sketching from the tower stations of the N.E. Longi- 
 tudinal Series of the Great Trigonometrical Survey and with the 
 aid of previously fixed distant peaks, a method which enables 
 the Surveyor to fix fairly enough the prominent points of ridges 
 and any other features seen and identified, bat which leaves him 
 somewhat in the dark as to the run of the valleys and the details 
 of the drainage. Besides these reconnaissance surveys the only 
 other information we possess is derived from the route surveys of 
 the few native explorers who had traversed the country from time 
 to time, and from a survey by Major Wilson and Captain Barrow of 
 the valley of Khatmandu. The^ chief difficulties attending Hima- 
 layan surveying of this character are due to the hazy and cloudy 
 state of the atmosphere, which nearly always obscures the central 
 band of mountains. 
 
 Bhutan is another region of which our knowledge is still very 
 fragmentary, and this appears to be mainly due to frequent internal 
 dissensions and the generally unsettled character of the country. 
 According to R. N., who explored tracts in Eastern and Western 
 Bhutan in 1885-86, '•' the government is nominally vested in two 
 
 * Report on the Explorations of Lama Serap Gyatsho and four other native travellers 
 in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet. Dehra Dun, 1889. An interesting critical review 
 of the journey, giving many additional details, will be found in the Indian Survey 
 Keport for 1886-87, page Ixxxvi. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 163 
 
 functionaries, the secular head or Deb Raja, and the religious head 
 or Dharma Raja, but the real power lies with several chieftains, who 
 are always plotting against eaeh other to set some relative of their 
 own on the throne. Hence R. N. and his companion P. A., who 
 had entered Western Bhutan from Sikkim and the Chumbi valley, 
 were unable to continue their journey eastward across the country 
 as Pemberton had done in 1838, and were compelled to travel 
 southward to Buxa Duar, re-entering Bhutan at its eastern extremity 
 at Dewangiri. From this point they travelled to the north-west, 
 ascending the Pumthang river, one of the principal feeders of the 
 Manas, up to the Tibetan frontier, and thence travelling eastward 
 returned by way of Tawang. The route closes on to that of 
 Captain Pemberton (1838) in Bhutan, and of Lama U. Gr. in Tibet, 
 and the results ha%'e helped greatly to supply a sketch map of 
 Bhutan, which has been embodied by Mr. W. Gr. E. Atkinson in 
 sheet No. 7 of the N.E. Transfrontier Series. One result of the 
 journey was to prove that the Kuru or Lhobrak Chu is the largest 
 river of Bhutan, and drains the country between the Yamdok, 
 Pho-mo-chang-thang, and Tigu lakes, and the glaciers of the 
 Kulha, Grangri, and other great ranges.* R.N. also discovered a 
 new tribe called Chingmis in the eastern part of Bhutan. Though 
 resembling the Bhutanese in dress, they differ in wearing pigtails, 
 are of a more amiable disposition, and live in better houses, but do 
 not, like the Bhutanese, form part of the official class. 
 
 An account of the lower Sanpo was written by the Mongolian 
 Lama Serap Glyatsho between 1856-68. His narrative,f however, 
 is mainly confined to a list of names of monasteries, sacred places, 
 and villages, with an occasional digression into history, description 
 of wild beasts, &c. It contains but little geography, and being 
 based, moreover, on data collected nearly 30 years since, must be 
 altogether accepted with caution. Nevertheless, the information, 
 such as it is, combined with the account of K— — p (a more recent 
 explorer) enabled Colonel Tanner to compile a sketch map of that 
 part of the Sanpo which had been previously a complete blank on 
 the maps. 
 
 * Geographers appear to have been in some uncertainty regarding the lower course 
 of the Lhobrak. In my article on the " Himalaya Mountains," in the " Imperial 
 Gazetteer" of India, I suggested that the Manas was in reality the lower course of the 
 Lhobraic; but in Mr. Markham's work "Tibet: Bogle and Manning," the Lhobrak- 
 chu and the Subansiri are supposed to be identical. 
 
 + See footnote on previous page. 
 
 L 2 
 
164 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 K p, the explorer just referred to, is a native of Sikkim, and 
 
 had accompanied G. M. N. (another employe whose work is referred 
 to on the next page) to Gyala Sindong on the Sanpo, besides having 
 since traversed Bhutan with R. N.* K — — p went as servant to 
 a Chinese Lama whom the late Captain Harman sent to Gyala 
 Sindong to throw marked logs into the Sanpo, having previously 
 arranged for watchers to be stationed at the junction of the Dihong 
 and Brahmaputra to ascertain whether the logs came down by that 
 course, and to settle by this means the identity of the Sanpo with 
 the great river of Assam. The Lama proved a faithless rascal and 
 
 having sold K p returned to his own home in China. K p 
 
 managed to escape and return to Darjeeling after an absence of 
 four years, having traced the course of the Sanpo down to Onlet, 
 iiearly TOO miles lower than any previous explorer and to within 
 one march of Miri Padam, which is said to be only 35 miles from 
 
 the nearest plains of India. K p not being a trained explorer 
 
 the information he brought is not based on a route survey, and can 
 only be regarded as a bona fide story of his travels related from 
 recollection two years after his return. The account was translated 
 into English from the original by Norpu. 
 
 From Gyala Singdong downward the river is enclosed by 
 snow-clad mountains on which the wild yak and Tibetan stag 
 abound. The country is here called Pemakoichen, and is inhabited 
 by Chingmii?, a race which R. N. had met in north-eastern 
 Bhutan {see particulars on preceding page), and which occupies 
 a considerable extent of country eastward as far as the Sanpo. 
 They resemble partly the Bhutanese and partly the Men tribes 
 around Tawang. Those in Bhutan are described as more amiable 
 than the Bhutanese proper, and as living in houses of better 
 construction, while their afl&nity to the Chinese is shown by both 
 sexes wearing pigtails. They extend as far as Daugam on the 
 Sanpo river, where the Ijo river joins it. Below that point 
 Tibetan names and influence cease, and the country of three tribes 
 of aborigines called collectively Lo Kabtaf commences. They are 
 averse to anything savouring of Buddhism or Tibetan habits ; they 
 
 * For nairative see " Keport on Explorations in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet." 
 Dehra IJun, 1889. See also Colonel Tanner's interpstinc; " Xotes " in the Indian 
 Survey Report for 188G-87, paf!;e Ixxxvi. 
 
 t Compare the Lhok'haptra of De La Penua and L'hok'hapha of Klaproth. See 
 IMarkliam's Tibet, pages 311 and 312. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 165 
 
 are great hunters, and shoot either with bows and arrows or with 
 matchlocks the bison and other game which is found in plenty on 
 the mountain slopes. TheJPadams at the lowest portion of the 
 
 Sanpo reached by K p are known to us, on the authority of 
 
 Mr. Needham, as Abors. 
 
 An important piece of geographical discovery in connexion with 
 the course of the great river of Tibet, the Sanpo, was accomplished, 
 in 1878, by a Sikkim Bhutia G— m — n, who had been trained by 
 Lieutenant Harman, R.B., in the use of the prismatic compass, in 
 plotting his work, in the use of a boiling-point thermometer, and 
 the reading of a sextant. This traveller followed the course of the 
 river from Chetang, a village visited by the Pundit Nain Singh, in 
 an easterly direction to the Chamkar monastery (Tchamca of 
 D'Anville), beyond which the river makes an acute bend and flows 
 south past Gyala Syndong (the furthest point reached by G — m — n) 
 and the Gimuchen country into a country which the natives say is 
 " ruled by the British." This journey thus threw considerable light 
 on the further course of the Sanpo and (assuming it to be one and the 
 same as the Dihong of Upper Assam) reduced the unknown section 
 of the river to about 100 miles, a distance which was eventually 
 diminished still further by the journey of K. P. in 1886-87 {see 
 preceding page), which may be considered as the complement of 
 G — m — n's exploration. The latter traveller also brought back 
 particulars of various places in the valley of the Sanpo which are 
 to be identified with names of D'Anville's map. He also visited the 
 Tamdok-tso or " Palti lake " of D'Anville and furnished an 
 interesting description, with sketches of the great iron suspension 
 bridge at Chazumtuka or Chagsum by which travellers bound for 
 Lhasa from the south-west cross over the Sanpo river. 
 
 Burma and Assam Frontier. — The opening up of the Assam frontier 
 was pressed on the attention of the Secretary of State even before 
 the annexation of Upper Burmah. On the 31st July 1878, a deputa- 
 tion, headed by the late Mr. W. E. Porster and Sir R. Alcock, and 
 comprising Col. Godwin- Austen and various gentlemen interested in 
 Assam and its tea-trade, waited on Lord Cranbrook at the India Office 
 with a memorial praying for the improvement of the communication 
 between Calcutta, Assam, and China, and for preliminary exploration 
 along the connecting route across the moiintains. The matter was 
 commended to the notice of the Government of India on the 
 29th August 1878 (Despatch No. 46 (Geographical)). The papers 
 
166 GEOGRAPHICAL 8CRVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 which form Appendix B. to G. T. S. Report for 1876-77 {see Survey 
 Proceedino-s for April 1878) contain some interesting details as to 
 the geography of N.E. Assam, and a Note (Appendix B.) on the old 
 Burmese route over the Patkoi and by way of Nongyong, viewed as 
 the most feasible and direct route from India to China. The deputa- 
 tion undoubtedly helped to concentrate attention on this important 
 region, and some useful explorations were subsequently made (see 
 Topographical Survey chapter, p. 79). 
 
 The military events in Upper Burma leading to the deposition 
 of King Theebaw and the annexation of the country to the British 
 Crown, necessitated the employment of surveyors, and in the 
 spring of 1886 Captain Hobday left the Andaman islands,'^ which 
 he had been engaged in surveying, for Mandalay. The latitude 
 and longitude and altitude of that city were determined, and a 
 preliminary map of the surrounding coimtry was compiled from 
 the reconnaissances of officers with the Burma Field Force. In 
 May Captain Hobday and Sub-Surveyor Ahmad Sayad accompanied 
 a military expedition into the Kachin hills, south-east of Bhamo, 
 and in the following month one to the south-east of Mandalay. 
 While carrying on his work at a place eight miles east of Kyonkse, 
 Ahmad Sayad was attacked by Shan dacoits and killed. The 
 despatch of a telegraph party to lay a line from Mandalay to 
 Bhamo gave opportunity for the extension of the triangulation and 
 topography northwards up the Irawadi. The survey of the city 
 of Mandalay on the 6-inch scale, covering altogether an area of 
 50 miles, was completed as well as a sketch map of the new can- 
 tonment site at Bhamo. 
 
 In the later part of 1886 the survey detachment in Upper Burma 
 was strengthened and enlarged, and several reconnaissances were 
 made in connexion with the various military movements undertaken 
 for the pacification of the country. In November Captain Hobday 
 and a sub-surveyor accompanied a column from Mandalay to 
 Thonze via Pym-ul-win and returned by the same route. In 
 January Captain Hobday joined another expedition from Mandalay 
 to the Shan State of Mainlon, via Lamaing and Kalagwe, and then 
 
 * A good account of the Little Audaraans (which Pi-ofessor Flower has described 
 as one of the most isolated spots in the civilised world) was given by Mr. M. Portman, 
 before the Eoy:il Geographical Society on the 30th January 1888. See Proceedings 
 Royal Geographical Society, p. 567. The Great Andamans are better known, and an 
 admirable article on the two groups, from the pen of the late Sir Henry Yule, will be 
 found in thf Enajclopn'diH Britannica. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEVS AND EXPLORATIONS. 167 
 
 proceeded with the troops to the Ruby Mines, returning from 
 Mogok, the ruby-mining centre, to Thabeitkyun on the Irawadi. 
 He also took advantage in March of the return of the Tsawbwa of 
 Thibaw from Mandalay to his capital, under escort, to accompany 
 the party which travelled through Nammaw and Goteik to Thibaw, 
 where he halted and explored the surrounding country. The area 
 reconnoitered and mapped during these various expeditions in the 
 Northern Shan States and the Ruby Mines district amounted to 
 about 8,000 square miles. Major Hobday remarks of the Shans 
 that he believes them to be a peace-loving community, who have 
 only been excited to wage war one against another by the intriguing 
 resident Burmese officials appointed from time to time by the 
 Burmese court. They are naturally very fond of trade, and along 
 every road are to be met hawking their wares. The country is 
 very deserted in parts owing to the petty wars and disturbances 
 prevalent of late years. Lieutenant Jackson, the next officer in 
 charge, was similarly engaged with various expeditions, and his 
 out-turn, together with that of the sub-surveyor with him, also 
 amounted to about 3,000 square miles of reconnaissance survey. 
 
 The general results of the work of these officers, as well as that 
 accomplished by Mr. Wyatt and others belonging to the Upper 
 Burma party, consisted of an area of 15,000 square miles triangu- 
 lated and 11,000 square miles of reconnaissance survey. The 
 difficulties in a country like Upper Burma are very great owing 
 to the dense forests, undergrowth, and high grass encountered 
 almost everywhere, in addition to which an impenetrable haze 
 fills the air from March to the commencement of the rains. 
 These drawbacks, coupled with the necessity of keeping up with 
 troops marching from 10 to 15 miles a day, rendered the carrying 
 on of a connected triangulation and topography a matter of great 
 difficulty, and Captain Hobday and his coadjutors received the 
 special commendation of the Commander-in-Chief for their labours. 
 A small survey party accompanied the military column which was 
 despatched from Assam by way of Manipur into the Chindwin 
 valley to co-operate with the field force in Upper Burma, and 
 Colonel "Woodthorpe, who had just returned from Gilgit, where 
 he had been for more than a year with Sir W. Lockhart's mission, 
 at once volunteered for the work. He selected as his assistant 
 Mr. M. J. Ogle, who had previously accompanied him in various 
 expeditions on the north-east frontier. The results comprised 
 
168 GEOGRAPHICAL SUllVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 360 square miles surveyed topograptiically on the -l-inch scale in 
 the south-east of Manipur, in continuation of the survey of 1881-82 ; 
 the whole of the Kubo valley and large portions of the Lekayain 
 district, comprising an area of 3,924 square miles, was surveyed on 
 the :^-inch scale, as well as part of the course of the Ohindwin river. 
 Colonel -Woodthorpe was seized with a bad attack of fever, which 
 lasted during May, but Mr. Ogle energetically continued the 
 triangulation and succeeded in effecting a junction with Captain 
 Hobday's series, brought up from Mandalay. 
 
 In recognition more especially of his services in Burma Colonel 
 Woodthorpe was appointed a Companion of the Order of the 
 Bath, a distinction which afforded much gratification to all those who 
 had watched that officer's record of services in Afghanistan, Assam, 
 Upper Burma, andHunza, and of other dangerous enterprises. 
 
 During 1887-88 Major Hobday extended the triangulation from 
 Mandalay northwards to Bhamo, while Captain Jackson and two 
 surveyors accompanied a column despatched from Fort Stedman 
 into the. Southern Shan States. Reconnaissances were made 
 towards the Salwen river, and its course fixed at two points. A 
 highly satisfactory connexion with Major Hobday's triangulation 
 was effected, the total circuit of the combined reconnaissances being 
 over 6U0 miles. A portion of the route traversed by the southern 
 column had been followed by the party accompanying the Salwen 
 expedition in 1864-65,* and the work then executed by the late 
 Mr. F. Fedden, of the Geological Survey Department, was tested, 
 and its general accuracy fully established. 
 
 The Southern Shan States expedition was altogether a great 
 success; the British were received eveiy where in the most friendly 
 manner, and its effect was to re-establish peace instead of the 
 inter-tribal wars till then prevalent. 
 
 To the Northern Shan column Sub-Surveyor Faida Ali was 
 attached, and the area mapped by him amounted to 3,425 square 
 miles, north-east of Mandalay and stretching eastward to the Salwen 
 river, which here as well as in the upper part of its course flows 
 closely to its western water-shed, leaving a wide expanse of country 
 beyond to the share of the Irawadi. 
 
 In the country west of the Irawadi a large area wa& recon- 
 noitred m the Chindwin, Pakokku, and Minbu districts by four 
 columns which advanced into the Yaw country. Mr. Wyatt, who 
 * See the Memoir on the Indian Surveys, 2nd ed., p. 229. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 169 
 
 accompanied the southernmost column, extended the triangulation 
 down the Irawadi to Thayetmyo, in the vicinity of which he 
 effected a junction with the principal series of the Great Trigono- 
 metrical Survey. 
 
 Another column operated in the country above Mogaung, and 
 visited the Jade mines north-west of Sakaw as well as the Grreat 
 Bndawgyi lake seen by Mr. Strettell, Deputy Conservator of Forests 
 to the Government of India, on the occasion of his exploring trip in 
 ] 873 -74. For fear of exciting the Kachins it was deemed advisable 
 not to ascend the hills. Triangulation was thus rendered impossible, 
 and opportunities of acquiring topography were lost. Some useful 
 miscellaneous surveys were executed by Mr. G . H. Powell, but while 
 in the vicinity of Konni, a new military post which had been formed 
 on the Shan plateau, about 30 miles west of the Inle lake, an un- 
 fortunate quarrel arose with villagers, and in the ensuing struggle 
 Mr. Powell and two Burmans were killed. Tliis young officer's 
 death was much regretted, for though he had been only a short 
 time in the Department he had shown much ability and promise. 
 
 The general result of the year's operations was an area of 
 23,274 square miles trianciulated and 20,780 mapped on the j-inch 
 scale, an out-turn which bears witness to the great activity of the 
 Departmental ofl&cers in the difficult circumstances imposed by 
 the unsettled condition of the country. 
 
 In addition to these reconnaissances a special survey was under- 
 taken of the Ruby Mines tract, and the entire area within which the 
 mines lie, amounting to 77 square miles (a far larger extent than 
 previously imagined), was mapped on the 6-inch and 2-inch scales.* 
 Large scale surveys of the town and suburbs of Mandalay for settle- 
 ment and other administrative purposes were also completed in 1888. 
 
 The reconnaissance survey of Upper Burma by Major Hobday's 
 party proceeded steadily during the following year (1888-89). 
 Survey officers accompanied the various military expeditions which 
 were organised during the year, and proceeded to the Chin country, 
 to the Kareni and the Southern Shan States, to the Northern Shan 
 States, and to Mogaung and other parts of the Bhamo district, 
 against the Kachin tribes. Surveys of a more regular character 
 were also carried on in the Minbu, Myingyan, Sagain, and the Ruby 
 Mines districts. The year's out-turn amounted to 20,510 square 
 
 * Mr. E. Grordon, C.E., read a paper on the. Rnby Mines before the Royal 
 Geographical Society on the 27th February 1888. 
 
170 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 miles mapped on tlie quarter-inch scale, the greater portion of which 
 lay in the Shan States and Bhamo district. In 1889-90 one party 
 was at work in lieu of two, and the out-turn was a little smaller. 
 But the total area mapped during the last four years in Upper 
 Burma amounts to 70,852 square miles, a result most creditable to 
 Major Hobday, Captain Jackson, Mr. Ogle, and the other members 
 of the party. To Mr. Ogle the Gill Memorial Medal for 1889 was 
 awarded by the Council of the Royal Geographical Society in 
 recognition of his excellent survey work in the North-eastern frontier 
 and in Burma. 
 
 A small survey party under Lieutenant W. H. Pollen, R.E., an 
 energetic and popular young ofhcer, accompanied the military 
 expedition to the Lushai Hills in 1888-89 ; but owing to the 
 unfortunate illness and subsequent death of Lieutenant Pollen, but 
 little work was done, though the information acquired by Mr, James, 
 who succeeded to the charge of the party, proved very useful in the 
 following year. The expedition in that year (1889-90) consisted of 
 two columns, one starting from Kan, in the Myittha Valley, and 
 proceeding into the Chin Hills, and the other from Chittagong being 
 directed into the Lushai Hills. Each column was accompanied by 
 a small survey party under Lieutenants Renny-Tailyour, and Bythell, 
 R.E., respectively. The operations in the Chin Hills resulted in the 
 survey of about 3,000 square miles, and those in the Lushai Hills of 
 about 6,000 square miles of new country. The triangulation of both 
 parties were successfully connected near Haka. 
 
 A survey party, under Captain Jackson, R.B., which accompanied 
 the Anglo-Siamese Boundary Commission, mapped over 9,000 
 square miles on the J-inch scale. Mr. Ogle, who was a member of 
 the survey party, was detached at the outset to work independently, 
 with instructions to survey the four States of Mong Ton, Mong 
 Hang, Mong Chut, and Mong Tar. This he successfully completed. 
 
 In conclusion, mention should be made of an interesting piece 
 of work, which though carried out some years previously, helped 
 to throw a good deal of light on the conterminous region of 
 Upper Burma and Assam. In the early part of 1879 Captain 
 J. E. Sandeman, in charge of the cadastral survey in the 
 Hanthawadi district of British Burma, was requested to train 
 a native for exploring the upper course of the Irawadi river 
 beyond Bhamo. Towards tbe end of the year the man had acquired 
 a sufficient knowledge of his duties to be started on a preliminary 
 
GKOQRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 171 
 
 exploration, and in November 1879 he started witli two companions, 
 and soon after arrived at Bhamo. Thence the party ascended the 
 river in boats to Ka-cho, once an important city, in latitude 25° 20', 
 at an elevation of about 1,000 feet above the sea. At the village of 
 Maigna, about 16 miles north of Ka-cho, the Burmese frontier was 
 reached. The country beyond is inhabited by Kachins, among 
 whom no Shans reside, and the people pay no tribute to Burma. 
 Two days afterwards the junction of the eastern and western 
 branches of the Irawadi river were sighted, the latter (called the 
 Maleeka) being considerably swollen and 500 paces wide, while the 
 eastern branch (called Mehka) was low and flowing amid rapids and 
 large rocks, with a width of about 100 yards. The people of the 
 country stated that the great increase in the waters of the western 
 branch was due to the melting of the snow at its sources, and there 
 can be little doubt that it is the larger, and rises in higher ranges. 
 The natives also stated that the eastern branch has two principal 
 aflBluents, one from the east, and believed to have its source in the 
 Naungsa lake, and the other from the north, said to rise in the hills 
 50 or 60 miles beyond Mo-goung-poon. The sources of the western 
 branch are stated to be in the Kantee country, at a distance of 
 about 23 days' journey from Ka-cho. Thus it is highly probable 
 that this is the branch of the river reached by Wilcox in hia journey 
 from Assam in 1827, which is described in Vol. XVII. of the 
 Eesearches of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta, 1832). The 
 explorer's " Kantee " is obviously identical with Wilcox's " Khanti."* 
 The trustworthiness of the explorer's investigations is proved by 
 a comparison of the three maps, viz. : — Lieutenant Wilcox's, of 
 1828 ; Father Desgodins' map of the eastern frontier of Tibet, pre- 
 sented to the Asiatic Society of Bengal ; and the explorer's own. 
 These are skilfully juxtaposed by the Surveyor-G-eneral of India in 
 his Eeport for 1879-80, and the general agreement is substantial 
 and striking. It is quite conclusive against the old theory of the 
 identity of the Sanpo and Irawadi. 
 
 * Major Sandeman read a paper on the journey before the Royal Geographical 
 Society on the :27th February 1882. See Proceedings, p. 2.58. 
 
172 
 
 VII. 
 
 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 An enormous addition to our knowledge of northern and western 
 Afghanistan was made by the labours and researches of the 
 Boundary Commission, which was engaged, in conjunction with a 
 Russian Commission, in laying down the northern boundary of the 
 country in 1884-86. Unlike the Eastern Persian Mission under 
 Sir F. Groldsmid, and the Yarkand Mission under Sir D. Forsyth, of 
 which official narratives were duly compiled, an official account of 
 the Afghan Boundary Mission has not yet been written ; but the 
 following details, culled from various published sources, but chiefly 
 from the excellent papers contributed by Lieutenant - Colonel 
 T. H. Holdich to the Royal Geographical Society's Proceedings, will 
 give a general idea of the geographical results achieved. 
 
 The Indian section of the Afghan Delimitation Commission left 
 Quetta on the 19th September 1884 under the command of 
 Lieutenant- Colonel (now Sir) J. W. Ridgeway. A small survey 
 party was attached to the Commission, consisting of Captain St. G. 
 Gore and Lieutenant the Hon. M. G. Talbot, assisted by three 
 native sub-surveyors. It was subsequently decided to depute a 
 third officer, and Major J. Hill, R.B., was at first selected, but 
 in consequence of his weak state of health he was unable to 
 proceed further than Quetta, and Major Holdich was recalled from 
 the Zhob valley expedition to take his place. 
 
 The triangulation laid out by Lieutenants Talbot and Wahab in 
 1883 to the south and south-west of Kelat formed the basis for an 
 extension of the Afghan triangulation from Nushki to the Helmand. 
 But the extension was carried out with great difficulty, owing to the 
 thick haze, and Captain Gore and Lieutenant Talbot were unable 
 to keep up communication between their respective series ; but, 
 nevertheless, a fairly satisfactory junction was effected at Galichah, 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 173 
 
 just east of the Helmand. The distance from Nushki was about 
 220 miles, and the country was most barren and difficult ; but the 
 position was important to fix, as Nushki is an oasis commanding 
 the highways which lead from Quetta to Seistan. Westward for 
 70 or 80 miles no streams or spring.s exist, but the low-lying 
 partially sand-covered "put" or hard-baked mud-flats form the 
 edge of the basin which receives the waters of the Lora from the 
 Pishin valley at flood times. Within the limits of the Hamun or 
 final swamp of the Lora water is practically found everywhere near 
 the surface. 
 
 The God-i-Zirreh or terminal swamp formed by the Helmand is 
 very similar to the Lora Hamun. The Helmand river flows throxigh a 
 depression about 30 miles north of the God-i-Zirreh, and then turning 
 north at Chahar-burjak passes into the swamps which form per- 
 manent lakes south of Lash-Jowain. In the late autumn of 1884, 
 when the Afghan Commission was on the march to Lash-Jowain, 
 the flooded part of the Seistan Hamun extended very little further 
 than the limits represented as " permanent lake " in Walker's map 
 of Turkestan. In 1885, however, on the return march of a part of 
 the Commission, Mr. Merk found that the floods extended south- 
 wards and were connected by a well-defined channel with the Grod-i- 
 Zirreh. The level of the eastern end of the latter depression imme- 
 diately south of Rudbar is probably 500 feet lower than the 
 Helmand, and between the two there must be a dividing water-shed 
 of a considerable elevation towards the east but falling away 
 to the west. From Khoja Ali to Chahar-burjak, where the great 
 northern bend commences, the Helmand forms a series of picturesque 
 reaches, often sub-divided into many channels and encompassing 
 islands green with tamarisk, Euphrates poplar, and occasional 
 fringes of grass. The white ribbon of silt intersected by the deep 
 blue of the stream is generally flanked with a mile or so in width 
 of pebble-covered, sandy " dasht." Beyond stand up the deep-cut 
 and many-folded sand cliffs, presenting an infinite variety of red 
 and purple tinted wall. On the left bank many traces of a long 
 disused irrigation system were observable, and near Rudbar a series 
 of ruined houses, forts, and palaces commences, the Kala-i-Madre-i- 
 Padshah being the most remarkable. A variety of Arab, Assyrian, 
 Greek, and even Chinese coins were brought thence to the English 
 officers for sale. Nowhere else did the Commission find evidences 
 of a once highly civilized and prosperous state so strongly marked. 
 
174 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 and the great grassy plain east of Kala Fath bears the appearance 
 of being the gigantic graveyard of successions of buried cities. 
 Kala Fath, itself the ancient capital of the Kaiani Kings, is still an 
 imposing mass of ruins. 
 
 At Kala Fath, where the route turned northward, a new system of 
 surveying was introduced, and the distances were checked by 
 observed latitudes at each halt till Ibrahimabad was reached, 
 50 miles beyond. From thence the latitude and longitude were 
 carried out vigorously by means of observed latitude and azimuths 
 and such triangulations from short independent bases as might be 
 possible. Simultaneously with the running triangulation a plane 
 survey of the whole country was executed on a scale of four miles 
 to the inch, based on a perambulator traverse combined with the 
 trigonometrically fixed points. This survey included, roughly, a 
 strip of country averaging some 20 miles in width. The whole 
 work was completed with both accuracy and speed, the entire 
 distance as far as Kushan (310 miles) being covered in 19 days. 
 
 From Kuhsan the method of surveying was as follows : — 
 Triangulation was carried on with Troughton and Simm's 6-inch 
 "subtense " theodolites as opportunity offered, along several lines, each 
 of which finally resolved itself into a series more or less complete. 
 The following were the main series : — 
 
 1. From Kuhsan to Mashhad. 
 
 2. From Kuhsan along the Hari E-ud valley to Bamian. 
 
 3. From Bamian via Haibak to Balkh. 
 
 4. From Zulfikar (on the Mashhad Series) to the Oxus at 
 
 Khamiab. 
 
 5. From Andkhui (on the " Boundary " or No. 4 Series) to Balkh, 
 
 thus completing circuit. 
 
 6. From Kuhsan southward to Birjand along the Persian border. 
 
 In the course of this gradual extension many detached bases were 
 measured, and new linear values imported into the work together 
 with new azimuths. Astronomical checks were introduced when 
 observations could be taken over a sufficient number of days to 
 ensure trustworthy results. In this the officers of the Commission 
 were assisted by Captain Guedeonofi" of the Eussian staff, who was 
 able to verify the results by observations with a Eepsold instrument 
 of a much higher class than the small English theodolites. His 
 results, however, agreed closely with those of the latter. On the 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 175 
 
 basis of this triangulation all the topography was executed, whether 
 by the Sussian topographers on a comparatively large scale along 
 the line of the boundary, or by the British officers and sub-surveyors, 
 who not only took up their •share of boundary topography, but 
 , extended smaller scale geographical work over a vast area in Persia 
 and Afghanistan amounting altogether to over 110,000 square 
 miles. The scale adopted was usually four miles to the inch, 
 occasionally reduced to half that scale where the triangulation was 
 not close enough to furnish a sufficient number of points within the 
 limits of the plane-table. Tke plane-table was the ordinary Indian 
 service pattern of the largest size, 36 in. X 24 in. 
 
 From Kala Fath northward to Lash-Jowain the narrow valley 
 of the Helmand affiarded no extensive view east or west ; for 30 miles 
 villages are scarce, though Ibrahimabad and its neighbourhood 
 appeared to present a magnificent field for antiquarian research, 
 old seals, coins, and rings being brought to the camp for sale in 
 great numbers ; all this part of the Helmand valley having been 
 evidently thickly inhabited in early times. The eastern Hamun or 
 depression into which the Helmand flows presented a striking appear- 
 ance. The dark blue green of the surface was flecked with white 
 foam, and the miniature waves were driven shorewards before the 
 fierce intensely cold blast of the westerly winds. Reed islands broke 
 the level here and there, and myriads of duck rose from the banks 
 and islands and rotated over the surface of the swamp well out of 
 reach. The expanse of water, however, as seen in October 1884 
 was nothing to what it appeared to Mr. Merk in November 1885, 
 when the two swamps had united into a vast lake and spreading 
 themselves southwards had spilled their waters into the Grod-i-Zirreh 
 of Baluchistan.* 
 
 Jowain, a collection of mud buildings dome-roofed and in good 
 repair, on the left bank of the Farah-Rud, and Lash, picturesquely 
 perched on the edge of the opposite clifi's overlooking the river, are 
 both marked specimens of the peculiar Perso-Afghan style of town, 
 which extends throughout the border to Herat and Kandahar. Eows 
 of mud-built huts with beehive roofs clustering confusedly round 
 the walls of a central half -ruined mud fort re-occur with monotonous 
 regularity. The substitution of flat roofs in some of the larger 
 
 * Some particulars of Mr. Merk's journey are given at page 331 of tlie Proceedings 
 of the Eoyal Geographical Society for 188f>. 
 
176 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 cities marks the introduction of -wood, -whicli, except in the neigh- 
 bourhood of some towns, is exceedingly scarce in these regions. 
 
 To the north of Jowain the country rapidly assumes a new 
 geographical aspect. Sand is not so conspicuous. The Farah-Rud, 
 Kushk-Rud, and Har-Rud or Adraskand drain from the eastward 
 through gently swelling uplands, whose hard, gravelly surface 
 is traversed by sharp ridges of limestone, which preserve an approxi- 
 mate parallelism and a general trend from N.B. to S.W. These 
 rocky, steep, and deeply serrated ridges are seen on a closer approach 
 to be crossed transversely by numerous open and easy Jcotals. 
 It is the rivers rather than the hills which form the chief 
 physical obstacles, for though the amount of melted snow brought 
 down by them into Seistan is practically inconsiderable, they 
 are all just as liable to violent floods as if they were mountain 
 torrents. 
 
 The valley of the Hari-E.ud westwards from Herat is separated 
 from the basin of the Helm and by a low water-shed, and is very 
 partially cultivated, notwithstanding that the canal system appears 
 ample and that the villages are packed quite close together. At 
 Kuhsan the English and Indian sections of the Commission met for 
 the first time. Six miles above is the Tirpul bridge, the main 
 connecting link in times of flood between Western Afghanistan and 
 Persia. Up to Kaman-i-Bihisht (about 30 miles below Kuhsan) 
 there is usually an excellent road alongside of the Hari-Eud, but 
 at that point the river commences to flow through a series of 
 magnificent gorges or defiles which it has cut for itself through the 
 mountains, and it cannot be approached till it emerges into a 
 contracted but beautiful valley south of Zulfikar. 
 
 Throughout the lower valley of the Hari-Rud the effects of the 
 devastating ravages of the Turkomans on its agricultural population 
 were plainly visible, but the impression formed by Colonel Holdich 
 was that even under settled rule no very great extension of cultivation 
 could ever take place. 
 
 From Mashhad, the longitude of which was fixed in the summer 
 of 1885, a triangulation series was brought down southwards to 
 Zulfikar, and the survey of the Persian frontier and eastern Khorasan 
 was carried as far west as opportunity admitted. A junction was 
 efiected with the Russian surveys north of Mashhad, but no trigo- 
 nometrical connexion, as their triangulation had not at that time 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 177 
 
 come so far south. ; the fertile valleys of the Jam, of Shahr-i-Nao, and 
 of Khaf were surveyed as far westasTurbat-i-Haidri,and subsequently 
 opportunity was found by Og,ptain Gore of extending his triangula- 
 tion to the south-west of Herat across the great salt plains south of 
 Khaf to the hills about Birjand. Sub-Surveyors Hira Sing and Ata 
 Mahomed were busy plane-tabling over this border during most of 
 the summer and autumn of 1885, and whilst the route triangulation 
 which had been carried out during the march from India was greatly 
 strengthened between Seistan and Herat, a good basis was secured 
 for the final extension of the survey from Birjand via Kirman to 
 Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf. This was finally carried out 
 by Captain Gore, while the rest of the mission was en route from 
 the Oxus to India, across, the Hindu Kush. 
 
 The plains at the foot of the Paropamisus range are swept by the 
 same fierce north-west blasts that dry up and almost devastate 
 Badghiz. During the heavy rainfalls in March and April the hills 
 are denuded and a large detritus of mud and sliding rock is spread 
 out, fan-shaped, across the plain below. Occasionally in the course 
 of a few hours the dry beds of watercourses become living mud 
 torrents, with results that were disastrous to the British party. 
 The physical eflfect of this is to diminish the relative heights of hill 
 and plain, to round off prominent spurs, and gradually flatten the 
 ridge where no central backbone of hard rock exists, rendering 
 it less formidable as a natural barrier. Over the whole line, indeed, 
 of the western Paropamisan system, including its smaller collateral 
 branches, and even the Band-i-Turkestan, which may be called a 
 distinct range, Colonel Holdich says that there is no pass over which 
 a horse cannot be ridden. 
 
 The Paropamisus is the name given to the range which bounds 
 the Hari-Rud valley on the north as far west as Kaman-i-Bihisht. 
 Here it is only about 2,000 feet in height, but at Ohashma Sabz 
 it assumes a more distinct form with one easily recognisable central 
 water-shed, and from thence eastward past Herat to the north of the 
 Korokh valley it gradually gains in altitude till it attains a height 
 of nearly 11,000 feet above sea-level. The surface soil consists of 
 reddish clay and sand beds, with outcrops of trap and limestone 
 rocks, affording a plentiful growth of grass arid brilliant flowers 
 during the summer. Between the western boundary and. the 
 Zarmast pass north-east of Herat, at the head of the Korokh valley, 
 there are 11 well-known passes, besides minor tracks, all of which 
 
 1 Y2032U M 
 
178 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMiMISSION. 
 
 converge towards Pul-i-Khisti at tlie confluence of the Murghab 
 and Kushk rivers. 
 
 Nortli of the Paropamisus, between the Hari-Rud and Murghab, 
 is the great broken plain of Badghiz, occupied at present bj the 
 Jamshidi and Hazara sections of the Chahar Aimak. On either 
 side of the Chingurak range, which occupies a central position, is a 
 multiplicity of rounded hill tops, a sea of sand waves, of which 
 the materials, according to Mr, Griesbach, are due partly to the 
 accumulation of ages of sand drift borne by the almost perpetual 
 north-west wind, and partly to denudation of the mountain slopes. 
 Water is scarce and unequally distributed, but it might probably 
 be obtained without much difficulty from wells. Evidences are not 
 wanting that Badghiz was once a fairly well populated and cultivated 
 region. About Grulran especially there are the partially sand-covered 
 remains of old towns of considerable magnitude, and of a system 
 of Icarez irrigation that covered all the plain between Gulran and 
 the hills. It is only the long continuance of years of misrule and its 
 position in being so open to raids that have transformed Badghiz 
 from a flourishing district into a grass wilderness, the home of the 
 wild ass, of gigantic boars, of innumerable herds of deer, and even 
 of tigers. Eastward of the Murghab river the great central chain 
 of the Paropamisan mountain system increases in altitude- from 
 west to east, and the mountain torrents rushing northwards with 
 increased force have cut deeper into the loess formation of the chol 
 sand drifts. The latter becomes more complicated in feature and 
 difficult to traverse, but it still possesses the same characteristic 
 of being a magnificent grass country, and the evidences of recent 
 occupation and of cultivation are more abundant and fresher. 
 An exceedingly small percentage of the Badghiz district is under 
 cultivation. First a narrow strip bordering the main streams is 
 made tolerably certain of its water supply by a very complete system 
 of canals, beyond a small amount of cultivation which is at a le\ el 
 above irrigation and dependent on rainfall. The valleys are cut up 
 by reedy swamps which in many places occupy nearly the whole 
 of their width, while the supply of water from the rivers (especially 
 in the case of the Kashan) is uncertain. 
 
 The loess deposits forming the chol east of the Murghab preserve 
 the same general characteristics througliout the Maimana and 
 Andkhui districts. The irregular mountain tract between the 
 Band-i-Turkestan, which bounds the Maimana district on tlie south, 
 and the Safed Koh range, which separates it from the Hari-Rud 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 179 
 
 valley, is drained by tlie Upper Murghab, and this wild tract, 
 inhabited by the most lawless tribe of the Ohahar Aimak {i.e., 
 Firuzkhuis) was entered by ^b-Surveyor Hira Sing in the autumn 
 of 1885. He crossed over from the Korokh valley to the historic 
 old fort of Naratu by the Zarmast pass, and from Naratu made his 
 way to the headquarters of one of the leading Firuzkhui chiefs 
 at Kadis. He then commenced a systematic survey of all the passes 
 crossing the Band-i-Turkestan and connecting Afghan Turkestan 
 with the Hari-Rud valley. The Band-i-Turkestan is a separate 
 mountain system from the Paropamisus, the connecting link between 
 the two on the east being an insignificant water-shed. Its con- 
 figuration is that of a series of approximately horizontal plateaux, 
 occasionally divided laterally by sheltered valleys, with passes dotted 
 at intervals along the main water-shed at a height of from 8,000 to 
 9,000 feet above sea-level. As a rule the mountains are thickly 
 covered with forests of juniper on the higher slopes, and an 
 abundant growth of pistachio lower down. 
 
 The Firuzkhui country is divided into the following districts : — 
 Kadis, Ohakcharan, Sungar, Gharjistan,Kuchar, Bandar, Chaharsada, 
 Mak, and Murghabi (the extreme head of the river). One of the 
 Ohakcharan daras called Dara-i-Khargosh or " hare's defile " was 
 graphically described by Arthur Conolly. who passed through it in 
 October 1840.* 
 
 * Conolly's full journal appears to have been lost, but extracts are printed in the 
 Cttlcutla Review, Vol. XV. For 13 miles Conolly and his party journeyed between 
 perpendicular mountains of limestone, the defile running in acute zig-zags, which for 
 tlie most part were not more than 50 or 60 yards long, and having only breadth 
 enough for the path and for the brook, which the party were continually obliged to 
 cross. The height of the mountains made the horsemen look like pigmies as they 
 filed along their bases in the bed. Conolly remarks : " Take it all in all it is, T 
 " suppose, for its length as difiicult a pass as exists. I have seen nothing like it 
 " except some upper portions of the valley of the Ganges, in the Himalaya mountains, 
 " and its impregnability, according to Asiatic notions of warfare, fully warrants the 
 " saying wilih which Eimaks are said to have answered the threats of kings : 
 " ' Oppress us and we'll flee to the Hare's defile !' " 
 
 The Calcutta Reviewer prefixes to his article the title of a work by Mr. E. Sterling, 
 Bengal Civil Service, who journeyed in 1828 from Teheran to India. There is no 
 copy of this book in the India Office Library, but I remember seeing a copy some years 
 ago in the British Museum. I think, however, the author's name was spelt Stirling. 
 Mr. Stirling travelled by the northern route, crossing the Tejend and Murghab, 
 following part of the same road that Vambery and Grodekofl" did afterwards. The 
 geographical interest of the journey was slight, but it was curious as the first of a 
 series of journeys destined to open up Afghanistan to western research, 
 
 M2 
 
180 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 The whole valley of the Upper Murghab is a deep network of 
 such defiles ; there are no roads crossing the lines of lateral drainage, 
 and not any continuous road along the river, the Murghab being 
 on the whole a marked exception to the general rule in j^fghanistan 
 of the coincidence of direction between main roads and main rivers. 
 The following roads and passes connecting Afghan Turkestan with 
 Herat through the Firuzkhui districts were explored, viz. : — (I) the 
 Kharajangal pass from Chaharshamba to Herat ; (2) the group 
 of tracks and passes between the Ao Barik and the Baragan ; 
 (3) the Chahardara crossing, which carries the Tailan route over 
 the Murghab into Gharjistan and Chakcharan ; (4) the direct 
 route from Maimana and Saripul through Chaharsada, and eastern- 
 most of all (5) the Saripul, Ohiras, and Daulatyar connexion, 
 followed probably by Ferrier, and surveyed as far south as Chiras 
 by Imam Sharif. 
 
 The roads and tracks between Kadis and Bala Murghab, and 
 those from Kadis eastward on the northern slopes of the Safed 
 Koh, have all been explored and I'eported on. High up on these 
 slopes, at least 5,000 feet above the sea, and about 20 miles east 
 of Kadis, Hira Sing found the remains of a city,'-' which must once 
 have been large and have possessed considerable local importance ; 
 the ruins of an old fort, of stone walls surrounding orchards, and 
 traces of irrigation are still visible. At the head of the Murghab 
 valley tlie surveying was carried out by Imam Sharif, who found 
 the position of Chiras to be approximately correct, but was unable 
 to identify the Dev Hissar of Ferrier. He found, however, a city,f 
 called the Shahr-i-Wairan (or deserted city), not far from Chiras, 
 situated in a green plain, bounded by glittering white cliff's on the 
 north and by the long straight slopes from the crest of the clifis 
 overhanging the Askarab on the south. The city must have been 
 of some magnitude, and such buildings as remain are of sun-dried 
 brick. There are no indications of a wall or moat, nothing even 
 suggestive of a canal or Icarez, nothing, in fact, but scattered ruins 
 covering an area of about 1^ square miles. The graveyard was 
 easily recognisable, and its immense size furnished some clue to 
 
 * Major Eaverty tells me be tMuks this may be identical with Ashizar of Gliar- 
 jistan, mentioned at pp. 394 and 1071-1072 of his translation of the Tabakat-i-Nasiri. 
 
 f This appears to be the same as that mentioned at page 334 of the same work as 
 being in the district of Wajiristan, 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 181 
 
 the size of the city. Local tradition is, however, quite silent as to 
 the origin and history of this city. 
 
 Towards the north the ]^nd-i-Turkistan mountains break up 
 into long, rough, and very irregular spurs, which have a tendency 
 to assume a plateau-like formation, with steep scarped cliflFs flanking 
 broad and comparatively level flats. The mountain streams have 
 formed at the foot of these spurs broad alluvial plains, which are 
 rich and fertile and full of flourishing villages. The Kaisar, Almar, 
 and Maimana plains are of this nature. Maimana is an irregular 
 walled town, covering something less than a square mile in extent, 
 most picturesquely situated, with the snowy peaks of the Band-i- 
 Turkistan and Koh-i-Saf to the south and the rolling grass hills 
 of the chol. Viewing the city from the Governor's residence in the 
 citadel, its general appearance was not unlike that of Oabul. The 
 bazaar was full of trade, and the mixture of races in its streets was 
 extraordinary. 
 
 The hill districts to the east of Maimana, between that place and 
 the Balkh Ao, had been very little known previously. They were 
 surveyed in the spring of 1886 by Imam Sharif, and the results 
 of his observations and mapping form a good record. Shibrghan 
 is a walled town some 500 or 600 yards square, the walls being in 
 a very ruinous condition. The Brsari Turkomans bring in grain 
 and " pushm," which is purchased by the Peshawari bunniahs, and 
 take away in exchange salt, cloth, and other necessaries. Imam 
 Sharif reckoned that even in winter there are not 1,000 permanent 
 inhabitants. Round Saripul, which lies about 35 miles to the south, 
 there is a good deal of cultivation, Saripul and the adjoining district 
 of Sancharak being reckoned two of the richest districts in Afghan 
 Turkistan. They are especially famous for fruit. Saripul itself 
 is a small walled town, with the usual bazaar and citadel. Imam 
 Sharif surveyed a large portion of the intricate and difiicult country 
 lying south of Saripul and about the water-parting between the 
 upper Murghab and Oxus tributaries. This region is remarkable for 
 deep gorges similar to those described by Conolly {vide sv,pra, p. 178). 
 Cave villages were found in some of the defiles, the dwellings not 
 being entirely excavated, but half natural fissures in the strata and 
 half artificially constructed. Mr, G-riesbach, of the Geological 
 Survey, remarks on these extraordinary deep gorges, which are due 
 to erosion. Some of them are scarcely wide enough to admit of an 
 unladen mule being driven through without considerable difficulty. 
 
182 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 Many of them are grandly picturesque ; below Paoghan the Astarab 
 river flows in a narrow gorge often not more than 30 yards wide, 
 and enclosed by vertical walls of limestone, some 1,500 feet in sheer 
 height above the river bed. Most of the rivers flow from south 
 to north, and hence form transverse valleys through the ranges 
 of Turkistan. They have eroded gorges where they cross anti- 
 clinals and formed wider valleys with side streams when on a 
 synclinal. 
 
 In the summer of 1885 the necessity of finding some fixed 
 geographical point on the Oxus near that end of the boundary 
 became apparent. The Kuhsan base had been connected with 
 Mashhad by direct triangulation, and the longitude value of 
 Mashhad (determined telegraphically with Tehran) was thus 
 brought down to Kuhsan, while the triangulation itself formed an 
 excellent basis for the commencement of boundary demarcation 
 from any point on the Hari-Rud adjoining the Russian frontier. 
 But it was then known that the boundary would run in a north- 
 easterly direction through the chol, a country particularly un- 
 favourable for connected triangulation. Without some reliable 
 check the accuracy of the boundary survey would have been 
 unavoidably open to question. Captain Talbot was therefore deputed 
 to undertake the difficult and dangerous duty of carrying out a 
 series eastward along the Hari-Rud valley, from which sei'ies it was 
 hoped that points might be fixed to the southward for the basis 
 of surveys between the Hari-Rud and Zamindawar. He was to 
 push his triangulation eastwards if possible to a junction with 
 points already trigonometrically fixed from India on the Hindu 
 Kush and Koh-i-Baba naountains, within sight of Kabul. He was 
 then to carry it acro.-s the great central mountain chain to Bamian, 
 extend northward through Haibak and Ghori to Mazar-i-Sharif and 
 Balkh, and finally carry on westwards till he sighted Kilif on the 
 Oxus and the mountain peaks of Bokhara. Pari passu with his 
 triangulation he was to carry out a plane-table reconnaissance 
 embracing all the country he could see, for there was no topographer 
 available for the duty. All this work was successfully accom- 
 plished, though not all at once. After pushing forward his 
 triangulation past Herat to Daulatyar with fair success, Major 
 Talbot was hurriedly recalled in August 1885 to help in making 
 arrangements for the defence of Herat. It was not till late in 
 September that the political situation enabled him to retrace his 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 183 
 
 steps to Daulatyar. The delay was almost fatal to his success, for 
 the winter set in early, and it was only after a constant struggle 
 against snow, rain, mist, and clouds which often defeated him on 
 the summit of some gigantic peak after hours of weary labour lost 
 in climbing, that he at last emerged into the plains of Afghan 
 Tarkistan, with his connexion with the Hari-Eud weak but not 
 entirely broken. It was not till the following spring that the 
 series between Balkh and Andkhui was finally completed ; when 
 completed it was met by a series that had been run by Major 
 Holdich and Captain Gore through the chol between Zulfikar and 
 Andkbui. Thus a final system was evolved which covered the 
 whole of Afghan Turkistan and wild country south of the_ Hari- 
 Eud valley as far as the basin of the Helmund with a network 
 of triangulations which included several hundreds of well-fixed 
 points. 
 
 Captain Talbot found that the Hari-Eud rises about 34° 30' N. 
 lat., and 67° 0' E. long., and flows for some 70 or 80 miles to 
 Daulatyar almost due west, and not as hitherto shown on the 
 maps. As far as Daulatyar it is known as the Ab-i-Sar-i-jangal, 
 and at that point it was a broad but easily fordable stream. At 
 the head of the valley it is probably about 12,000 feet in general 
 altitude above sea-level, but gradually drops to about 5,000 feet 
 opposite Obeh. There are, however, occasional peaks on it, one of 
 which runs to 11,000 feet at a distance of about 20 miles of Obeh. 
 The mountain ridge is singularly straight, with slopes bare of ti^ees 
 but an abundant water supply, and a luxuriant growth of grass and 
 wild flowers in every tagao or stream bed. Some of these narrow 
 valleys are well wooded with willow trees and occasionally haw- 
 thorn. From its source to Obeh the course of the Hari-Eud is 
 about 240 miles in length, and above Dahana Doab it includes a 
 catchment area of about 8,000 square miles. 
 
 About the time that Captain Talbot started for his triangulation 
 towards Bamian and Kabul, Sub-Surveyor Imam Sharif was deputed 
 to undertake a complete exploration and a survey, as far as possible, 
 of the hitherto little known districts which lie to the east of the road 
 connecting Farah and Herat and south of the Hari-Eud valley. 
 Not much was on record respecting this tract, except what was to 
 be gathered from Terrier's somewhat doubtful account. It was 
 known to be inhabited by the Taimani section of the Chahar Aimak, 
 but the position of Taiwara, the capital of the Taimani country, was 
 
184 AFGHAN BOUNDABY COMMISSION. 
 
 uncertain, as well as that of Zerni, mentioned by Ferrier. In the 
 first instance, Imam Sharif had to base his surveys on a measured 
 traverse, but when Captain Talbot's triangulation had extended over 
 the country his traverses were reduced to an agreement with the 
 points fixed by triangulation. Imam Sharif passed the historical peak 
 of Chalapdalan, the true name of which is Chahil Abdal. Round it 
 are inaccessible clifi"s, and the peak itself, described by Farrier as one 
 of the highest mountains in the world (!) attains the height of 12,000 
 feet. Its position has now been accurately fixed, as it forms one of 
 Captain Talbot's trigonometrical points. It is said to be the " Takht " 
 of Zohak-i-Maran, the snake-bearing governor of these provinces in 
 the days of Cyrus, and it was from here that he built the massive 
 walls and towers of those old forts which auiTound Taiwara and 
 border the way to Ghur.* The walls of these strongholds are built 
 of sim-dried brick and mud, but they still stand so straight and 
 square on their massive basements (from 15 to 20 feet wide) as to 
 convey the impression of being newly built. Taiwara is situated at 
 the junction of two considerable streams, the Chahardar and the 
 Grhur (or Gaur in existing maps). The Taiwara fort is square in 
 form, and comparatively new ; it contains the residence of the 
 Khan. At Yakhan Pain, south-west of Taiwari, old massive forts 
 and remarkably extensive ruins of an ancient city were observed. 
 The Chiling Shahi Mardan hill to the east is of some interest, as 
 there is a remarkably pointed peak with rough hewn steps leading 
 to the summit, whereon Ali is said to have fasted for 40 days, and 
 which is now a shrine of great sanctity. The valley of the Nili 
 (one of the tributaries of the Ghur) is well cultivated and full of 
 trees, which is most unusual in this timberless country. The trees 
 are not indigenous, being mostly apricot trees. Nili and Zerni fort 
 are only three or four miles apart, and from the Hari-Rud to that 
 fort the people are all Taimanis, and showed themselves civil and 
 hospitable to strangers. 
 
 While engaged in his explorations in the Firuzkhui country, and 
 about 15 miles from Daulatyar, Imam Sharif was robbed during the 
 night of nearly all he possessed ; his theodolite was wrecked, his 
 aneroid broken and thrown into a stream, his records all carried off, 
 including a long series of barometric obervations and his notes on 
 the Taimani country and its history. By good luck his plane-table 
 
 * <S'ee Eaverty's translation of the Tabakat-i-Nasiri, page 331, where reference is 
 made to the Kasrs or forts built by Abbas of Ghur, 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. * 185 
 
 was under his pillow and his complete sheet of survey rolled up in 
 his bed, and these being saved he was enabled to continue his 
 survey. 
 
 The Khan of Taiwari s^ted that there were at least 15,000 
 inhabitants in the Taimani country, which he described as a poor 
 country with no fruit, and in great part deserted during the winter, 
 when the people migrate to Sabzawar, the Helmand, or more 
 genial climates. Snow lies deep in winter. The cultivation consists 
 entirely of wheat, except in the Ghur valley, where a patch or two 
 of melons exists. 
 
 The people are not absolutely poor; they own large herds of 
 sheep and goats, and trade in otter skins and wool with merchants 
 who come from Herat and Candahar. The Taimanis also own a 
 few cattle, and are invariably mounted, every man owning his horse. 
 They resemble the Jamshidis more than the Hazaras or Firuzkhuis, 
 and are exceedingly hospitable to travellers. 
 
 Late in the autumn of 1885 Sub-Surveyor Imam Sharif, having 
 completed the survey of a great portion of the Taimani country, 
 started to push his previous survey to a junction with those already 
 completed between Farah and Herat on the west, and to extend his 
 work as far south as he could. A connexion was fortunately 
 established with previous topography which had been completed 
 from Girishk, and together with the route survey made by his 
 brother, Yusuf Sharif, who was deputed to join the mission during 
 the winter of 1885-86, he secured a very complete knowledge of 
 many hitherto unknown routes and passes between Herat and 
 Kandahar, and completed the map of Western Afghanistan from its 
 extreme northern portion to the confines of the Helmund valley. 
 He was, however, unable to penetrate into Zamindawar, which still 
 remains a hot-bed of disaflfection to the Amir, and of fanatical hatred 
 to all foreigners. He explored the Adraskand river and the Sabzawar 
 valley thoroughly, and visited Farah, adding much information to 
 that previously existing about the Farah district. He was every- 
 where well received and civilly treated. 
 
 Altogether, Imam Sharif was enabled to produce a fairly accurate 
 map of a large area of country lying south of the Hari-Kud, about 
 which exceedingly little V^as known, and which is of most special 
 importance as bearing on the communications between Kandahar 
 and Herat. Thiat little is chiefly derived from Ferrier's accounts of 
 his journeys, which, however, proved to be erroneous in several 
 
186 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 respects. Previously to Imam Sharif's explorations the exact 
 localities occupied by the Moghuls were unknown. There are 
 about 800 families living in Nili, Zerni, and Ghur Muskhan, who 
 speak a language strongly allied to Turki, and claim to have been 
 brought into the country by Chingiz Khan. 
 
 The great plains of Afghan Turkestan lying south of the Oxus, 
 between Andkhui and Badakhshan, as well as the river itself, 
 were thoroughly reconnoitred. According to Griesbach, the vast 
 deposits of clays, gravel, and loose sandstone which form these 
 plains have been in process of accumulation since the pliocene era, 
 huge fans have been spread out at the points where the present 
 rivers, the Kaisar, Saripul, Khulm, and Balkh Ao, enter the plains, 
 the finer deposits being carried to the furthest limits of the fans. 
 Over this base in belts of various widths are thick waves of blown 
 sand, wind-borne from the north-west, and occasionally spread out 
 so as to completely cover the fluviatile deposits below. Griesbach 
 suggests that the great swell in the plain in which the southern 
 tributaries lose themselves represents an anticlinal now in course of 
 i' ,rmation, and that the river is, as it were, flowing along the crest 
 of a mountain range also in course of formation. 
 
 None of the tributaries of the Oxus basin west of Kunduz 
 draining from the mountain districts on the south find their way at 
 :;ny season of the year to the river. During the flood season in 
 R:;ring they often spill over their ordinary channels and form large 
 swamps and lagoons. Enormous masses of detritus and vegetable 
 matter are brought down from the channels of the hill streams, 
 Avhich are thoroughly cleaned out of the year's vegetable growth, 
 and the sweepings of the hill-sides of the Band-i-Turkistan, of the 
 Hazarajat, and the Turkistan high lands generally. The Oxus itself 
 b ings down large quantities of vegetable matter, and during the 
 s';mmer months it becomes a rolling chocolate-coloured sea, bearing 
 even large trees on its tide. Similarly there is a vast amount of 
 rci'viceable timber stranded along the lower course of the Tejend. 
 
 To the north and north-west of Andkhui is a vast area of open 
 l^ain which is not sheer desert but consists of chol formation 
 ir.odified by aerial deposit and converted into gently swelling downs 
 and sandhills from which vegetation is never entirely absent. From 
 V.me immemorial wells have been dug, yet in spite of their number 
 llic supply of drinkable water is exceedingly scanty. The extremes 
 of temperature are described as something terrific ; the north-west 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION, 187 
 
 winter storms darken the atmospliere in the course of a few minutes 
 and freeze the life-blood of men exposed to them ; in summer the 
 heat is almost more intolerable, and it is impossible to cross these 
 regions without special precautions. Two very distinctly marked 
 and isolated natural hills called Kara Tapa Khurd and Kara Tapa 
 Kalan formed two trigonometrical stations of great importance 
 owing to the unvarying features of the surrounding country. 
 
 The Oxus at Khamiab is a majestic river, comparable to the Indus 
 below Dera Ismail Khan or the Brahmaputra in Assam. The 
 neighbouring settlements of the Ersaris offer a most marked contrast 
 with the usual Turkoman villages ; the houses are well built and 
 well kept, the roads are well defined, the irrigation channels kept 
 clear and clean, substantial bridges cross the canals, and the whole 
 atmosphere of the Khwaja Salor district is one of prosperity. The 
 Oxus continually carries away portions of its banks, and the positions 
 of its ferries and roads have materially shifted from time to time, 
 the principal ferry now being at Kilif, where the river narrows to 
 about 400 yards. A similar crossing is at Termez, some 30 miles 
 above Kilif, running between hard rocky banks, which will protect 
 its channel from further alteration through future ages. Through 
 the Ersari country wells were certainly more plentiful, and the 
 existence of old irrigation channels for 11 miles beyond Kilif points 
 to a time when this .part of Afghan Turkistan must have been as 
 well populated as the great Balkh plain. The devastation effected 
 by that destroying angel of Central Asia, Ohingiz Khan, who razed 
 Nishapur, Merv, Balkh, and Herat (once a large city of four times 
 its present size), doubtless changed the fair face of the country into 
 a wilderness in his time, and the modern raids of the Kara Turko- 
 mans, combined with the tendency of the Uzbeg people to emigrate 
 in order to avoid a tyrannous rule, have kept much of the land 
 unproductive. As a rule the Oxus flows through many channels 
 which shift and alter just as they do in other large rivers not 
 confined to a single bed by hard rocky banks. 
 
 The ferry at Kilif has been often described, and is worked (as it 
 was 50 years ago) by a system of attaching horses to large clumsily 
 built boats and swimming them across stream. The Shor Tapa district, 
 which extends from Kilif for 36 miles to Chobash, is described by 
 Captain Feacocke as consisting of six smaller districts, each of 
 which has its own canal from the river lined on both banks with 
 the usual orchards, houses, enclosures, and mulberry plantations, 
 and is occupied by some 6,000 families of Brsari Turkomans. At 
 
188 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 Termez there are the ruius of gigantic brick buildings, including a 
 large-domed ziarat, said to contain two inscriptions, one on marble 
 and the other on a silver plate, recording three occasions on which 
 the place was sacked, once by Alexander the Great. Beyond 
 Ohobash (with the exception of the small new settlement of Kuldar) 
 to the mouth of the Kunduz river, 140 miles above Kilif, there are 
 no inhabitants, and the back water, swamps, and jungles in which 
 tigers and large deer are found, make it impossible to reach the 
 bank of the stream. Sub- Surveyor Ata Mahomed describes the 
 Oxus as a very large river when seen in flood, rarely if ever less 
 than 1,000 yards wide, with a normal width of about 1,400 yards, 
 while in some places it must be a mile across. The winter volume 
 of water may be taken at one half the summer fl.ood, and the 
 average current varies from 2^ to 5 miles. In the neighbourhood 
 of Shahk in Kabadian, not far from the mouth of the Kunduz 
 river, Greek coins and ornaments are found in large quantities. 
 Striking southwards from the Oxus towards any of the great cities 
 of Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif, or Tashkurghan, there is always the same 
 desolate waste of partially sand-covered country to be crossed 
 before there occurs the first appearance of cultivation. Here and 
 there, on the southern edge of the sand belt, are vast piles of ruins 
 covering many square miles of country. Khanabad, Siahgird, and 
 Khulm are perhaps the most striking of these. • 
 
 To the traveller approaching Balkh from the west there is 
 nothing very striking about the " Mother of Cities," nor to indicate 
 its former greatness among the cities of Central Asia. One enters 
 through a gap in the walls which was once a gateway ; inside the 
 outer wall are ruins and mounds of mud and brick on either hand 
 standing so close as hardly to admit of the roadway ; the covered 
 bazaar contains about 400 shops, and gardens and orchards cover 
 a fair extent of ground. But the visible ruins are not very ancient, 
 and most of the past generations of departed cities probably lies 
 beneath the grass-covered mounds which surround the walls rather 
 than below the site. The most striking feature is the extent of the 
 shattered old fort called the Bala Hissar, which overlooks the city 
 and was once its great stronghold. 
 
 The high open road between Balkh and Mazar-i-Sharif passes 
 through a cultivated plain, across which the blue domes of tVie 
 mosque at Mazar are very striking objects as they glitter in the 
 sun above dense masses of surrounding trees. About four miles 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION, 189 
 
 before reacliing the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif the direct road 
 runs through the new cantonment of Takht-i-pul, a place of 
 considerable strength, with « ditch and double wall pierced by 
 massive gateways. It is said to have been the residence of the first 
 governor of Afghan Turkistan before Mazar was made the seat of 
 government. 
 
 The Mazar of the present day is a very different place to that 
 described by Ferrier. Its gardens .and orchards cover an area of 
 about four square miles, and the citadel and residence of the 
 governor as well as the far-famed mosque, the burial place of Ali, 
 are all in a state of flourishing repair, which is lamentably deficient 
 in most Turkestan cities. It is inhabited now chiefly by Afghans, 
 the Uzbeg population being rather on the decrease. As a trade 
 centre it is inferior to Tashkurghan, which occupies a better geo- 
 graphical position, but its climate is said to be far healthier, and as 
 the seat of government in Afghan Turkistan it certainly ranks first 
 among the cities north of the Hindu Kush. 
 
 Between Mazar-i-Sharif and Tashkurghan the road passes over 
 an open plain, on the right of which are imposing cliffs presenting a 
 long uninterrupted line of straight wall rising sheer above the plain 
 to a height of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, and forming the northern 
 edge of a vast plateau extending up to the Hindu Kush. 
 
 Tashkurgan is about 35 miles nearly due east of Mazar, and about 
 a mile and a half from the gates of a magnificent gorge barely 
 40 feet wide at one point, with sheer cliff's on either hand thousands 
 of feet high, which leads towards Haibak. Tashkurghan is a large 
 and exceedingly picturesque town clustering round the slopes of a 
 sandstone hill, crowned by a fort and citadel. Its busy bazaar is 
 the great trade centre of the country. 
 
 The conformation of the great plateau region, which embraces the 
 basins of the Band-i-Amir (or Balkh Ao), the Dara Yusuf, the Khulm, 
 and the Kunduz, is difficult to describe from its extreme irregularity. 
 North and east of the Balkh Ao there is a raised plateau rising 
 gently northwards and culminating in rounded knolls, the whole 
 region, except where intersected by the Dara Yusuf , being apparently 
 uninhabited. Captain Talbot visited the head waters of the Balkh 
 Ao, which are dammed by a succession of small lakelets, the 
 formation of which is ascribed to Ali. The course of the Dara 
 
190 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 Yusuf* was surveyed by Sub-Surveyor Ata Mahomed, and is similar 
 in most characteristics to the Balkh Ao. 
 
 Haibakf is a picturesque place with, a small hill fort overlooking 
 the bazaar and the overcrowded little town. Round about the 
 plain are the sharp square-cut cliffs which are ever the distinguishing 
 feature of all the plateau, and a mile to the south, across the well 
 cultivated fields, is the mouth of the well known and picturesque 
 Dara-i-Zindan (mentioned by Burnes) leading to Bamian. Neat 
 white-walled villages overlooking the rippling stream, well built 
 bridges, closely-set orchards, and meadows with grass lawns sloping 
 to the river, and above all the crags and many-coloured walls of 
 the precipitous cliffs on either side combined to form a picture of 
 which the beauty was doubly impressive to the eyes of ofBcers 
 accustomed to the sterile wastes of Turkistan. The Buddhist ruins 
 and rock- cut stupa called Takht-i-Rustam in the neighbourhood of 
 Haibak were examined by Captain Talbot, who has written an 
 account of them as well as of the better known Bamian remains. 
 
 The Ab-i-Surkh, as the upper valley of the Kunduz is called, 
 is not distinguished by such remarkable defiles and gorges as that in 
 the Khulm and Balkh Ao. South and east of it one comes upon the 
 Hindu Kush system, and every pass to the southward crosses 
 a succession of spurs of that great range. The local nomenclature 
 makes the Hindu Kush terminate at the head of the Ghorband 
 valley, east of Bamian, so that the Irak pass to Bamian from Kabul 
 does not cross the true Hindu Kush, but a connecting water-shed 
 between it and the Koh-i-Baba. 
 
 With regard to the Hindu Kush range, Colonel Holdich notices 
 that the same feature prevails as is observable in the case of the 
 Himalayas, i.e., that the central or main water-shed is not defined 
 by the most prominent peaks, which rise high above it from the 
 ridges of gigantic lateral spurs. There is, too, a remarkable 
 similarity in the general altitude and appearance of these granite 
 giants, and at a distance they are difficult to recognise distinctively. 
 The same may be said of the mountain mass of the Koh-i-Baba, 
 
 * This route is most important nnd leads past tlie remarkable hill fort- of Valishan, 
 which -vvas besieged by the Mughals, as described in Raverty's Tabakat-i-Nasiri, 
 p. 1023. Eaverty calls it Walkh and is inclined to identify it -with Zuhak in the 
 Bamian valley, but Sir H. Eawlinson sho-ws it is more probably the Wuleeshan of 
 Mir Izzut Ollah and the Valej or Val-valej of the old geographers. 
 
 I Curiously enough, Haibak is omitted from the late Sir Charles Macgregor's great 
 ■work, the Gazetteer of Central Asia (Afghanistan). 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 191 
 
 whose crowd of irregular snowy peaks are equally hard to tell apart. 
 A. very great difficulty was thus presented to the direct connexion 
 by triangulation of the previous surveys executed during the Afghan 
 campaign from the Kabul side and those now drawing to a close 
 of Afghan Turkestan. The longitude values in the latter region 
 had been brought over many leagues of desert and mountain from 
 Maslih.ad to the Hindu Kush, while the values about Kabul were 
 well determined and in direct connexion with India. The latitude 
 values depended on constant astronomical observations, which might 
 faiiiy be expected to be correct to one or two secoitds, as they 
 were checked within certain limits by the results of triangulation. 
 Fortunately, right on the backbone of the main water-shed of the 
 Hindu Kush, a peak was at last discovered whence Colonel Holdich 
 was enabled to recognise the well-known landmarks of the Kabul 
 campaign, whilst due north were one or two granite pinnacles 
 belonging to the Turkestan Series. Thus the two systems of 
 triangulation were finally and successfully united with a general 
 agreement that was highly satisfactory, considering the enormous 
 area traversed, and highly creditable to Colonel Holdich and . his 
 colleagues. 
 
 The next piece of work was the survey of the Hindu Kush and the 
 routes and passes connecting Afghan Turkistan with Kohistan 
 and Kabul. These surveys were carried out by Colonel Holdich, 
 Captains Peacocke, Talbot, and Maitland, and Sub-Surveyors Yusuf 
 Sharif, Ata Mahomed, and Hira Sing, and on completion of the 
 work all assembled at Charikar. Yusuf Sharif ascended some peaks 
 near Khawak and made some additions to the existing knowledge 
 of the surrounding mountain region. The main water-shed of the 
 Hindu Kush preserves a singular uniformity of level, while the 
 gigantic spurs which intersect Badakhshan and Kafiristan, and which 
 rise almost to the dignity of separate ranges, are repeated along the 
 entire length of the Hindu Kush on the north as well as on the south, 
 enclosing valleys similar to the Ghorband and Panjshir. But the 
 physical characteristics of the northern offshoots are distinctly 
 different from those of the south, and might well belong to a different 
 system and climate. Rough barren walls and ridges of limestone 
 and granite tower above the narrow valleys on either hand, splintering 
 at their summits into sharp aiguilles streaked with snow even in the 
 summer months, and constantly hurling down avalanches of rocks 
 to block the mrrow green riband that borders the mountain streams. 
 
192 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 As the road winds up amongst them and the flattened slopes of the 
 main water-shed are gradually approached, their sterility and 
 barrenness recall that of the Tibetan passes. On the southern side 
 it is far different. Every valley leading down from the snow-bound 
 rivulets and lakelets of the broad water-shed into the valley of the 
 Ghorband is a picture of fertile beauty, surpassing even the most 
 favoured spots of Alpine scenery. There were battlemented turrets 
 of ancient strongholds, perched insecurely on red clay and sandstone 
 cliff's, amid an endless succession of terraced hill sides, vineyards, and 
 yellow maize fields ; these again were backed by the deep purple 
 of the hills and broken into a cascade of colour by the marvellous 
 tints of autumn which spread over the surrounding trees. To the 
 British officers, Kabul and its well-remembered surroundings marked 
 the end of their geographical labours. 
 
 In connexion with the work of the Afghan Boundary Commission 
 some important explorations of the Pamirs and Upper Oxus valley 
 were carried out by Mr. Ney Elias, C.I.B., of the Foreign Department 
 of the Grovernment of India, already known for his adventurous 
 journey across Mongolia in 1872-73, for which he received the 
 gold medal of the Hoyal Geographical Society. 
 
 Mr. Elias started in September 1885 from Yarkand to cross over 
 by way of the Pamirs to Shignan. He left the plains at the 
 frontier village of Ighiz Yar, and took what is known as the 
 Karatash route, i.e., over a pass of that name (about 14,200 feet 
 in height) which leads over a range forming the water-parting 
 between the Guz river and the streams flowing to Yangi Hissar, &c. 
 The Guz was found to rise in snow fields to the south of the pass 
 and then to flow on between the great peak measured by Captain 
 Trotter, by theodolite angles from Kashgar, Yangi Hissar, &c., 
 and another great isolated peak to which Mr. Elias had to give the 
 name of Tagharma,* from the Pamir region at its base. The Kirghiz 
 nomads have no particular name for either ; but the Tagharma peak 
 is known over all those regions. It is probably the one seen by 
 Kostenko from near Great Karakul and called by him Mustagh Ata. 
 Close to the foot of the great Tagharma cone, and only three or four 
 miles north of the Guz, lies Little Karakul, through which flows a 
 stream into the Guz. From Little Karakul Mr. Elias proceeded 
 to Rangkul, and passed the " Lamp Rock " (see Sir H. Rawlinson's 
 
 * Conf. Ezekiol, xxvii., 14 (Lamentation for Tyrus), " They of the house of 
 Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules." 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 193 
 
 paper*) to the Aksu or Murghabi river, whicli lie crossed on the way 
 to the Ahchur Pamir, after crossing the Neza Tash pass (about 
 14,000 feet). Proceeding down the Alichur valley Mr. Blias passed 
 south of the Sasik and other small kuls in the neighbourhood, and 
 crossed the Kohitezek pass (about 14,000) into one of the head 
 streams of the Gund river. The Grund valley was then followed 
 down to its junction with the Panjah, nearly opposite Bar Panjah 
 fort. So far the journey had proved that the Aksu did not discharge 
 down the Grund valley as some maps represented, but as Mr. Elias 
 had to investigate this Aksu question (he had found it impossible to 
 follow it down from where he crossed it near Eangkul) he went 
 on at once from Bar Panjah (4th November) to ascend it as far as 
 possible from Kila Wamar. The track was found impassable for 
 anything like a caravan, or even a loaded pony. It was chiefly 
 climbing over pathways built along the side of the cliffs, of bits of 
 wood, willow twigs, &c. Mr. Blias succeeded in reaching as far 
 as the confluence of the Kudara (which turned out to lie much 
 further north than supposed) and then returned to Wamar. From 
 thence he descended the Panjah to the frontier of Darwaz, and then 
 returned to Bar Panjah. After a short stay there he ascended the 
 Panjah to Ishkashim, making an excursion to the Shiva lake 
 en route. This lake was an interesting spot. It turned out to be a 
 high mountain tarn (not a flat-bottomed lake like the Pamir lakes) 
 with an underground outlet into the Darmarokht stream, which 
 carried its waters " cascading " down into the Panjah. The height 
 of the lake was 10,300 feet, and that of the Panjah at the confluence 
 about 6,800, the bee-line distance between the two being a little 
 over six miles. 
 
 At Ishkashim, early in December, he came upon Lieutenant Wood's 
 route, and the work of several native explorers, so he there concluded 
 
 * Proceedings of the R. Geographical Society for 1887, p. 69. Sir Henry Rawlinsou's 
 short but interesting paper identifies this central Pamir track (which had also been 
 mentioned by Major Trotter in the appendix to Sir D. Forsyth's Yarkand Mission 
 Report, p. 457, Route XXVII.) as the famous trade route of antiquity, by which 
 the caravans of Rome passed from Bactria along the " Vallis Comedarum " to the 
 equally famous Stone Tower on the border of Chinese territory. Sir Henry proves 
 that it is in all probability the route followed by Hwen 'J'hsang, and that the 
 Dragon lake, the holiest spot in the Buddhist cosmogony, can be none other than 
 the Rang-Kul lake, where the mythical legend of a dragon with a large luminous 
 diamond set in its forehead is still believed in by the Kirghiz inhabitants. Sir Henry 
 also i)oints out that Mr. Key Elias discovered traces on the Little Kara Kul and 
 the Yeshil Kul of the passage of the Chinese troops Mho in 1759 pursued the fugitive 
 Khojas as far as the latter point in their flight to Badakhshan. 
 I Y 20321. N 
 
]^9^4 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
 
 his route survey. He liad carried it on all the way from Ighiz Yar, 
 and it came to over 600* miles between the two. Points were fixed as 
 usual by an observation, and altitudes by boiling-point measurements 
 based upon Tarkand. In the map submitted by him to Govern- 
 ment on his return to India the altitudes were all given about 
 250 or 300 feet too low. It was made up before he had time 
 to send the boiling-point thermometers to Kew to be retested. 
 After that was done he computed all the altitudes afresh with 
 the new corrections and found the above general error. 
 
 From Ishkashim Mr. Blias proceeded to Faizabad and stayed 
 there till the beginning of January. It was too late in the year for 
 travellino- at high altitudes, and all Mr. Blias was able to do was 
 to go on to Khauabad, near Kunduz, on a visit to the governor 
 of the province, and thence make an excursion to the confluence 
 of the Kokcha and Panjah during an interval of open weather, when 
 a little new geography was got in. Faizabad was found to be a 
 small trading place of about 4,000 inhabitants, mostly Tajiks, and 
 Khanabad a somewhat smaller town, with chiefly a Turki population. 
 Kunduz is now in ruins and almost uninhabited, and Khanabad has 
 taken its place. 
 
 From Khanabad, early in February, Mr. Blias was obliged to 
 travel down to the Turkoman country to join the Afghan Boundary 
 Commission, then near Maruchak on the Murghab, and was only 
 able to leave them towards the end of April to return to Badakhshan. 
 However, no geographical work was done on Mr. Blias's return 
 as he was recalled to India vicl Chitral and Gilgit, arriving in 
 Kashmir eventually towards the end of September 1886. 
 
 The zoological investigations during the Afghan Boundary Com- 
 mission fell to the lot of Dr. J. B. T. Aitchison, C.I.B., F.E.S., F.L.S., 
 who was appointed naturalist, and had thus to undertake general 
 duties in addition to his more special calling of botanist.f Captain 
 C. E. Yate and Lieutenant Eawlins and other members of the 
 mission rendered assistance in the supply of specimens, but the 
 absence of regular collectors was a drawback, the Afghans being 
 useless in this respect. Dr. Aitchison's collections comprised 290 
 
 * Not 360 miles, as erroneously printed in the E. G. S. paper, p. 69. of 1887- 
 
 f Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 2nd series Zoology, Vol. V., 
 
 Part 3. " The Zoology of the Afghan Delimitation Commission," by J. E. T. Aitchison, 
 
 M.D., C.I.E., F.E.S., F.L.S., London, 1889 (plates and two maps). 
 
 See also a paper by Dr. -J. Scully on the mammals and birds collected by 
 
 CViptain C. E. Yate, C.S.I., of the Afghan Boundary Commission (.T. A. S. B., Ivi. 
 
 pt. ii., p. 68, 1887). 
 
AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 195 
 
 species, of whicti 32 were new, belonging to 210 genera. One of the 
 most interesting was the Ellohius fuscicafillus, a curious bull-dog 
 headed mole-like rat with enormous incisor teeth. The whole of the 
 Badghiz east of the Hari-Kud was in many places perforated like a 
 sponge from the burrowing of this and other rodents, making it very 
 unsafe to ride over. Another point of importance is the extension 
 of the geographical range of Felis tigris in Afghanistan as far east 
 and north as Bala-m.urghab, and that of the hunting leopard (Felis 
 Jubata) to the valley of the Herirud. A specimen of each is in 
 the Zoological Society's Gardens in London. 
 
 The botanical researches during the progress of the Commission 
 also fell to the care of Dr. Aitchison, and his observations thereon 
 are likewise recorded in the Transactions of the Linnean Society.* 
 He divides the country which was traversed into seven natural 
 sections or regions, as represented by its physical features, viz. : 
 Northern Baluchistan ; the valley of the Helmand, from Hadj-ali 
 to the Hamun of the Helmand river ; the basin of the Harut, from 
 the Hamun of the Helmand to Pahir ; the valley of the Hari 
 Rud ; the Badghiz district ; Mount Do-shakh and Khorasan. 
 Dr. Aitchison's generalizations are that the flora of North-western 
 Afghanistan differs much from the typical flora of Eastern 
 Afghanistan, so graphically described by Hooker and Thompson 
 in their introductory essay to the " Flora ludica," and that this 
 difference is due to climatic conditions. The winter is much more 
 severe and of longer duration ; in spring the persistence of damp 
 and cold is also more prolonged ; while the summer, though 
 short, as intensely hot during the months of July and August. 
 There is no mountain range to the north, moreover, to afford shelter 
 from the continvious blasts of winter cold and hot dry air of 
 summer ; so with such climatic conditions, cultivation below an 
 altitude of 3,500 feet is impossible without the aid of irrigation or 
 under the mitigatory influence of a river. Dr. Aitchison's collec- 
 tion consisted of oriental flora, with a considerable admixture of 
 Siberian and Central Asiatic types ; there are also a few Western 
 Himalayan or Tibetan plants, and a very limited number common 
 to the Punjab and Sind regions. 
 
 * 2nd Ser. Botany, Vol. III., Part 1, April \i 
 
 N 2 
 
1% 
 
 VIII. 
 
 TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 The systematic record of tidal observations in India may be said 
 to date from the 4th July 1877, when an important Resolution on 
 the subject was passed by the Government of India. The advan- 
 tages of such observations were pointed out in the Resolution to be 
 mainly the following : — 
 
 (1.) They enable standards to be fixed for the purposes of survey. 
 
 (2.) They afford data for the calculation of the rise and fall of 
 the tides, and thus subserve the purposes of navigation. 
 
 (3.) They are of scientific interest apart from their practical 
 usefulness. 
 
 The first two of the above were considered by the Government 
 of India to be of strictly local bearing, an accurate survey of a port 
 being essential to the safety of the shipping frequenting it, and 
 correct tide-tables necessary for the convenience of navigators and 
 engineering purposes within the port itself. It was therefore laid 
 down that every port where a tidal gauge was set up should pay 
 for its establishment and maintenance from port funds. The third 
 object, the scientific results to be expected from the record, would 
 be sufficiently provided for by the appointment by the Government 
 of India of one of its own officers to supervise and control the local 
 observations, and to arrange for their utilisation. 
 
 The general superintendence and control of the tidal observations 
 (which included a continuous registration of the barometric pressure 
 and of the velocity and direction of the wind taken by self-recording 
 instruments) were entrusted to Captain A. W. Baird, R.E., Deputy 
 Superintendent, Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, who had 
 
TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSEUVATIONS. 197 
 
 already for some years past been engaged upon tidal observations 
 in the Gulf of Cutcb and on their reduction in England. 
 
 Inquiries were at once set qp foot to ascertain the most suitable 
 ports for tidal stations. The necessary conditions were, firstly, a 
 site immediately over or close to the sea, where the deptn was not 
 less than from 10 to 1 5 feet at lowest tides ; secondly, the presence 
 of a port officer to exercise a general supervision over the operations 
 and correct the clocks of the several self-registering instruments 
 whenever necessary, either by direct determination of time or by 
 getting the true time from the nearest telegraph office ; thirdly, the 
 feasibility of periodical inspection of the instruments at intervals 
 of not less than six months generally, and more frequently when 
 there might be no superintending officer resident on the spot. 
 
 During the following year Captain Baird visited Bombay, 
 Karachi, Karwar, Aden, Beypur, Paumben, Madras, and Yiza- 
 gapatam, making due arrangements at each port. A man was 
 placed in charge of the instruments in each place, and taught how 
 to manipulate them ; he was also taught to read the graphic 
 delineaiions of tidal height, and to enter the value for each hour 
 in a tabular report which was sent off to Poena daily. 
 
 The barrels of the tidal gauges are five feet in length, and thus 
 capable of registering on the scale of nature all tides of which the 
 amplitudes between extreme high and low water do not exceed 
 five feet. For tides of greater amplitude a gear of wheels is supplied 
 to each instrument, enabling the scale to be varied. 
 
 The a,nalysi8 of tidal observations is a matter of much complexity, 
 and from the outset Colonel Walker determined to adopt the 
 procedure recommended by the Tidal Committee of the British 
 Association for the investigation of the tidal constituents, and to 
 employ Mr. Edward Eoberts, P.R.A.S., of the Nautical Almanac 
 Office, — who, under Sir William Thomson's supervision, had reduced 
 and analyzed the tidal observations placed at the disposal of the 
 British Association for the advancement of Science — in working out 
 the yearly tables of tidal prediction from the values of the tidal 
 constituents with his tide-predicting machine. 
 
 In the system of analysis adopted by the Tidal Committee of 
 the British Association, the successive heights of the tide for each 
 hour at each/port are grouped in a large number of combinations, 
 so that the e^act effect of each grouping is ascertained with great 
 precision. The following explanation may serve to elucidate the 
 
198 TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 process pursued. If the heiglit attained at any tide be marked 
 
 upon a wliarf wall, as at A in tlie annexed 
 diagram, and also the point of lowest 
 depression as at G, and a circle drawn 
 through these two extreme points, then, 
 roughly, the heights at equal successive 
 times may be found by dividing the cir- 
 cumference of the circle into equal parts, 
 as at B, C, D, &c., the fall and succeeding 
 rise of the water reaching the points thus 
 found in equal times. If now, for sim- 
 plicity, the tidal heights at each hour of the day be thus grouped 
 together for an entire year,* and the sums and means of the 365 
 groupings taken, the mean value of the effect due to the sun wiU 
 be obtained. Similarly, another grouping according to mean lunar 
 hours will give the mean value due to the moon. These values 
 would represent the values supposing the sun and moon to be always 
 at the same distance from the earth, and also at the same inclina- 
 tion to the horizon. The lunar orbit, however, is far from circular, 
 and in practice it is found that it is necessary to include several 
 other groupings to correct the mean values obtained as above. 
 A smaller number suffices for the solar tide, the earth's orbit 
 approximating much nearer to a circle. Other groupings correct 
 the mean values for the varying inclinations of the sun and moon 
 due to the different declinations or distances from the equator of 
 these bodies. The effects due to rainfall and other meteorological 
 causes are similarly found. 
 
 In practice about 25 groupings are made, and some 30 values 
 obtained. The quantities obtained give the value of each tidal 
 constituent in feet (or other measure) and the time at which such 
 constituent tide is at its maximum. For simplicity we may assume 
 that the tide traced on the wharf wall is due to only one body, and 
 that the water attains the successive positions indicated by the 
 points A, B, C at each succeeding hour from noon at A to midnight. 
 Then the value of the tide found from the groupings will be 
 the range or radius of the circle A, and an angle such as A B 
 will give the time at which the tide was at its maximum or highest 
 point. The mean level of the water will be given by taking the 
 
 * For special reasons a period of 369 days 3 hours is generally used, being 
 25 seruilunations. 
 
TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 199 
 
 mean of all the successive heights, and in the figure is represented 
 by JD. 
 
 If now it is required to c§lculate the height of the tide for any- 
 port for which the tidal values have been obtained, it will be 
 necessary to find the value of the heights due to the mean sun 
 and the mean moon, and also each of the smaller constituents due 
 to the ellipticity of their orbits, &c. The algebraical sum of these 
 added to the mean height will give the height desired. 
 
 It will be readily seen that if the number of ports be considerable 
 heights calculated in this manner for, say, each hour of the day for 
 a whole year would involve very great labour and require a con- 
 siderable staff of calculators. Recourse has consequently been had 
 to mechanical means to effect the desired object. It will be readily 
 understood that if, say, the hand of a clock represented propor- 
 tionally the value of any one tidal constituent, and it is made to 
 revolve in its proper time, then the successive heights due to the 
 component will be traced by the end of the hand. Similar move- 
 ments would represent the other tidal constituents, and all that 
 would remain to be effected would be to combine all the heights 
 thus traced out. The tide-predicting machine, made by Mr. A. Lege 
 from the designs of Mr. Edward Roberts for the Indian Govern- 
 ment, embodies a beautiful and simple means of combination, the 
 suggestion of Mr. Beau champ Tower, and consists of a very fine 
 and flexible wire fixed at one end and carrying a tracing point at 
 the other. This wire passes successively over and under 20 puUies 
 arranged in two rows of movements above and under each other. 
 Bach pulley is made to revolve relatively to the others in its own 
 
 proper time, and is capable of being 
 thrown out from its centre to the range 
 cf the constituent it represents. 
 
 The free or tracing end of the wire will 
 
 thus represent the height due to the whole 
 
 of the puUies. To avoid the error due to 
 
 the wire being thrown out of the vertical 
 
 by the revolution of the pulley it is 
 
 carried on a parallel slide (designed by 
 
 Sir William Thomson), whereby the wire 
 
 is kept strictly vertical under all the varying positions of the pullies. 
 
 In the machine designed for the Indian Grovernment Mr. Roberts 
 
 has included no less than 24 tidal constituents, which, for most 
 
200 TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 ports, include all that produce any sensible eflPect, and he has been 
 most successful in finding numbers for the wheels in the gear-work 
 which represent relatively the periods of each of the constituent 
 tides. The machine can be run for a period representing a whole 
 year, practically without error. Thus, for the chief tidal con- 
 stituent, if the hand represented mean lunar time at starting, its 
 error relatively in time at the end of a run of 365 days would not 
 amount to a quarter of a minute. 
 
 The saving effected by the machine can be imagined when it is 
 stated that the curves for a whole year can be run off in about two 
 hours, and then only require to be read off, whilst the calculations 
 of, say, the heights for any one port for a year, combining the 20 
 constituents included in the machine, would take a practised 
 computer some four to five months' labour. The machine is used 
 now in the predictions of over 30 Indian ports, and Mr. Roberts 
 (who has charge of the instrument aud superintends all its opera- 
 tions) also uses it for the predictions of the tides at Singapore and 
 Hong Kong, and expects shortly to include in its predictions the 
 tides of other Bast Indian ports, and also those of South Africa 
 and Canada. 
 
 It may be stated that on the whole the predictions are very accurate 
 and give very general satisfaction. 
 
 Simultaneously Avith the tidal observations, spirit-levelling opera- 
 tions were carried on, partly with a view to connect the tidal 
 stations and ascertain whether there is any appreciable difference 
 in the mean sea-level at the several places, and partly to connect 
 together and reduce to a common datum the hitherto isolated 
 system of levels which have been executed throughout the country 
 for canals, railways, and other engineering works. During 1877-78 
 lines were carried from Damaun to Bombay, completing the line 
 wanted to connect the three tidal stations on the Grulf of Cutch 
 with the one at Bombay ; from Bombay to Callian Junction of the 
 Great Indian Peninsula Railway, and thence up the Bhore Ghat to 
 Poena, and down to Satara ; from Callian to the Thai Ghat, and 
 thence up the Ghat to Igutpuri, Malegaon, and finally to Chikal- 
 wohol. In addition to these main lines, short branch lines were 
 carried to connect local bench marks of importance, the aggregate 
 length of line completed amounting to 589 miles, fixing 536 bench 
 marks. 
 
TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 201 
 
 DCiring 1878 the gauges continued to work well, tliougli at 
 Madras and Vizagapatam the occurrence of cyclones caused damage 
 to the apparatus, and temporarily interrupted the observations. 
 Sites for future' sites, chiefly along the Arakan and Tenasserim 
 coasts, were selected, and progress was made with the lines of 
 spirit-levels, chiefly in the Bombay Presidency. In the following 
 year six additional places for the erection of tidal gauges were 
 selected, viz., jFalse Point, Rangoon, Elephant Point, Amherst, 
 Moulmein, and Port Blair, at which place the clerk in charge was 
 a licensed European convict who was also the port signaller. Self- 
 registering anemometers, and aneroid barometers, and verificatory 
 mercurial barometers were erected at all the tidal stations, with the 
 exception of Karachi, Bombay, and Madras ; at the last two of 
 which there were meteorological observatories already in existence. 
 
 The accuracy of the tidal registrations depends very greatly on 
 the adjustment of the instrument both to true time and to a 
 definitely fixed level, so that when the pencil in traversing the paper 
 on the barrel crosses an hour-line the time should be exactly that 
 of the hour indicated, and when it crosses a height line the height 
 should be exactly that of the momentary height of the sea-level 
 with reference to the bed-plate of the instrument or any fixed 
 bench mark in its neighbourhood. The several adjustments and 
 settings are of course made with great accuracy before the com- 
 mencement of the registrations, but this would be of little use if 
 the instruments were not maintained uniformly in exact adjustment 
 throughout the entire period of registration. Fortunately, there 
 was a telegraph office at nearly every place where a tidal observatory 
 had been established, so arrangements were made to correct the 
 clocks of the self-registering instruments to local time wherever 
 necessary by communicating with the adjoining telegraph ofiice. 
 In 1880-81 the number of self-registering tidal gauges was 14, 
 while new stations were being erected at Kidderpore, Diamond 
 harbour, Saugor island, Bhaunagar, and Negapatam. 
 
 A complete set of all the instruments used in connexion with the 
 tidal operations on Indian coasts was sent for exhibition to the 
 Geographical Congress at Venice. The tide gauge was connected 
 with the Grand Canal, and registered the tides there during the 
 duration of the exhibition. Captain Baird was awarded a gold 
 medal of the first class in acknowledgment of his scientific services 
 in regard to tidal matters. 
 
202 TIDAL AXD LEVELLING OBSEKVATIONS. 
 
 In 1880-81 the tidal stations at Madras and Bombay were 
 connected for tlie first time by a line of spirit-levels carried directly 
 across the peninsula, for the most part near the railway. At each 
 station the mean sea-level was determined very approximately, and 
 the result of the spirit-levelling operations over a line 730 miles 
 was to make the mean sea-level apparently about three feet higher 
 at Madras than at Bombay. Compared \?ith the surface of the 
 spheroid or other geometrical figure which most closely corresponds 
 to the figure of the earth, there must probably be variations in the 
 general level of the surface of the ocean at difierent places, and 
 certainly where the attractions of mountains and the like are not 
 counteracted by deficiencies of density in the strata below the 
 elevated masses. But, as the surface of the ocean is everywhere 
 maintained in equilibrium there can be no flow of water from one 
 point to another. The diff'erences of height however considerable 
 must be insensible, because they cannot be measured by instru- 
 mental means, for the causes producing them must equally affect 
 both the spirit-levels of the instruments and the level of the ocean. 
 Had the spirit-levels been carried, without error, along the coast line 
 from Bombay round, via Oape Comorin, to Madras, they must have 
 shown identity of mean sea-level at Bombay and Madras, just as had 
 been met with in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, on opposite 
 sides of the Isthmus of Suez, and in the Atlantic and the Pacific 
 Ocean at the Isthmus of Panama. And this identity would have 
 been obtained even if there were actually a considerable difference 
 of height, which is very possible ; for the Western Ghats and the 
 generally greater elevation of the western as compared with the 
 eastern half of the peninsula are sources of attraction which if 
 not counteracted by deficiency of density below the elevated masses 
 must raise the mean sea-level at Bombay no less than 31 feet 
 (according to Mr. Hennessey's calculations) above the mean sea-level 
 at Madras. The levels, however, were taken across the continent 
 and not along the coast line ; they were carried from Bombay up 
 the short and abrupt ascent to the crest of the Western Gh&ts, and 
 then down the long and gentle decline to the east coast, and it has 
 been surmised that the closing discrepancy of three feet at Madras 
 may be due to the proximate and local attractions of the hills and 
 table-lands over which the levels were carried, or else to the 
 accumulation of small errors, so minute as to be barely appreciable 
 at any single station, but possessing a tendency to be repeated at 
 
TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 203 
 
 successive stations, and to attain some magnitude at the end of a 
 long line. 
 
 During 1881-82 large discrepancies were for tlie first time met 
 with between the tidal predictions and the actual facts of the tides. 
 This arose in -the case of stations situated on the banks of great 
 rivers, as the Hugli and the Irawadi, in which the tides are 
 influenced not only by the attractions of the sun and moon, but by 
 the amount of water brought down by the river from its sources, 
 which varies at different seasons of the year. The tide tables 
 for three stations on the Hugli, two on the Irawadi, and one 
 on the Salwen were found to be erroneous to the extent of 
 occasionally an hour or more in the times and a foot or more in 
 the heights of high and . low water, facts which have shown 
 the necessity for supplementing the mathematical formulae for the 
 harmonic analysis of purely luni-solar tides by formulae to take 
 cognizance of riverain influences. The subject is, however, a very 
 abstruse one, and in the meantime Mr. Roberts has adopted a 
 provisional method of predicting tides for riverain ports.* 
 
 One of the results of the Indian tidal observations proved about 
 this time to furnish some light on the question of the rigidity of 
 the earth. The subject had been mooted about 1865 by Sir William 
 Thomson, who appealed to the universal existence of oceanic tides 
 of considerable height as a proof that the earth as a whole possesses 
 a high degree of rigidity, and maintained that the previously 
 received geological hypotheses of a fluid interior were untenable. 
 At the Southampton meeting of the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science Professor G. H. Darwin brought forward 
 a numerical estimate of the rigidity of the earth, which gives 
 evidence of " a tidal yielding " of the earth's mass, and further 
 indicates that the effective rigidity of the whole earth is about equal 
 to that of steel.f This theory he largely based on the results 
 derived from the Indian tidal observations.! 
 
 An interesting fact was also revealed from a comparison of the 
 observations at Madi'as with those taken in 1821 by Colonel De 
 Haviland, of the Madras Engineers, which is that the mean sea-level 
 
 * See Tide Tables for 1883 for Diamond harbour in the Eiver Hugli. 
 
 I Professor Darwin's later researches tended to prove that the effective rigidity is 
 not so great as that of steel. 
 
 X See also the address of General J. T. Walker, as President of the Geographical 
 Section of the British Association at the Aberdeen meeting in 1884. 
 
204 TIB.VL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 at ^ladras in 1881 was about one foot lower relatively to the land 
 tlian it was 60 years previously. 
 
 In connexion with the subject of tidal observations mention 
 should be made of the earthquake which happened on the morning 
 of the 31st December 1881 in the Bay of Bengal. It was very 
 violent in the neighbourhood of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, 
 more or less violent along the entire length of the west coast from 
 Ceylon to Calcutta, and slight at various points along the east coast. 
 The earth-waves appear to have lasted for only a few seconds, but 
 the ocean was greatly disturbed, and the waves continued to roll 
 against the east coast for several hours afterwards. At Rangoon, 
 Moulmein, and Amherst there was no disturbance of river and 
 ocean surface, but at the island of Kisseraing, below Tenasserim, 
 Major Rogers, who was at the very moment measuring angles with 
 one of the great theodolites, " saw the earthquake before feeling it," 
 as the signal which he was observing (some 15 miles distant) 
 appeared to rise and fall iu the field of the telescope. On looking 
 at the levels of the instrument he found that they were violently 
 agitated, and he subsequently ascertained that the earthquake had 
 been felt, at almost the same moment, at Madras and False Point, 
 on the opposite coast. The origin or centre of impulse was there- 
 fore, in all probability, a point in the bay almost equi-distant from 
 the three stations, but lying a little to the south.* 
 
 During 1882-83 the Paumben observatory ceased to be operative, 
 owing partly to severe weather and partly to the observatory and 
 equipment being more needed in Ceylon ; and those at Karwar and 
 Elephant Point were also dismantled. In all 18 groups of 
 observations were reduced, and the so-called " constants " supplied 
 to Mr. E. Roberts for computation of prediction tables by the tide- 
 calculating machine. 
 
 These tide gauges afforded an unique opportunity of observing the 
 tidal phenomena resulting from the great eruption of Krakatoa, in 
 Java, on the 27th and 28th August. Major Baird prepared a full 
 report on the subject, dated December 1883. His main conclusions 
 are : — 
 
 1. The primary effect of the eruption was a marked fall in the 
 
 sea-level, or, in other words, the formation of a negative 
 
 super-tidal wave at each of his stations. 
 
 * Major M. W. Eogei's report is printed at page 71 of the" Appendix to the Indian 
 Survey Eeport for 1881-82. 
 
TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 205 
 
 2. This negative wave Avas succeeded by a great positive wave at 
 
 an interval ranging from 75 minutes at Negapatam, the 
 station nearest Krakatoa, to 24 minutes at Aden, the most 
 distant station. 
 
 3. Super- tidal wavelets, denoting antecedent minor eruptions, 
 
 were registered at the whole of the Indian stations some 
 hours, more or less, before the effects of the great eruption. 
 This shows that the explosions were at first comparatively 
 faint and feeble, being felt only at the nearest stations, but 
 afterwards they increased in intensity, becoming sensible 
 even at the most distant station three hours before the effects 
 of the great eruption. 
 
 4. Great super-tidal waves of amplitudes ranging from a maximum 
 
 of 22 inches at Negapatam to a maximum of 9 inches at 
 Aden were registered at all the stations which were in a 
 position to receive the full force of the eruptions at Krakatoa, 
 unobstructed by the configuration of the foreshore. Other 
 waves of less magnitude occurred at these stations at 
 intervals of one to two hours for about 12 hours after the 
 first great wave. 
 
 5. The secondary great waves were succeeded by wavelets 
 
 gradually diminishing in size but continuing for some time. 
 G. Loud reports resembling the firing of distant guns were heard 
 at Port Blair and in the Nicobar islands on the 26th and 
 27th August, and, being supposed to be signals from a vessel 
 in distress, a steamer was sent out in search of the vessel. 
 Similar reports were heard at two places on the coast of 
 Ceylon on the 26th, first at 6 p.m. and afterwards at 
 midnight. 
 These facts show that the terrible and disastrous eruption at 
 Krakatoa, which was attended with such an appalling loss of life, 
 was preceded for some hours by minor eruptions which were 
 insignificant only by comparison, for they produced effects which 
 were sensible even at Aden, a distance of upwards of 4,000 miles.* 
 
 The spirit-levelling operations carried on in connexion with the 
 tidal operations in 1882-83 completed the last link in the long line 
 
 * General li. Strachey, E.E., C.S.I., has communicated an interesting and suggestive 
 note to the Royal Society on the barometrical aisturbances which passed over Europe 
 betvi^een the 27th and 31st August, and investigated ihe speed of the barometrical 
 v;sves travelling fiom Krakatoa round the earth. 
 
206 TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 of spirit-levels between the sea at Karachi, on the Indian ocean, 
 and False Point, in the Bay of Bengal. This line runs from 
 Karachi up the Indus to Mithankot and onwards via Firozpur, 
 Agra, Allahabad, Monghyr, and Calcutta to False Point, a distance 
 of about 2,300 miles, or as far as from London, straight across the 
 Channel, Germany, and Eussia to Astrakhan. It is probably the 
 longest line ever run between two seas, and the error in levelling, so 
 far as is known, does nob exceed 1 '7 foot, or under nine inches per 
 thousand miles ; in its absence accurate sea-level as a datum was 
 unknown throughout the vast length it traverses. 
 
 During 1883-84 three new stations were opened at Marmagao, 
 on the Malabar coast, and at Galle and Colombo in Ceylon. The 
 predictions for 1883 were found to be good ; they may be sum- 
 marised as follows : — 
 
 Percentage of predictions within 15 minutes of actuals. 
 
 Higli Water. Low Water. 
 
 Open coast stations - 72 per cent. - - 70 per cent. 
 Eiverain - 70 ,, - - 66 ,, 
 
 Percentage of predictions within 8 inches in height of actuals. 
 
 llisli Water. Low Water. 
 
 Open coast stations - 92 per cent. - - 96 per cent. 
 Riverain - 66 ,, - - 64 ., 
 
 A connecting link was also interpolated during the following 
 season between Sironj and a station 32 miles north of Maumad, on 
 the Bombay and Agra road, completing a line of levels between 
 two sea-coast stations very little inferior in length to the chain just 
 mentioned ; the closing error was only '624 of a foot, or less than 
 four inches per thousand miles. 
 
 In 1884-85 the observations of Beypur and Vizagapatam were 
 closed, after a full course of work extending over five years, and 
 their equipment was removed for the erection of two new observa- 
 tories at Cochin and Coconada. At False Point the observatory was 
 unfortunately swept away by the cyclone which committed such 
 devastation on the coast of Orissa, on the 22nd September 1885. 
 Captain Douglas, the port officer there, lost his life, as well as the 
 tidal observatory clerk. Ohittagong and Bhaunagar were started in 
 
TIDAL AND LEVELLING' OBSERVATIONS. ' 207 
 
 1885-86, the instruments at tlie latter station being provided at the 
 cost of the Durbar. Diamond harbour, Amherst, and Moulmein were 
 discontinued on completion of the usual period of registration, which 
 in the case of Moulmein wa^eXtended to six years owing to certain 
 peculiarities in the tides of that port. 
 
 An important improvement was introduced into the tide tables for 
 1887, by the employment of a scientific datum, which rendered it 
 possible to fix finally the datum for each of the observatories. 
 Previously to that the datum line of soundings adopted by the 
 Admiralty was the " mean low water for ordinary spring tides," but 
 as the term was not scientifically accurate with reference to tidal 
 theory, a new datum line, called "The Indian spring low-water 
 " mark," was definitely adopted after discussion with Professor 
 Darwin and Captain Wharton, R.N., the Hydrographer, and a table 
 was prepared to show the datum finally decided upon.* 
 
 In 1886 the Amherst observatory was closed and the instruments 
 sent to Akyab, where a new station was erected, and on the night of 
 the 29th September in the same year the tidal observatory at Dublat, 
 near the mouth of the Hugli, was swept away with all its contents 
 by a heavy wind and sea, and none of the instruments or records could 
 be recovered. Fortunately the clerk was absent and no loss of life 
 occurred. 
 
 The diagrams of the self -registering tide gauges at False Point and 
 Dublat (Saugor island), and at Diamond harbour and Kidderpore on 
 the Hugli, for the 11th March and 9th April 1885 show unmis- 
 takably that considerable tidal disturbances took place on those dates 
 at the stations named. From a consideration of the facts, which are 
 reviewed by Major Bairdin a special memorandum,-)- it would appear 
 that a submarine depression caused the disturbance of the 11th 
 March, and that this was followed about a month later (9th April) by a 
 submarine upheaval which caused a very considerable wave to pass up 
 the Hugli. There are indications that the latter may have occurred 
 at the Sand Heads, opposite Balasore. 
 
 The stations at Negapatam and Elephant Point were closed in 1888, 
 and two fresh ones at Tuticorin and Prince's Dock, Bombay, were 
 started. In 1889 the observatories at Colombo and Galle having 
 
 * The datum is defined as the sum of the semi-ranges of the principal lunar (Mj) 
 and principal solar (S2) semi-diurnal tides, and of the uni-solar (K{) and the lunar 
 diurnal (Oj) tides below mean sea level, that is to say : — 
 
 Ao — [H of M2 + H of S2 + H of Ki -f H of Oj] above the zero of the gauge. 
 
 f See page Ixxiv of Appendix to Indian Survey Eeport for 1886-87. 
 
20S TIDAL AND LEVELLING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 completed their registration were dismantled and the sites of three 
 new observatories at Trincomali, Diamond Island, and Minicoy 
 Island were selected. In addition to these it has been decided to 
 start observatories at Jashk and Bushire. 
 
 Since the systematic resumption of tidal observations in 1877 
 observations have been taken at 28 observatories, of which 11 have 
 been closed on the completion of their registration, and 17 were in 
 operation in 1888 and the same number in 1889. 
 
 The results of the predictions for 1889 may be summarised as 
 follows : — 
 
 Percentage of predictions within 15 minutes of actuals. 
 
 High Waaler, per cent. Low Water, per cent. 
 
 11 open coast stations - 76 - - - 76 
 
 5 riverain do. - 66 - - - 59 
 
 Percentage of predictions within 8 inches in height of actuals. 
 
 High Water, per cent. Low Water, per cent. 
 
 11 open coast stations - 98 - - - 96 
 
 5 riverain do. - 70 - - - 59 
 
 The constituents of the Indian tides are now computed by new 
 formulae investigated by Professor Darwin, in supersession of the 
 formula first suggested by the Tidal Committee of the British 
 Association.* 
 
 '^ A ":\r;inual for tidal oliservalions and their reductions by the method of Iiarraonic 
 analysis, u ith an Appendix," wii.s compiled by Major Baird, and published by Taylor 
 and Francis, in 1886, 
 
209 
 
 IX. 
 GEODETIC OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 All great national surveys have for many years past contributed 
 data for the determination of the figure of the earth. At first these 
 consisted mainly of measurements of the distances between successive 
 points situa.ted on a common meridian, and of the astronomical arcs 
 of amplitude between these points, but it is only of late years that 
 similar measurements have been attempted in the case of points 
 situated on a common parallel of latitude. The reason of this is that 
 the required astronomical data are very readily obtained in the case 
 of meridional arcs by determining the latitudes of the geodetic 
 points, which is one of the simplest problems of practical astronomy ; 
 but on arcs of parallel, longitudes are required instead of latitudes, 
 and the precise astronomical determination of an absolute longitude 
 under such circumstances is well nigh impracticable, When, how- 
 ever, places are connected telegraphically, their diff"erences of longi- 
 tude can be determined with great precision, and this has been done 
 both in America and Europe. In the former country the operations 
 were utilised for geographical purposes only, but in Europe, which 
 is covered with a net of triangulations, of which there is as yet no 
 counterpart bey o ad the Atlaiitic, their chief interest lies in the light 
 they throw on the figure of the earth. 
 
 At the same time these investigations have benefited the Indian 
 Survey in a way that may be shortly explained. In order that 
 the true latitudes, longitudes, and azimuths of the stations of a 
 system of triangulation on the earth's surface may be computed, 
 it is necessary that the polar and equatoreal axes of the terrestrial 
 spheroid should be correctly known, as they are involved in the 
 formula by which such computations are effected. The value 
 of those elements that have since 1830 been used in the calculations 
 of the Indian Survey are those known as " Everest's Constants, 
 ist set." Any error in these adopted elements will, of course, 
 produce an error in the geodetical latitudes and longitudes of the 
 stations, increasing with the distance from the originating station. 
 
 I Y 20321. 
 
210 GEODETIC OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 Consequently as the Indian geodetic operations have come to be 
 extended over the whole peninsula, along the Burmese coast and 
 across the mountains into Siam, and as far east as Bangkok, 
 it has become more and more important to determine the amount of 
 error in the further stations. 
 
 The data for such investigations are furnished by — 
 
 (1.) Comparison of observed latitudes with geodetic latitudes; 
 
 (2.) Comparison of observed longitudes with geodetic longitudes ; 
 and 
 
 (3.) Comparison of observed azimuths with azimuths deduced 
 through the triaugulation from the station of origin. 
 
 The astronomical observations are of great importance in various 
 ways, among which may be mentioned that they contribute largely 
 toward the investigation of local attraction, and also towards the 
 accurate determination of the position of India with respect to its 
 distance from Greenwich, and lastly they furnish data for improving 
 existing star tables in the case of about 900 stars. 
 
 But before the application of the electric telegraph to the 
 determining of longitudes the comparison (2) could not be made, 
 because the longitudes determined by the old methods were not 
 sufficiently accurate for such a purpose, a case in point being 
 that of Madras which, though the result of many years careful 
 observations and taken with all the refinements of a well-equipped 
 observatory, was discovered through these electro-telegraphic 
 operations to be erroneous by about 2^ minutes of arc, which had 
 the effect of placing India nearly 3 miles too far from Greenwich, 
 and of ascribing an error of 10 seconds to lihe chronometers of all 
 ships arriving at Indian ports from'Europe or America.* Thus the 
 introduction of electro-telegraphic longitude operations into India was 
 a most valuable addition to the geodetic operations of the Survey. 
 
 The Government of India have always taken a very liberal view 
 of the more purely scientific ends of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, 
 and almost from its commencement the operations of the Survey have 
 furnished data for investigating the figure of the earth. Its earliest 
 contributions to the science of geodesy were determinations of 
 the lengths and amplitudes of meridional arcs, as described in 
 Colonel Everest's accounts of the measurement of sections of the 
 meridional arcs of India published in 1830 and 1847. Then came 
 the series of Pendulum observations for the purpose of determining 
 
 * See infra, p. 213. 
 
GEODETIC OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 211 
 
 the variations of the force of ^ gravity at sundry stations of the 
 Survey, situated on mountains, table lands, the interior of the 
 continent and the coast lines, which was commenced in the year 
 1865 and is described in the fifth volume of the Account of the 
 operations of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. And 
 when the electric telegraph had been introduced into India, the 
 advantage was taken to commence the measurement of differential 
 longitudes between certain stations of the Survey, co-ordinating 
 with the differential latitude measurements and thus to contribute 
 to the science of geodesy determinations of a number of longitudinal 
 arcs which were to supplement and be combined with the time- 
 honoured Meridional Arcs. 
 
 One of the first preliminary steps for the electric determination 
 of differential longitudes was to procure the necessary apparatus, 
 the astronomical clocks, transit instruments, chronograph and 
 electric appliances. On the recommendation of Colonel Walker, 
 then Superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, the 
 expenditure for this was sanctioned by the- Secretary of State, and 
 Colonel Strange, a retired oflScer of, the Survey, residing in London, 
 was entrusted with the task of designing and superintending the 
 construction of the instruments. He had already acquired a high 
 reputation for skill in mechanism generally, especially in regard 
 to delicate geodetic instruments. Messrs. Frodsham, of London, 
 were selected for the task of making the clocks, Messrs. Cooke and 
 Sons, of York, for the transit instruments, and Messrs. Bichens and 
 Hardy, of Paris, for the chronographs and electric apparatus. 
 Before being sent out to India the instruments were examined 
 at the observatory attached to the India Stores Depot, by Colonel 
 Strange, assisted by Captain W. M. Campbell, who subsequently 
 took a prominent share in the. observations themselves. 
 
 The instruments were received in India in 1872, and were placed 
 in the hands of Captains Herschel and Campbell, who were then at 
 Bangalore, which, being connected both by railway and telegraph 
 with Madras, was a convenient starting point for the operations. 
 The arc Madras — Bangalore was first measured, and then the sister 
 arc Bangalore — Manga! ore. The total arc was a very interesting 
 one. In length it was not so great— its amplitude was 5° 24' 12", 
 and lineal measurement 364 miles — but it was situated much nearer 
 the Equator than any other measured arc, and, moreover, it was 
 on that very arc of parallel that Colonel Lambton had endeavoured 
 
 2 
 
212 GEODETIC OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 in 1802-5 to determine the length of a degree of longitude, so the 
 comparison of determinations by ancient and modern methods 
 became peculiarly valuable. 
 
 The procedure adopted in the telegraphic operations was as 
 follows : — Two observers were employed, one for each of the two 
 stations to be connected. Each observer furnished with a complete 
 set of instruments took up his position and made the most accurate 
 determination possible of the error of his own clock, and at certain 
 times both observers working in concert determined, by means 
 of electric signals transmitted between the stations, the absolute 
 difference between the clocks at a given instant. With these data 
 the difference of longitude between tlie stations or arc of longitude 
 becomes known.''' 
 
 The results of the first field season's operations were unfortunately 
 unsatisfactory : one of the transit instruments showed discordances 
 in the ' constant for collimation ' which were eventually traced to a 
 fault in the joint of a telescope, so the observations were rejected 
 and re-measurement was necessary. 
 
 During 1875-76 the following arcs were measured by Captains 
 Campbell and Heaviside : — 
 
 Haidarabad (Bolarum) — Bombay. ' Madras — Haidarabad (Bolarum). 
 Bellary^ Bombay. | Madras — Bellary. 
 
 Haidarabad (Bolarum) — Bellary. ! Bangalore — Bellary. 
 
 During the next year (1876-77) the following arcs were measured 
 by the same officers : — 
 
 Yizagapatam — Madras. 
 
 Vizagapatam — Bellary. 
 
 Mangalore — Bombay. 
 In almost all the cases the trigonometrical values were found to be 
 greater than the telegraphic. This is due partly to the circumstance 
 that the constants for the figure of the earth, used in the computa- 
 tions of the geodetic latitudes and longitudes of the Indian Survey, 
 are not quite exact, and partly to local deflections of the plumb-line 
 at the stations of observations, which indicate (in accordance, it may 
 be observed, with the results of Captain Basevi's pendulum observa- 
 tions) a probable greater density in the strata of the earth's crust 
 under the beds of oceans than under continents. 
 
 * Volume IX. of the operations of the Great Trigonometrioul Surve}' of India, 
 page xiv. 
 
GEODETIC OBSERVATIONS. 213 
 
 On the completion of the operations between Bombay and Manga- 
 lore, Captains Campbell and Ileaviside proceeded to determine tlie 
 differences of longitude between Bombay, Aden, and Suez, in order 
 to complete the connexion between England and India, of which the 
 section from Greenwich to Suez had been executed on the occasion 
 of the Transit of Venus in 1874, under instructions from Sir George 
 Airy, the Astronomer Royal. The Eastern Telegraph Company 
 kindly granted the gratuitous use of their cables, not only during the 
 actual work of signalling, but also during the preliminary tentative 
 measures. In these operations Captain Campbell devised a sort of 
 automatic method of comparing the clocks through the cables, so 
 that no personal errors of observing or repeating signals could 
 enter. The results were to establish the following values* : — 
 
 h. m. s. 
 
 Station at Aden - = 2 59 55-83 ~) 
 
 Observatory at Bombay = 4 51 15-81 I ^"^^^^ °.^, 
 rM_ X J Ti/f- -I ^ ^^ ;-r^ ^ . Greenwicn. 
 
 Observatory at Madras - = 5 20 59-S4J 
 
 The longitudes of all places in India are usually referred to Green- 
 wich through the Madras observatory, the position of which has 
 been determined at various times by astronomical observations. The 
 latest determination had been 5h. 20m, 57-3s., or 80° 14' 195' 
 east of Greenwich, and this had been for many years the accepted 
 value, being that given in the Nautical Almanac. The effect of 
 these electro-telegraphic observations was to show that this value 
 was about 2 seconds of time or 30-57 seconds of arc in deficit of 
 what is probably the, true value, i.e., 80° 14' 50-03" E.* 
 
 In 1877 both officers took furlough, and on their return the 
 Afghan war intervened, but in 1880-81 operations were resumed 
 and the following geodetic arcs were measured : — 
 
 Bombay — Disa. 
 Disa — Karachi. 
 Bombay — Karachi. 
 Jabalpur — Bombay. 
 
 Jabalpur — Haidarabad (Bolarum). 
 Jabalpur — Agra. 
 Jabalpur — Disa. 
 Agra — Disa. 
 
 During the following season seven arcs were measured between 
 Faizabad, Agra, Jabalpur, Hazaribagh, Calcutta, and Jalpaiguri, 
 
 * See p. xviii. of Vol. IX. of " Account of Operations of the Great Trigonometrical 
 " Survey of India." It has been recently suggested that Indian longitudes should be 
 referred direct to Greenwich, so as to avoid the discrepancies arising from the fact of the 
 true longitude of Madras Observatory being above 2| minutes west of its accepted 
 position on Indian maps. 
 
214 GEODETIC OBSEEVATIONS. 
 
 but owing to a defect in No. 2 transit telescope similar to that found 
 in 1872-73, three of these arcs were remeasured in the following year 
 as well as five new arcs, and in 1883-84 the operations moved east- 
 wards of Calcutta as far as Moulmein, thus completing the last 
 link between Karachi and Moulmein. 
 
 In 1884-85 Major Heaviside resumed the observations for 
 astronomical latitudes with the zenith sector, which had been in 
 abeyance since 1871-72. He observed at stations about half a degree 
 apart down the Amua meridional series, commencing about latitude 
 28° 30' N. and carrying them south over five degrees of the arc, 
 which was eventually to be extended to Madras in latitude 13° 4'. 
 The results are given in the appendix to the Survey Eeport for 
 1885-86, p. Iviii. 
 
 No fewer than nine arcs were measured for longitude by electro- 
 telegraph in 1885-86, but, unfortunately, when the results came to 
 be reduced and compared in the recess season, it was found there 
 was a mysterious source of appreciable error, for out of five verifi- 
 catory circuits-]- three exhibited errors between a quarter and a third 
 of a second of time. These irregularities were investigated with 
 the greatest care during the following season by Colonel Haig, 
 Lieutenant S. G. Burrard, R.E., and Mr. Eccles, and every possible 
 interchange of observers, telescopes, electrical apparatus, and stations 
 was secured in a series of observations on a short experimental arc 
 at Dehra Dun. The observations tended to show that the longitude 
 operations had been harassed by three sources of error, viz., (1) 
 electrical, (2) local, and (3) instrumental. But it must be borne in 
 mind that these so-called errors are intrinsically so minute as to be 
 of no consideration whatever, except from a purely scientific point 
 of view. J 
 
 * The whole of the details and results of the observations from 1875-76 to 1883-84 
 will be found in Vols. IX. and X. of the " Account of the Great Trigonometrical 
 '" Survey," &c. mentioned in the previous note. 
 
 I Any three arcs forming a triangle offer a verificatory circuit : 
 thus the sum of the arcs A B and B C is equal to the arc A C, 
 therefore, if the sum of the measured arcs A B and B C differs 
 from the measured arc A C the difference is due to error of 
 measurement in one or more arcs. 
 
 X They have since been traced to the determinations of the errors of coUimation of the 
 telescopes, which indicate either slight weakness in the telescope tubes, or irregularities 
 in the object glasses, which were not always exactly centered between the collimators 
 in determining the collimation. 
 
GEODETIC OBSERVATIONS. 215 
 
 During the eariy part of tMs season (1886-87) Lieutenant Burrard 
 continued the latitude observations with, the zenith section near the 
 meridian of 80°, observing at five stations and so extending the arc 
 to about latitude 20° N. The longitude operations were resumed 
 in Southern India, and the following arcs were measured : — 
 
 1. Madras — Bangalore. 
 
 2. Bangalore — -Nagarkoil (near Cape Comorin). 
 
 3. Madras — Nagarkoil. 
 
 4. Nagarkoil — Mangalore. 
 
 5. Madras — Mangalore. 
 
 6. Bellary — ^Mangalore. 
 
 7. Mangalore — Bombay. 
 
 Nos. 1 and 5 were revisions of the work executed in 1872-73 and 
 rejected (as mentioned above) owing to a fault in the telescopes, and 
 No. 7 the arc which was left incomplete in 1876-77. 
 
 Three of the old arcs in Southern India were revised in addition 
 to four new ones being measured. The season's measurements tended 
 to confirm a curious geodetic fact that the plumb-line round the 
 coasts of India deviates in the direction of the sea. They were also 
 satisfactory in showing a diminution in the circuit errors which was 
 probably as small as can be expected, while the value obtained for 
 arc No. 7 differed only by 0"023 of a second from the value of the 
 same arc as measured in 1876-77. 
 
 Operations were resumed in 1889-90 in the Punjab, Baluchistan, 
 and Central India. Seven arcs were measured, including the 
 revision of one formerly measured in Baluchistan, and the measure- 
 ment of a cross-arc, Agra-Karachi. 
 
216 
 
 X. 
 SUPPLY OP SCIBNTIPIO INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 The supply of accurate instruments constructed on the most 
 recently approved principles by skilled mechanicians has largely 
 conduced to the precision of modern surveys. In 1862 the Secretary 
 of State perceiving that the supply and examination of instruments 
 for use in India were requirements likely to increase rather than 
 the reverse, appointed Lieutenant-Colonel A. Strange, P.R.S., to 
 supervise and test all scientific instruments destined for India. 
 Colonel Strange was an officer possessing high qualifications for the 
 post ; he had had considerable practical experience in trigono- 
 metrical surveying, while his mechanical genius and knowledge of 
 mathematical, geodetical, and astronomical instruments were not 
 surpassed by any man in England. A special observatory* and 
 office were erected at the India Store Depot in Belvedere Road, 
 Lambeth, and since then the examination of instruments has steadily 
 proceeded, the numbei- of kinds of instruments annually dealt with 
 being now close on 200, or about twice as many as in 1871. The 
 effect has been to bring about a vast improvement in the quality of 
 the appliances. In the early part of 1876 Colonel Strange died, and 
 in June of the same year the Secretary of State appointed 
 Mr. Thomas Cushing, P.R.A.S., to succeed him as Inspector of 
 Scientific Instruments. Mr. Cushing had also had much practical 
 training and experience in his earlier career as a scientific 
 mechanician, besides having been for nine years assistant to Colonel 
 Strange. During the last three years the number of instruments 
 examined by him has averaged about 10,000 per annum (valued at 
 30,000^.) as against 7,000 in 1871.f Among them may be specially 
 mentioned a six-inch equatoreal telescope, a large reflecting telescope 
 and an observatory dome for the Poona College of Science, as well as 
 costly physical apparatus of a varied kind for the use of colleges in 
 India, amounting in value to 1,714L Por the Survey Department 
 only instruments of the highest order are sent out, long experience 
 having shown this is most economical in the end. 
 
 * A description of tlie observatory will bo found at page 201 of the " Memoir on 
 the Indian Surveys" (2nd ed.). 
 
 I Appendix I. shows the character, number, and value of the scieutilic instruments 
 examined at the Lambeth Observatory during the three years ended 1890. 
 
SUPPLY OF SCIENTIFIC INSl'llUMENTS. 217 
 
 In the year 1879 Mr. CusMng brouglit out a new form of levelling 
 instrument which he called a " reversible " level. The objects were 
 to facilitate the adjustmenl^, make the instrument more compact 
 and rigid, and render the surveyor independent of the aid of an 
 instrument-maker should anything go wrong when in the field. 
 Several hundreds are in use at the present time in India. 
 
 The tide-predictor, constructed for the Indian Government by 
 Messrs. Lege and Co., is located in the observatory at Lambeth, 
 and vvith its aid tide-tables for upwards of 20 ports are annually 
 printed and forwarded to India towards the end of the year pre- 
 ceding the one for which they are prepared. The tides for several 
 ports are also predicted for the Colonial Office. This work is very 
 ably done by Mr. B. Roberts of the Nautical Almanac Office.* 
 
 During the year 1889 three new standard yard measures were 
 constructed in England by Messrs. Troughton and Simms as 
 primary standards of length for the Governments of Bengal, Bombay, 
 and Madras, and were verified by the Standards Department of the 
 Board of Trade. It may be interesting to know that these important 
 standards do not absolutely agree in length, but they are probably 
 as near as human skill can make them. The standard temperature 
 of India having been fixed at 85' Fahrenheit, the certificates of 
 verification, which were forwarded to the respective Governments 
 with the standards, show their respective lengths at that temperature, 
 which are as follows : — 
 
 Bombay - 36-00023406 inches. 
 
 Calcutta - 36-00039041 „ 
 
 Madras - 36-00007206 „ 
 
 And the co-efficient of expansion in each case is the 0-0003744 of 
 an inch. 
 
 The mints of Calcutta and Bombay were each supplied in 1889 
 with new sets of standard tola weights, all of which were verified 
 by the Standards Department of the Board of Trade, and the 
 tables of errors were supplied to the respective mints with the 
 weights in question. 
 
 The Calcutta mint also received a large balance, constructed by 
 Napier, for weighing silver. It was a splendid piece of mechanism, 
 made to carry upwards of 380 lbs. avoirdupois in each pan and to 
 
 * For a description of Uie tide predictor, see p. 199. 
 
218 SUPPLY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 turn with two grains, which, is a quantity less than the one-millionth 
 of the weight in each pan. It is needless to say that such accuracy 
 requires the highest mechanical skill in the construction, and such a 
 balance, which must necessarily be costly, deserves the greatest 
 possible care in use, notwithstanding that it is so constructed that 
 the pans can be loaded before the knife-edge is brought into contact 
 with the plane on which it acts in weighing. 
 
 Besides the above department in London there is a similar depart- 
 ment in Calcutta called the Mathematical Instrument Office, which 
 receives and takes charge when necessary of all the instruments 
 constructed in Europe for the Survey Department, manufactures those 
 which can be made most economically in India, repairs those which 
 are damaged, and keeps up a stock of serviceable instruments for issue 
 to the Survey and other public departments in the Bengal Presidency. 
 It has always been under the superintendence either of the Deputy 
 Surveyor- General or one of the senior officers stationed in Calcutta, 
 but it was not until 1877 that a report on this branch was issued. 
 Since then the work done has been regularly noticed in the Surveyor- 
 General's Report. In April 1878 the number of instruments in 
 store at Calcutta was nearly 37,000, about a third of which belonged 
 to the Public Works Department and a nearly equal number to the 
 Survey, the remaining third being distributed among other depart- 
 ments. The principal description of instruments issued are : — • 
 
 To the Survey Department. — Aneroid barometers, binoculars, 
 chains, magnetic compasses, drawing instruments, heliotropes, 
 reading lenses, plane-tables, planimeters, protractors, flat rules, 
 scales of various sorts, optical squares, telescopes, and theodolites. 
 
 To the Marine Department, — Barometers, binoculars, Massey's 
 patent logs, carpenters' rules, drawing instruments, sympiesometers, 
 telescopes, and thermometers (but all in very small numbers). 
 
 To the Military Department. — Pocket aneroid barometers, sketching 
 cases, prismatic compasses, drawing instruments, reflecting levels, 
 protractors, scales of various sorts, pocket sextants, and tapes. 
 
 To the Public Works Department. — Drawing boards, chains, 
 compasses, curves, drawing instruments, levels, protractors, car- 
 penters', rules, flat rules, scales of various sorts, levelling staves, 
 tapes, and theodolites. 
 
 To Miscellaneous Departments, viz., Meteorological Department, 
 Telegraph Department, Educational Department, and others.-— 
 
SUPPLY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS. 219 
 
 Aneroid barometers, chains, drawing instruments, prismatic com- 
 passes, surveying compasses, protractors, flat rules, scales of various 
 sorts, pocket sextants, tapes^thermometers, and wind-vanes. 
 
 The rates at which instruments were locally purchased in Calcutta 
 in 1879 were, on the average, about 34^ per cent, higher than those 
 at which the instruments received from England had been issued to 
 the public service, and which were themselves 20 per cent, above 
 their English prices, in order to cover freight and other charges. 
 Moreover, the articles purchased in the local market were seldom 
 equal in quality to those received from England. 
 
 The departmental manufactures, valued at about 10,000 Es. in 
 1878, and consisting chiefly of chains, hand map-printing machines, 
 drawiag boards, plane-tables, pluviometers, stands for compasses, 
 plane-table telescopes, &c., were issued, as far as could be ascertained, 
 at about two-thirds of the value at which similar articles could be 
 issued if procured from England. In repairing too a very consider- 
 able amount of work is done, i.e., about twice as much as in 
 manufacturing. Among the repairs was that of the great 24-inch 
 theodolite which was used with great success by Colonel Branfill in 
 Southern India, and among the new instruments manufactured was 
 an idiometer, designed by Lieutenant- Colonel W. M. Campbell, R.E., 
 the object of which was to aff'ord means of measuring the absolute 
 personal equations in observations of star transits recorded on a 
 chronograph. The general arrangement is that of a moveable 
 frame carrying vertical wires in imitation of the wires of a telescope, 
 which passes in front of a fixed imitation star ; a small observing 
 telescope is attached to the wire frame so as to follow its 
 movements, and thus the appearance of fixed wires and a moveable 
 star is obtained. As each wire passes the star two signals are 
 recorded on the chronograph, one by the observer and the other 
 automatically by the instrument. 
 
 In 1884 a fine circular dividing machine by Troughton and Simms, 
 which had been obtained from England some years previously for 
 the Madras Public Works Department workshops, and had lain 
 there unused, was transferred to the Mathematical Instrument 
 Office, where it was set up. It proved to be of great use, enabling 
 the limbs and verniers of many damaged theodolites, which 
 would otherwise have had to be rejected or sent to England for 
 repair, to be re- divided. In the foUowilig year a machine was 
 imported from England for the purpose of testing all aneroid 
 
220 SUPPLY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 barometers by a standard, in lieu of sending them to the 
 Meteorological Dejjartment, 
 
 In 1.S88 the Mathematical Instrument Department was located in 
 its present handsome building,* which had been commenced the 
 year previously. The transfer from the old house (one of the 
 oldest in Calcutta) was not too soon, for some of the beams showed 
 unmistakeable signs of collapse, and the steam engine had to be 
 stopped for fear of disaster. It was found that the large majority 
 of the beams had been gutted by white ants, and it was fortunate 
 that the house did not fall to ruins before it was vacated. The new 
 building has fairly ample accommodation for workmen, stores, &c., 
 there is an observatory on the roof in which a transit instrument 
 has been set up for rating chronometers, and a new steam engine 
 and shafting have been erected. 
 
 During the last 12 years there has been a great increase in the 
 work of the Department, necessitated by fresh annexations of 
 territory in Burma and Baluchistan, the development of railways, 
 roads and public works, and a general increase in the scientific 
 requii-ements of the administration. The number of instruments 
 issued in the year 1887-88 Avas 57,293, valued at Rs. 2,25,599, while 
 out of the total stock 7,387, valued at Rs. 1,16,246, were procured 
 from England, 31,846, valued at Rs. 35,252, were purchased in the 
 local market, and 17,960, valued at Rs. 33,320, were manufactured 
 in the Mathematical Instrument workshop. The last number shows 
 a large increase, nearly 100 per cent, over the figures of the previous 
 year, and the value has risen by nearly Rs. 10,000. 
 
 * Thcro is a ca|)ital photograph of the new building at page 92 of the Surveyor- 
 General's Report for 1887-88. 
 
221 
 
 • XI. 
 
 HEADQUAETERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 The Headquarters Offices of tlie Department of the Surveyor- 
 G-eneral comprise six different offices, five in Calcutta, and one in 
 Dehra Dun, whence the operations are directed, and where the 
 results of the field surveys are worked up into final shape for general 
 administrative use. These offices consist of — 
 
 (1.) The Surveyor- Greneral's Office (including also the drawing, 
 engraving, and map issue branches). 
 
 (2.) The Lithographic Office. 
 
 (3.) The Photographic Office. 
 
 (4.) The Mathematical Instrument Office. 
 
 (5.) The Revenue Survey Office. 
 
 (All at Calcutta.) 
 
 (6.) The Trigonometrical Survey Office at Dehra Dun. 
 
 In 1877 the Calcutta branches were still in different buildings 
 some distance apart one from another, and a good deal of incon- 
 venience was felt in consequence. This anomaly and inconvenience 
 had long been felt and recognised by Government sanctioning designs 
 for new offices ; but it was not till 1882 that -any part of the new 
 building was sufficiently advanced to be occupied. In that year 
 the new building designed to accommodate the Surveyor- General's 
 and Revenue Survey Offices was ready, and within a month after 
 the close of the year the houses in Park Street and Middleton Street, 
 in which the offices had previously been located, were vacated, and 
 the entire stock of maps and records — the collection of nearly a 
 century — of copper plates, and plant of all descriptions, was trans- 
 ferred to their new quarters. The new building proved to be well 
 designed and constructed. It is commodious and airy ; it gives 
 sufficient space for all the members of the office, and excellent 
 accommodation and lighting for the engravers and draftsmen, who 
 had long had to work in crowded and inadequately lighted rooms. 
 In 1882-83 it was decided to amalgamate the correspondence and 
 accounts offices of the Surveyor- General's Office and the Revenue 
 
ooo 
 
 HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Survey Olfice under one Registrar, and form three sub-offices, the Sur- 
 veyor-General's Office, the Eeveuue Branch, and the Topographical 
 Branch Offices, each under the immediate supervision of its own 
 head clerk. The work of the Drawing Office divides itself so dis- 
 tinctly into two classes, the geographical drawing and that connected 
 Avith large scale revenue maps, that it was found advisable to keep 
 up two sections of the office for the two classes of work, though 
 for administrative work the clerical staff were all amalgamated into 
 one list under one Assistant Surveyor-General. The new building 
 for the accommodation of the photographic and lithographic offices 
 was not completed till 1889 and was finally taken into occupation 
 at the end of September in that year. These offices which had been 
 for many years scattered between three houses, of which one was 
 at some distance from the others, were thus concentrated under one 
 roof, and this concentration, together with the introduction of 
 steam printing machines, enables them to work with far greater 
 economy and efficiency than was possible previously. 
 
 A large and important part of the work of the Surveyor- General's 
 Office consists in compiling urgent maps and preparing pressing 
 data for other departments. With a view to prevent interruption 
 of work and to ensure a more perfect scrutiny of the geographical 
 compilations and publications, a special examining branch was 
 organised in 1877-78, and located in a separate part of the Surveyor- 
 General's Office. 
 
 The engraving branch have to cope with two classes of work, 
 viz. : — (1) the sheets of the Indian Atlas on the quarter-inch scale, 
 and (2) provincial and other compilations and maps of India on 
 smaller scales than the atlas. The increasing amount of labour 
 thrown on the branch made it necessary after a time for the data 
 engraved on the copper to be confined to the results of actual 
 survey, all questionable details being left blank or drawn on the 
 plate by hair lines. The engraving branch contains a large 
 number of natives who have been trained by Mr. Coard, the late 
 superintendent, and his assistants to do the more mechanical part 
 of the work very satisfactorily. But strange to say, the natives do 
 not appear to possess the artistic skill requisite for hill etching, 
 though at first sight it was imagined that this was precisely the 
 class of work at which they might be expected to excel, and so 
 the hill engraving has had to be assigned almost entirely to 
 Europeans. 
 
HEADQUAKTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 223 
 
 A considerable amount of labour was thrown on the Department 
 by the preparation of a list of the latitudes and longitudes of all the 
 places in Dr. Hunter's Imperial Gazetteer of India. This was 
 successfully completed in 1^9. 
 
 In July 1878 Captain Waterhouse went to Europe on privilege 
 leave and visited the Paris Exhibition and other places to investigate 
 the most recent improvements in photography as applied to map 
 reproduction. He also studied the process of heliogravure^' practised 
 at the Military Greographical Institute, and secured for the Depart- 
 ment the right of using Mr. Willis's flatinotype process, a good 
 permanent substitute for silver printing. 
 
 During the year 1879-80 the demand for maps of Afghanistan 
 was very great and urgent, and it taxed the resources of the 
 Department to the utmost to utilise speedily the new surveys which 
 kept coming in from the seat of war from time to time. Five 
 editions of the large map issued under the successive titles of the 
 two routes to Kabul and the seat of war in Northern Afghanistan 
 were compiled and published on the quarter-inch scale. Two 
 editions of the map of Quetta to Kalat-i-Ghilzai and Girishk and a 
 first edition of the map of Sibi to Qaetta and Tal-Chotiali to the 
 Pishin valley were published on the same scale, and a new map of 
 Southern Afghanistan and Baluchistan was also taken in hand and 
 completed during the ensuing year. 
 
 The process of steel-facing the copper plates of the Indian Atlas 
 to prevent wear has proved very successful. For some years a 
 large number of the plates had been thus treated and none of them 
 showed the least sign of wear or of suffering from rust, while the 
 system possessed another advantage in the fact that it was no longer 
 necessary to make transfers from the copper to stone, and that the 
 clearer and sharper impressions could be taken directly from the 
 plate without fear of injury to its surface. 
 
 A very useful engraved general map of India on the scale of 
 32 miles to the inch was completed in 1881, to take the place of the 
 old skeleton map which had done duty for many years. Progress was 
 also made with two smaller maps on the scales of 64 and 96 miles to 
 the inch, respectively. During the same year the map of Southern 
 Afghanistan in four sheets was also issued. There was a con- 
 siderable diminution in the out-turn of geographical and military 
 maps owing to the withdrawal of the British troops from 
 
 * Described in the Appendix to the Survey Keport for 1881-82. 
 
224 HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Afghanistan ; but, on the other hand, there was a great increase 
 in the number of cadastral maps printed, the voluminous character 
 of which has always proved a very laborious undertaking. 
 
 The despatch of the Indian troops to Egypt in 1881-82 neces- 
 sitated the drawing and publication of a map of Lower Egypt, as 
 well as maps of the Suez Canal, Cairo, and Alexandria. All these 
 came into great demand on the outbreak of hostilities. Happily the 
 collection in the Survey Department contained some excellent 
 French maps of Egypt, and from these single specimens large 
 numbers of copies were rapidly obtained by photo-zincography, 
 issued to the troops, and also sold to the public. 
 
 In September of the same year (1881) the Venice Geographical 
 Congress and Exhibition took place. Colonel C. T. Haig, R.E., was 
 delegated thither by the Government of India as their representative, 
 and Sir Henry Thuillier and Captain Baird were subsequently deputed 
 in the same capacity from England by the Secretary of State. Sir 
 H. Thuillier and Colonel Haig were also appointed British Commis- 
 sioners by Lord Granville. Collections of maps, charts, &c., were 
 despatched by the Indian Government, Ordnance Survey, and 
 Admiralty, and the Indian delegates obligingly took charge of the 
 arrangement and organisation of the English maps, &c., in addition 
 to their own exhibits, which included a large and representative 
 selection of Indian maps, as weil as the great theodolite and other 
 survey and tidal instruments. Two letters of distinction (the highest 
 award) were given to the Survey of India in Classes I. and VIII., as 
 well as two medals for native explorers (already mentioned at page 88, 
 note), a diploma of honour to the Marine Survey of India, a medal 
 to Captain Baird for his tidal work in Class II., a medal in Class I. 
 to Colonel Haig for his topographical maps of Gujrat, and a medal 
 in Class VI. to Lr. Hunter for his Gazetteer of India.* 
 
 A map, based on triangulation, of the Nizam's dominions was 
 commenced in the following year, the old topographical sheets being 
 re-drawn in the regular standard forms on the one and half inch 
 scales and in a style fit for reproduction by photo-zincography. The 
 materials were very old, being derived from surveys in the 
 early part of the century. Unfortunately though old they are the 
 only materials available, no modem survey having been as yet made 
 of this enormous expanse of country in Southern India, though 
 detached portions here and there have fallen into the field of 
 adjoining parties. During the same year (1882-83) an irrigation 
 
 See Keports in Appendix to Indian Survey Report for 1880-81. 
 
HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTME^fT. 225 
 
 map of the North-West Provinces on the scale of eight miles to the 
 inch and a rainfall chart of India with eight gradations of colour 
 were also prepared. The teliogravure process also made steady 
 progress, and seven plates were turned out, four being for the 
 Greological Survey, one outline map of Simla and Jutog, and two 
 plates of a view of the great Kan-chan-janga mountain. 
 
 In 1883-84 some of the special maps drawn for the Calcutta 
 International Exhibition were prepared for pubHcation, viz., those 
 exhibiting trade routes, distribution of religions, missionary stations, 
 density of population, distribution of languages and river basins ; 
 the rainfall, railway, and telegraph maps having been already 
 published. 
 
 An elaborate plaster of Paris model map, based on the 32-mile 
 map of India, showing all the hills as well as the scale would allow, 
 was completed for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 
 by Major Charles Strahan, R.E. The vertical scale was 12 times the 
 horizontal, hence the highest peaks of the Himalayas were nearly 
 two inches high.* In the same year (1884) a very successful repro- 
 duction of a quarter atlas sheet by the electrotyping process was 
 made by Colonel Waterhouse, the method of scraping away the faulty 
 parts from the matrix being suitable where large corrections on a plate 
 are required and the ordinary mode of cutting out and hammering 
 up from behind might seriously damage the plate. Considerable 
 progress was also made in the various processes of heliogravure by 
 the electrotyping and etching methods, and 79 plates (principally 
 of photographs of Indian art-works taken in the Calcutta Exhibition) 
 were produced. Considerable attention was also given to the 
 reproduction of maps, and some very successful experiments were 
 made in reproducing brush-shaded maps by the photo-etching 
 process. With suitable original drawings the heliogravure processes 
 can be made to render immense service in the cheap and speedy 
 production of engraved maps. The process of electrotyping was 
 also applied to the duplication of the engraved sheets of the Atlas of 
 India so as to adapt them for temporary issue, pending engraving 
 of the final results, and good progress was also made with the 
 photo-collotype process which was used for plates of coins for the 
 Asiatic Society, for botanical plates, and the like. The principal map 
 completed in the Lithographic Office during the year was a contour 
 map of India in six sheets on the scale of 1 inch to 32 miles. 
 
 * This relief map has since been presented to the Imperiiil Institute. 
 I Y 20321. P 
 
226 HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 During 1885-S6 a great deal of drawing and compiling work was 
 done for the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London. A map 
 was prepared showing the import and export trade of India with 
 other countries, and a series of maps showing at a glance the 
 percentage of various crops grown in different districts of India, 
 with other maps showing density of population, religions, emigra- 
 tion, external trade, land settlement and revenue, and geology of 
 India was also completed. 
 
 In the Lithographic Office a series of maps were prepared for Sir 
 E. Buck's Statistical Atlas of India, and the map of the Nizam's 
 dominions in two sheets on the 16-mile scale referred to above was 
 printed off. 
 
 The following year (1886-87) was marked by a great demand for 
 maps of Afghanistan and Baluchistan, consequent on the events 
 on the Afghan frontier. Compilations from rough military recon- 
 naissances in Burma had also to be undertaken. The Engraving 
 Office lost the services of Mr. 0. W. Coard, the superintendent, who 
 had been selected, together with a small staff of engravers, in 1868 
 by Colonel Thuillier, then Surveyor-Greneral, to take up the 
 engraving of the Indian Atlas sheets. Mr. Coard had done excellent 
 work during his tenure of office, and had left the engraving 
 branch in a high state of efficiency. He was succeeded by 
 Mr. G. G-. Palmer. 
 
 The work done in the heliogravure and collotype sections was 
 more satisfactory in quantity and quality than previously, both 
 processes having quite emerged from the experimental stage into 
 practical methods. A commencement was made in reproducing 
 archaeological drawings for the use of art schools and also for the 
 illustration of the Journal of Indian Art. 
 
 During 1887-88 greater strain was put on the geographical 
 drawing and compiling branch in consequence of the necessity 
 of preparing general maps of Burma and sheets of the F.W. 
 frontier, and it was with difficulty that sufficient material could be 
 got ready to keep the engravers employed. To remedy this it 
 was arranged that all the N.W. frontier mapping, except 
 Baluchistan, should be undertaken at the Trigonometrical Branch 
 Office at Dehra Dun, leaving the Burma maps to be dealt with in 
 the Calcutta Office. 
 
 One of the principal features of the period under review has been 
 the introduction of the heliogravure processes for the direct repro- 
 duction of delicate drawings in line or of half-tone subjects of all 
 
HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 227 
 
 kinds, and of electrotyping for the duplication and correction of 
 hand-engraved maps. 
 
 The first experiments in he^ogravure were made, with fair success, 
 about 1877 with a photo-electrotype process based on Geymet's, 
 which was originally brought out by Mr. J. W. Swan, the inventor 
 of the carbon process. In the following year Captain Waterhouse, 
 while in Europe on privilege leave, visited the Military Geographical 
 Institute at "Vienna, at that time the only large geographical office 
 working the process, and obtained a good deal of valuable informa- 
 tion regarding it ; but little progress was made till 1882, when he 
 introduced a new process for producing " grain " on the plates of 
 half-tone subjects which he had worked out, with the aid of the 
 Autotype Company, while on furlough in 1880-81. In this process 
 the wet-gelatine relief is dusted over with sand or some similar 
 granular material, previously waterproofed by treatment with a greasy 
 substance like wax, so that it might easily be removed from the 
 gelatine relief when dry. The eflFect of the sand was to roughen 
 the gelatine surface proportionately to the depth of gelatine and so 
 produce a graduated grain stronger in the shadows than in the 
 lights. The gelatine surface was then blacl-cleaded and electrotyped. 
 In this way an engraved mezzotint plate was produced from which 
 very perfect half-tone prints could be printed. This process proved 
 very valuable for the production of some 3,000 copies of the " Award 
 Certificate" of the Calcutta Exhibition in 1883-84, and several 
 plates of illustrations of Indian art-ware in the Exhibition as well 
 as of brush shaded maps and drawings were reproduced by it, but 
 owing to climatic causes it was always rather a difficult process to 
 work, and the plates required a good deal of touching up. 
 
 In 1884, with the assistance of a skilful carbon printer, Mr. A. W. 
 Turner, experiments were made with the photo-etching process, 
 which was on the same principle as the photoglyphic process 
 originally invented by Fox Talbot, and which had recently been 
 re-introduced with modifications by Herr Kli§ of Yienna. 
 
 The process was worked out successfully on the bare information 
 obtainable from the photographic journals, but further improve- 
 ments, learnt at the Military Geographical Institute in Vienna, 
 during Colonel Waterhouse's furlough in 1886, were introduced in 
 1887, and since that time the process has been working on a 
 perfectly practical footing and is found very valuable for all kinds 
 of delicate work in line or half-tone. It has the great advantage 
 
 P 2 
 
228 HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 over plioto-coUotype, whicli was also worked with some success aL 
 Calcutta, that the copper plates can be worked on and lettered and, 
 if protected by a coating of steel, are capable of yielding an 
 unlimited number of equally good impressions, whereas the tender 
 gelatine film of the photo-collotype plate will stand no touching up 
 or coiTection, is difiicult to print under varying conditions of 
 temperature and humidity, and at best will only yield a compara- 
 tively small number of good impressions, while all lettering has 
 usually to be added by a separate printing. Consequently, photo- 
 collotype is being discarded in favour of photo-etching. 
 
 The principal applications of the photo-etching process have been 
 for the reproduction of some very delicate drawings of insects in 
 pencil and Indian ink, for the illustration of the " Indian Museum 
 Notes," also for botanical and histological plates from the original 
 drawings or photographs, illustrating the " Memoirs by the Medical 
 Officers of the Army in India." A large proportion of the plates, 
 illustrating Dr. Fiihrer's Report on the Sharqi remains at Jaunpur, 
 both from photographs and line drawings, were done by this process, 
 and no other would have answered so well. It is also steadily 
 utilised for the reproduction of a series of technical drawings of 
 architectural ornaments, &c., taken from the drawings of the 
 Archa3ological Surveys and issued for the use of art schools and 
 workmen of various kinds in all the provinces of India. 
 
 Attempts have been made from time to time to apply the process 
 to the reproduction of brush-shaded maps and by its means enable 
 a preliminary issue of the sheets of the Atlas of India to be made 
 pending the completion of the hill-etching by hand, which is always 
 a tedious operation. There are, however, great difficulties to be 
 overcome in reproducing lines and brushwork together, which have 
 practically prevented its utilisation in this way, although it is 
 always kept in view. The process might be more largely applied 
 to the reproduction of maps in line, but the difficulty has been to 
 obtain a stafi" of highly trained draughtsmen capable of turning 
 out the original drawings in a sufficiently good style for direct 
 engraving. The necessity for constant corrections on the maps 
 also militates very greatly against the preparation of highly finished 
 drawings capable of competing against hand engravings. The 
 process has, however, been successfully applied to the reproduction 
 of the maps of the Andaman Islands on the J-inch scale, by reduc- 
 tion from the original standard sheets on double the scale, and, no 
 
HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 2ii9 
 
 doubt, as time goes on, it will be mucli more lai'gely employed for 
 map work. 
 
 The process of electro typjpg wa.s first introduced in connexion 
 with the photo-electrotype process of heliogravure about 1882, 
 and has proved very valuable in connexion with that process, and 
 also as an economical, means of duplicating engraved plates of 
 standard maps in various stages of their progress, in order to 
 obtain skeleton maps with varying amounts of detail, suitable for 
 the illustration of reports and other administrative purposes. It 
 has also been found very useful in carrying out extensive cor- 
 rections on the engraved plates ; a matrix being made from the 
 original plate, the parts in relief corresponding to the parts to be 
 corrected are scraped away and a duplicate plate is electrotyped on 
 which the faulty parts present a blank flat space upon which the 
 new details required can be engraved. The process is scarcely ever 
 used, as it is at the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton, for 
 producing printing plates, as the process of steel-facing which 
 enables the original engraved plates to be printed from without 
 injury has been found to be cheaper and more suitable for the 
 requirements of the Indian Office. 
 
 The electrotyping method in use is practically the same as was 
 practised for many years at the Military Geographical Institute in 
 Vienna, and consists of a horizontal single-cell apparatus in which 
 an electrical couple is formed by the copper plate to be deposited 
 on, which rests on a suitable support in a bath of sulphate of 
 copper, and an iron plate immersed in dilute sulphuric acid, 
 contained in an upper tray with a leathern bottom which forms 
 a porous diaphragm. These batteries are found to work with 
 regularity and practical economy, being very simple in working and 
 easily looked after by natives. The electrotyping work is done 
 in the Photographic Office. 
 
 Probably the most important cartographical work of the Calcutta 
 Office is the Indian Atlas. This great work is on the scale of four 
 miles to the inch ; it is the standard map of India, and embodies the 
 results of the detailed surveys. It is designed to cover 181 full 
 sheets, 40 inches by 27, on the globular projection and scale 
 originally proposed by Mr. Aaron Arrowsmith, and the region 
 embraced extends from Karachi to Singapore and from Gilgit to 
 Cape Comorin. It also includes Ceylon. The original sheets, for 
 which the Madras Topographical Surveys furnished the materials, 
 
230 
 
 HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 were produced by Mr. John Walker in 1827. In 1864, with a view 
 to expedite the work, a proposal was made by the Surveyor-General 
 that the Atlas should bo brought out in quarter sheets, and this was 
 agreed to by Mr. Walker. The convenience of this mode of publi- 
 cation has been universally I'ecognised since and the practice 
 uniformly adhered to, the old full sheets being now discontinued. 
 In 1868 the engraving of the Indian Atlas was formally transferred 
 to Calcutta, and a small but efficient staff of experienced engravers 
 under Mr. 0. Coard, was engaged by Colonel (now Sir Henry) 
 Thuillier, the Surveyor-General. These were reinforced in 1872 by 
 fresh hands selected by Colonel J. T. Walker, who at the same 
 time made arrangements for the completion of the engraving of 
 all the plates remaining in England. Since 1876 the engraving 
 has been carried on entirely in Calcutta at the headquarters of the 
 Surveyor-General, within easy reach of the compilers and surveyors, 
 to whom reference is made in cases of doubt or difficulty. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that the Indian Atlas, though 
 commenced as far back as 18'25, is near completion.* This arises 
 
 * The foUoAving table, taken from Captain George M. Wheeler's (U.S. Arm)-) 
 admirable report npou the Thirrl International Geographical Congress and Exhibition 
 at Venice in 1881, will serve to show how far the European countries had advanced 
 in 1 885 towards the completion of their general topographic maps : — 
 
 Country. 
 
 Area in 
 Square Miles. 
 
 Scales. 
 
 Number of 
 
 Sheets when 
 
 complete. 
 
 Number 
 completed. 
 
 How 
 reproduced.f 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 123,185 
 
 1: 63,360 
 
 696 
 
 412 
 
 C. 
 
 Germany 
 
 208,368 
 
 1:100,000 
 
 674 
 
 417 
 
 C. 
 
 Austro-Hungary 
 
 241, .5.53 
 
 1: 75,000 
 
 720 
 
 578 
 
 Hlg. 
 
 Trance 
 
 205,976 
 
 1: 50,000 
 
 1,092 
 
 20j 
 
 Z. 
 
 Algeria 
 
 166,023 
 
 1: 50,000 
 
 327 
 
 23 
 
 Z. 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 15,978 
 
 1:100,000 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 c. 
 
 Holland 
 
 13,740 
 
 1: 50,000 
 
 62 
 
 62 
 
 S. 
 
 Spain 
 
 193,286 
 
 1: 50,000 
 
 1,080 
 
 29 
 
 s. 
 
 Italy 
 
 111,405 
 
 1 : 100,000 
 
 277 
 
 109 
 
 I'h. z. 
 
 Sweden 
 
 173,967 
 
 1:100,000 
 
 232 
 
 64 
 
 C. 
 
 Russia 
 
 2,129,201 
 
 1:126,000 
 
 972§ 
 
 505 
 
 C. 
 
 Belgium 
 
 11,375 
 
 1: 40,000 
 
 72 
 
 72 
 
 C. 
 
 Denmark (Jutland) - 1 
 „ (Islands) -J 
 
 14,788 j 
 
 1: 40,000 
 1: 80,000 
 
 131 
 
 29 
 
 69 
 29 
 (in quarter 
 sheets). 
 
 C. 
 
 c. 
 
 Norway 
 
 125,646 
 
 1 : 100,000 
 
 54 
 
 43 
 
 C. and S. 
 
 Portugal 
 
 34,418 
 
 1:100,000 
 
 37 
 
 22 
 
 S. 
 
 t C. Copper engraving ; S. Stone engraving ; Z. Zincography ; Ph. z. and Ph. 1. Photo-zincography 
 and Photo-lithography ; Hlg. Heliogravure. 
 
 X This map is intended to supersede the fitat Major map on the scale of 1 : 80,000 in 273 sheets, 
 which was commenced n 1819 and finished in 1881. 
 
 § Approximate, 
 
HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 231 
 
 partly from the magnitude of the scheme which embraces the whole 
 of Burma and the Malay peninsulas and partly from the necessity 
 of replacing the sheets compiled from old surveys by more accurate 
 work as soon as practicable. .The last index map shows that nearly 
 the whole of India west of Burma has been conipleted and published, 
 the exceptions being Nepal and parts of Gujrat and Kajputana. 
 But the greater part of the Punjab, the Lower Provinces, Madras, 
 Haidarabad, the Berars, the western part of the Bombay Presidency, 
 and Sind are derived from old materials and will have to be 
 re -engraved. In fact, the Indian Atlas sheets that are based on 
 trustworthy surveys (which consist for the main part of a broad 
 belt running north-west and south-east from the Punjab to Jeypur 
 and the Mahanadi, with the addition of Assam, Kathiawar, and 
 the greater part of Cutch) are less numerous than those which do 
 not come up to the modern standard of accuracy. It will thus be 
 seen that there is an enormous area still awaiting the energies of 
 the Department both in mapping and field work before even a 
 satisfactory first survey of India is available. 
 
 The number of sheets according to the original scheme of the 
 Indian Atlas was 177, which included the whole of Burma (at that 
 time independent of the British Crown) right up to, and even 
 beyond, the Salwen river. Events have proved that this precaution 
 was a wise one, and that the wide margin allowed in this direction 
 was not too liberal. But in the extreme north India has outgrown 
 the limits of the Atlas, and three new sheets, 14a, 27a, and 44a 
 (to include Chitral, Gilgit, and Baltistan), have been laid down, while 
 fresh sheets will probably have to be added for Baluchistan, which 
 is now, to all intents and purposes, incorporated into our Empire. 
 A special arrangement, too, has been sanctioned, by which the 
 Indian Atlas is being supplemented by a complete and homo- 
 geneous belt of maps illustrating all the transfrontier regions from 
 Baluchistan round by way of Tibet to Burma, on the same scale 
 as the adjacent Atlas sheets, a most convenient plan in consequence 
 of the unavoidable expansion of the Indian Empire. 
 
 The following are the other principal maps in general demand : — 
 (1.) India. Scale, 32 miles = 1 inch, in six sheets. 
 (2.) India, 64 miles = 1 inch, engraved, in four sheets. 
 (3 and 4.) Eailway maps of India on 48 and 64 mile scales, photo- 
 zincographed with hills in grey. 
 
232 HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 (5.) Turkestan. Scale, 32 inches = 1 mile. 6tli edition. Photo- 
 zincographed, in four sheets. 
 
 (6.) Afghanistan. Scale, 24 miles = 1 inch. Photo -zincographed, 
 two colours, in four sheets. 
 
 (7.) Burma and Adjacent Countries. Photo-zincographed. 
 Scale, 32 miles = 1 inch. 
 
 (8.) Atlas of India. Scale, 4 miles = 1 inch. Engraved. 
 
 (9.) Provincial maps. Engraved on the scale of 16 miles = 
 1 inch. 
 
 (10.) Standard sheets of the Topographical and Revenue Surveys 
 on various scales from 2 inches = 1 mile to 4 miles = 
 1 inch. 1 inch = 1 mile is the standard. 
 
 (11.) District maps on various scales, usually 4 miles = 1 inch. 
 Transferred to stone from the engraved copper plates. 
 
 (12.) Himalayan Eoute map. Scale, 32 miles = 1 inch. 
 Engraved. 
 
 The Trigonometrical Branch Office, Dehra Dun. — Although the 
 three branches of the Survey (Trigonometrical, Topographical, and 
 Revenue) were amalgamated in 1877, it was nevertheless found 
 convenient to maintain the Trigonometrical Survey Office at Dehra 
 Dun, where important and special work had and still has to be 
 transacted. The principal part of this work has been the final 
 reduction and publication of the Indian and extra-Indian triangula- 
 tion, both principal and secondary, which was carried out for years 
 under the care of Mr. J. B. K. Hennessey and Mr. W. H. Cole. This 
 Department has also had to publish the ToiDographical Surveys 
 executed by the parties formerly attached to the Trigonometrical 
 Branch, as well as those carried out by the Forest Survey Depart- 
 ment. Being located at a considerable distance from Calcutta, 
 the office has a small drawing, photo-zincographic, and printing 
 establishment of its own, as well as a depot of instruments and stores 
 attached to it, chiefly of the higher class of instruments appertaining 
 to the G-reat Trigonometrical Survey, such as several large theodo- 
 lites, the compensation bars, and apparatus for the measurement of 
 base-lines, &c. Other work pertaining to this branch has consisted 
 in the determinations of azimuths from celestial observations at many 
 of the stations of the triangulation ; the observations of astronomical 
 latitudes, the determination of differences of longitude by the aid of 
 electric telegraph, and the determination of sea-level at many places 
 on the coasts of India, from which main lines of spirit-levelling are 
 
HEADQUAETERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 233 
 
 run over the country to form a basis for canal, railway, and other 
 operations. Vol. I. of the general account of the operations of the 
 Great Trigonometrical Surjey was completed in 1870. In 1878 and 
 1879 Volumes II., III., and IV. were produced, giving a general 
 account of the triangulation and its reduction, with full details of 
 the North-West Quadrilateral ; also Vol. V., giving an account of 
 the Pendulum Operations ; this was followed in 1880 by Vol. VI. 
 for the South-Bast Quadrilateral, in 1882 by Volumes VII. and VIII. 
 for the North-Bast Quadrilateral, in 1883 and 1887 by Volumes IX. 
 and X. on the Blectro-telegraphic longitude operations executed 
 during 1875-77 and 1880-84, and in 1890 by Vol. XI. on the 
 Astronomical Observations for Latitude made during the period 
 1805 to 1885, and Vols. XII. and XIII. on the aouthern Trigon. 
 Of the synoptical volumes — which give a precis of the results, both 
 principal and secondary, for topographical and geographical require- 
 ments — twenty-three have been published in all. 
 
 In the volume on the Pendulum Operations it is shown that the 
 steps which had been taken to connect the Kew Observatory, 
 the base-station of the Indian operations, with the Greenwich 
 Observatory, which was an important station of the Buropean 
 operations, had not sufficed to elFect the desired connexion. The 
 absolute length of a seconds' pendulum of the Kater pattern, which 
 had been determined at Greenwich by General Sabine in 1831, was 
 determined with the same pendulum at Kew by Major Heaviside 
 in 1873, in the expectation that this would suffice for the connexion 
 of the operations at the two observatories ; but the result gave 
 three more vibrations in 24 hours at Kew than at Greenwich, which 
 was highly improbable, as it corresponds to a change in latitude 
 of about 1°, whereas the two observatories are nearly in the same 
 latitude and only ten miles apart. Colonel Herschel was therefore 
 deputed to determine the vibration numbers at Kew and Greenwich 
 with the invariable pendulums which had been used in India. 
 He was also authorised to take the pendulum to America and swing 
 them at some of the pendulum stations of the United States Coast 
 and Geodetic Survey, with a view to a further connexion with the 
 Indian operations. He made observations accordingly, employing 
 the two Indian pendulums, and a third pendulum of the same 
 pattern which he obtained at the Kew Observatory ; he swung all 
 three pendulums at Kew and Greenwich, in London, and at 
 Washington and Hoboken in the United States. He then made over 
 
234 HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 
 
 the three pendulums to officers of the United States Survey, who took 
 them round the world and swung them at Auckland, Sydney, Singa- 
 pore, Tokio, San Francisco, and finally at Washington. When Colonel 
 Herschel's observations came to be finally reduced, it was found that 
 the relation of Kew to Greenwich by one of the pendulums difi'ered 
 by more than six vibrations from the values by the two other 
 pendulums. Eevisionary swings were therefore made at the two 
 observatories, with all three pendulums, by the observatory staff 
 at each place. The final result gives the daily vibration number at 
 Kew an excess of 0"64 of a vibration over that at Greenwich. 
 General Walker has given an account of Colonel Herschel's work and 
 the revisionary operations at Kew and Greenwich, with an abstract 
 of his results and those of the officers of the United States Coast 
 and Geodetic Survey at other stations, in the Philosophical 
 Transactions, Vol. 181 (1890) A., pp. 537-558. 
 
 At the Dehra office the solar photographs referred to at page 340 
 of the Memoir on the Indian Surveys, 2nd edition, were taken under 
 the care of an observer, Mr. C. Meins, who had been trained by 
 Mr. Norman Lockyer. Mr. Meins died on the 31st March 1879, 
 and nine months later the observations were resumed by Mr. L. H. 
 Clarke. The photo -heliograph employed gave 4-inch images of the 
 sun, but by means of an enlarging combination, 8-inch pictures 
 were obtained, while the definition in no way suff'ered. In July 1882, 
 however, the great photo-heliograph sent out by the Secretary of 
 State, and capable of taking 12-inch pictures of the sun, was received, 
 and after some difficulty connected with the period of exposure, and 
 some delay entailed by the construction of tho necessary rotating 
 dome, good and regular pictures were eventually secured. The 
 difference between the amount of invisibility in India and in the 
 sunless climate of England is very striking ; in 1880-81 at Dehra Dun 
 the percentage of dark days was 15 ; in 1881-82 it was 10, and in 
 1882-83 it was 13, as against 50, which was the average percentage 
 of "invisible" days at Greenwich during the same period! The 
 8-inch pictures have been continued pari passu with the 12-inch 
 photographs, the former being used for the measurement of the 
 areas of spots and faculae, while the latter are specially suited for 
 the study of the mottling or granular appearances of the normal 
 photosphere and structure of the penumbra of the spots. The results 
 of the observations are included by the Astronomer Royal in the 
 yearly volumes of the Greenwich observatory. 
 
HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 235 
 
 Successive editions of General Walker's excellent map of "Turkestan 
 " and the countries between the British and the Russian dominions 
 " in Asia " have been produced at the Dehra Dun office, the last 
 (7tli ed.) having been issued in 1885. At that time the surveys 
 in connexion Avith the Russo-Afghan boundary were actually in 
 progress, and since then our geographical knowledge of Afghanistan 
 and the adjacent regions has been so revolutionised that an entirely 
 new map has become necessary. But during the 20 years that 
 "Walker's map has been in existence it has been invaluable as the 
 standard map of that vast and important region between the Caspian 
 sea, the Persian gulf, and Tibet. A full and interesting account 
 of the circumstances under which it was undertaken, and of its 
 general construction, will be found in the appendix to the Report 
 of the Trigonometrical Survey for 1872-73. 
 
 The new map of Afglianistan which will, to a great extent, take 
 the place of the foregoing, embodies the surveys and reconnaissances 
 made by the oflS.cers and native surveyors attached to the Afghan 
 Boundary Commission. It is in four sheets and on the scale of 
 24 miles to the inch, and the work of preparation, first under 
 Major Gore and then under Colonel Holdich, has been divided 
 between the Calcutta and Dehra ofl&ces. Among other cartographical 
 work that has devolved on the latter branch have been the three 
 
 sheets illustrative of A k's remarkable explorations in Tibet,* 
 
 and a two-sheet map of Arabia and Persia for the use of the Resident 
 in the Persian gulf. 
 
 Another important duty devolving on the Dehra Dun branch is that 
 of protecting the principal stations of the Great Trigonometrical 
 Survey. In 1884-85 the number of these stations was 3,665, and 
 their protection involved correspt)ndence and accounts with a large 
 number of district officers to provide for their repair. 
 
 * See above, pp. 152-7. 
 
236 
 
 XII. 
 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 From a geological point of view, India is most conveniently 
 regarded as presenting a threefold aspect, and this" is the general 
 division of the country adopted in the " Manual of the Geology of 
 India," i.e., into the peninsular area, the extra-peninsular area, and 
 the great Indo-Gangetic alluvial plain separating the two. 
 
 When we proceed to distinguish the various formations, we find 
 that the ecology of the country south of the Himalayas presents a 
 comparatively simple aspect, in that all the rocks are easily 
 separated into the following great groups, viz. : — 
 6. Alluvial plains. 
 
 5. Sedimentary rocks, of Jurassic, cretaceous, and tertiary ages. 
 4. The Deccan basalt, of cretaceous and lower tertiary age. 
 3. The Gondwana system, comprising the Indian coal measures, 
 and ranging inclusively from the age of the English coal 
 measures to that of the Portland and Purbeck beds. 
 2. The Vindhyan system, a formation peculiar to India, the age 
 of which cannot be guessed, as it has yielded no fossils, 
 but which is immensely older than the Gondwanas. 
 1. The archeean or metamorphio rocks, such as gneiss and 
 crystalline schists with the granite often occurring in them, 
 and with some slaty rocks that have partially escaped the 
 general metamorphism.* 
 
 Long before the establishment of an organised geological survey, 
 a series of travellers had from time to time recorded observations 
 of a practical or scientific character on the rocks and minerals of 
 India. Foremost among these observers were Dr. Falconer and Sir 
 Proby Cautley, to whom the discovery of the wonderful fossil fauna 
 
 * A detailed consideration of these formations does not come into the province of 
 this book. It may be mentioned, however, that an excellent and picturesque general 
 account of the Geology of India, from the pen of Mr. Medlicolt, F.B.S., late Director 
 of the Survey, is to be found in Su- Edward Buck's Statistical Atlas of India, while 
 tliose who de.-irc to pursue their investigations still further should consult the Manual 
 of the Geology of India, in 4 vols, with map, Calcutta and London (Triibner). 
 
aEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 237 
 
 of the Siwalik hills was due, a discovery which revealed the 
 extraordinary nature of the animal life with which the alluvial 
 valleys south of the Himalayas once teemed. Another famous 
 geologist was Captain jS^ewbold, who made some important 
 researches on the laterite of the western coast, the regur or black 
 cotton soil of the south, and the mineral resources of the country, 
 while Dr. Carter, of the Indian Navy, in addition to his original 
 investigations, collected and classified the recorded observations 
 of his predecessors. 
 
 The first geological map of India was compiled by Mr. Grreenough 
 in 1853 ; and this forms a distinct landmark showing the state of 
 our knowledge at that time ; but it was not till 1856 that Lord 
 Canning, who took a real interest in geology, placed this branch 
 of the survey on a proper footing, under the superintendence of 
 Dr. Thomas Oldham. 
 
 The excellent work of Dr. Oldham and his able assistants are 
 described in detail in the publications of the Department, which are 
 threefold, viz., the " Memoirs," " Records," and " Palasontologia 
 Indica." The first-named are the detailed and matured results of 
 the investigations in each district, written by the geologist who 
 prosecuted the survey. The volumes are profusely illustrated with 
 maps, views, sections, and sketches. The " Records " are issued 
 quarterly, and contain the annual reports and brief abstracts of the 
 results of the field work during the previous three months, as well 
 as other papers of general interest. The " Paleeontologia Indica " 
 contain elaborate illustrations and descriptions of the organic 
 remains which are discovered during the progress of the survey. 
 A most interesting summary of the labours of the Department up to 
 1875 is contained in Chapter XIV. of the " Memoir on the Indian 
 Surveys," at which period, in spite of the limited stafi" and the 
 inherent difficulties of so vast an undertaking, an area about 
 five times as large as Great Britain had been examined and 
 reported on. 
 
 The year 1876 was one of special advance in the knowledge of Indian 
 formations, for some problems previously unsolved or misunderstood 
 in the classification of the great plant-bearing series of rocks known 
 as the Grondwana system, the only fossiliferous formation of central 
 peninsular India, was at last successfully grappled with by investi- 
 gations and discoveries made by Mr, Hughes and Dr. Feistmantel, 
 in the Pranhita valley, and corroborated by the researches of 
 
238 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Dr. King in the Godavari delta. An important gap in our knowledge 
 of the Sub-Himalayan tertiaries was also filled up by the season's 
 work. Messrs. Medlicott, Theobald, and Ljdekker made an outline 
 survey of the broad band of tertiary deposits flanking the Fir 
 Panjal in the Jammu territory, thus connecting previous work in 
 the Cis Ravi and Trans-Jhelara regions. In the east, in Upper 
 Assam, Mr. Mallet completed his survey of the coal fields of the 
 Naga hills, which for quality and quantity of the coal, rank as the 
 most important of the Indian carboniferous deposits, although 
 entirely of tertiary age, possibly even of middle tertiary.* On the 
 south-west extension of the Sub-Himalayan series, Mr. Blanford, 
 assisted by Mr. Fed den, accomplished a good season's work on the 
 tertiary deposits in Sind. A preliminary sketch of these formations 
 from the previous season's field work was published by Mr. Blanford 
 in the " Records " for 1876 (p. 8). 
 
 Early in 1876 Mr. Blanford made an important trip across the 
 desert east of the Indus, through Umarkot and Balmir to Jodhpur, 
 and back through Jaisalmer to Rohri. Interesting information was 
 thus gained regarding a great area of Western Rajputana, pre- 
 viously almost unknown, and of the region traversed by the Arvali 
 mountains, a tract believed to be formed entirely of gneissic and 
 transition rocks, the remains of an exceedingly ancient mountain 
 system or area of special disturbance. The main difficulty here 
 demanding solution is the occurrence within a moderately large area 
 of several strong rock groups, having much mutual resemblance, 
 and each independently in natural contact with a fundamental 
 gneiss. 
 
 The survey sustained an irreparable loss during 1876 in the 
 retirement of Dr. Thomas Oldham, F.R.S., the able and eminent 
 superintendent, whose services will be found briefly recorded in the 
 Memoir on the Indian Surveys. He was succeeded by Mr. H. B. 
 Medlicott. Mr. Tween, the chemist to the survey, also retired, 
 after a service extending over 15 years. 
 
 A first-class medal was awarded for the exhibits of the Greological 
 Survey of India at the Congres International des Sciences 
 Geographiques, held at Faris in 1875. 
 
 During 1877 two comparatively new regions were explored by 
 Mr. Lydekker and Dr. Ball, respectively, one being the mountains 
 
 * See Part 2 of the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, Vol. XII. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF INDIA. 239 
 
 north and 'south of the Kashmir valley and in the upper basin of 
 the Chenab, and the other a wide tract some 300 miles long between 
 the Mahanadi and the lower reaches of the Godavari. The former 
 was rather diflB.cult ground ; the presence of carboniferous strata 
 had long since been observed, as well as the extensive occurrence 
 of eruptive rocks ; but the relations of all these to the preponderating 
 mass of contiguous unfossiliferous rocks had remained unknown. 
 Mr. Lydekker showed that the Kashmir area is a compressed 
 synclinal ellipse, on the pattern of the larger features defined by 
 Stoliczka in the Tibetan region, but containing, so far as observed, 
 no rocks younger than the trias. Regarding the obscure point of 
 the relations of the gneissic series, Mr. Lydekker's view was that the 
 Pir Panjal range is on the whole a great folded anticlinal flexure, 
 having a cone or axis of gneiss, the whole stratified series on the 
 outer (south-west) side being inverted. The Simla region, which 
 belongs to the broad area of lower mountains which east of the 
 Sutlej separates the snowy range from the plains, is made of 
 metamorphic and slaty rocks, in a very irregular and incompre- 
 hensible mode of distribution. This i-egion was examined by 
 Colonel McMahon, himself an amateur geologist, and his paper is 
 published in the " Records." He shows that the massive gneiss 
 forming several prominent ridges on the lower mountains must be 
 the same as the central gneiss of the main range ; he describes the 
 upper members of the slate series to be so related to this gneiss as 
 to involve the total overlap of the lower part of the series, and 
 therefore complete unconformity to the gneiss, but subsequent 
 metamorphic action, largely afi'ecting the slate series itself, has so 
 obscured the Junction as to make the exact definition of it a matter 
 of great difl&culty. 
 
 The region between the Mahanadi and the Godavari is a wild, 
 hilly country, entirely occupied by primitive tribes and petty 
 tributary states. It proved (as indeed had been conjectured) to 
 be occupied by Vindhyan and gneissic rocks. On the coast side 
 there is a broad mountainous belt of crystalline rocks, with peaks 
 exceeding, in some cases, 5,000 feet in elevation. West of this is 
 an extensive upland also largely formed of gneissic rocks, upon 
 which stand two or more scarped plateaux of flatly bedded sand- 
 stone, the principal being that of Nowagarh-Kharial. Further west 
 there is the wide expanse of lower ground formed of the shales, 
 limestone, and sandstones occupying the plains of Ohattisgarh and 
 
-40 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Upper Mahanadi, and stretching southward to the mofe elevated 
 laud about Bustar. High-level laterite was also found, giving a 
 plateau character to the otherwise serrated mountain features. 
 
 Mr. Hacket's work in Rajputana also ranked as in new ground. 
 He carried his observations to some distance south of Ajmir, where 
 he obtained a further section of the metamorphic rocks transitionally 
 underlying the Arvali series. 
 
 The recognition of the Karharbari coal measures as a distinguish- 
 able horizon in the lower Gondwana series was an interesting step 
 in the knowledge of these formations. Dr. Feistmantel's palaeonto- 
 logical researches indicate that their affinity is rather with the 
 Talchirs than with the Damudas as hitherto imagined. 
 
 Among the detailed work of the year, an interesting area of 
 the Gondwana formations was completed by Mr. Hughes, in 
 extension of his previous work in the Ward ha valley, the geological 
 lines being carried down to the Godavari at and above Sironcha. 
 A practical result of this work was the accurate demarcation of a 
 considerable area of possibly productive coal measures in the 
 Nizam's territories about Khairgura and Tandur, and again on 
 the Godavari at Sandrapali. In the former position actual coal 
 crops' were found, and in the latter promising indications of the 
 same formation. 
 
 Mr. Foote, during the season, completed his survey of the coastal 
 zone of Gondwana deposits through the Nellore and Gantur 
 districts up to the Kistna river, thus bringing his lines into con- 
 nexion with Mr. King's work in the Godavari district south of 
 EUore. The deposits which were the special object of his study 
 are very obscurely exposed as irregular patches along the margin 
 of the crystalline rocks forming the low ground from the base of 
 the Eastern Ghats, and on the east they pass rapidly under the 
 alluvium of the flat seaboard. Mr. Foote has made considerable 
 collections of the mixed marine and terrestrial fossils peculiar to 
 the Gondwana strata in this position. 
 
 The coal explorations which had been prosecuted for some seasons 
 past in the Satpura basin unfortunately proved unsuccessful, 
 though in some cases the borings were carried to a greater depth 
 than anywhere else in India. 
 
 Some observations on underground temperature in these borings 
 were instituted by Mr. Medlicott. The lowest depth at which 
 successful observations were taken was 370 feet, and the most 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 241 
 
 reliable group of these at Manegapii gave, below the depth of 
 60 feet (throughout which a constant temperature of 81° prevails) 
 a very steady rate of increase of 1° Fahrenheit for every 66 feet 
 in depth. * 
 
 Mr. "Wynne was fully occupied in mapping the structural features 
 of the tertiary basin between the Salt Range and the mountains 
 to the north, which is often spoken of as the Potwar or Rawalpindi 
 plateau. It is on the whole a broad synclinal with many sub- 
 ordinate axes of flexure, and the disturbed character of the deposits 
 makes their study a matter of great difficulty. The post tertiary 
 deposits here are of much interest. They are found resting upon 
 tilted Siwalik strata at very high levels over the actual river courses, 
 so that prodigious denudation must have taken place since they 
 were laid down. There is much evidence to suggest that glacial 
 action took a direct part in the accumulation of some of these 
 deposits. 
 
 During the working season of 1876-77 Mr. Blanford and 
 Mr. Fedden completed the mapping of Sind west of the Indus. 
 The former re-examined the Khirthar range from its northern 
 termination west of Jacobabad to the neighbourhood of Sehwan ; 
 he then re-mapped the cretaceous rocks in the Laki range south 
 of Sehwan, and after completing the geological lines in the Habb 
 valley, and marching westward along the coast as far as Sonmiani, 
 returned to Calcutta. Mr. Fedden, starting from Karachi, mapped 
 the large tract of country west of the Laki range from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Sehwan to the sea, an area of nearly 5,000 square 
 miles. Large additions were also made to the fossil collections 
 previously obtained. So much of the geology of Sind had been 
 determined in the two previous seasons that no very important 
 addition could be expected. It was, however, clearly ascertained 
 that a band of contemporaneous volcanic rock, from 40 to 90 feet 
 thick, intervenes between the base of the Ranikot group (lower 
 eocene) and the cretaceous beds, and there can be little doubt that 
 this thin lava-flow represents the great mass of the Deccan traps. 
 
 Mr. W. T. Blanford's memoir (Vol. XVIL, Art. 1) on the 
 geology of "Western Sind* deals with that portion of the province 
 
 * The names of the proviace of Sind and of the river called the Indus by Europeans 
 are really identical, and Hindu, Hindustan, and India are all derived from the same 
 source, the letters S. and H. being interchangeable. The old name of the Indus is 
 Sindhu. There is a Muhammadan story about the name of Sind being derived from 
 Sindh, the brother of Hindh and son of Noah. 
 I Y 20321. Q 
 
242 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 of Sind which lies west of the Indus, and especially the hilly- 
 portions of the Karachi and Shikarpur colleotorates, together with 
 the curious isolated ranges of limestone hills to the east of the 
 Indus in Northern Sind near Rohri, and in Southern Sind near 
 Haidarabad. The examination of the geology of the province was 
 a special desideratum as the peninsula of India has had a very 
 different geological history from other parts of the country, the 
 former having probably been land ever since palaeozoic times at 
 least, while the extra-peninsular regions have frec[uently been 
 covered by sea. Fuller series of marine tertiary beds were known 
 to exist in Sind than elsewhere in India, and other advantages lay 
 in the absence of forest which so greatly impedes surveying, and 
 in the circumstance that large collections of fossils from this 
 region have been carefully examined and described by European 
 paleontologists. Sind is also nearer to Europe than most parts 
 of India, and the rocks form the eastern prolongation of a tract 
 of tertiary beds believed to be continuous with the well-known 
 formations on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Khirthar 
 group, named from the great frontier range of hills, comprises 
 by far the most conspicuous rock, the massive nummulitic limestone, 
 of which formation all the higher ranges in Sind consist. The 
 sections exposed in the Khirthar range are superb, and afford the 
 best epitome of tertiary geology hitherto observed in India. Above 
 is found the Nari group, occupying a belt of varying width from 
 one to ten miles in breadth throughout the eastern flank of the 
 Khirthar range ; the lower beds of this group are mostly yellow 
 or brown limestone, while the upper series assume the form of 
 coarse, massive, thick-bedded sandstones, attaining in some places 
 a thickness over 4,000 feet. Upon the Nari group, almost through- 
 out Sind, is found resting a mass of highly fossiliferous limestones 
 and calcareous beds (the Gaj group), easily distinguished from the 
 limestones of the older tertiary formations by the absence of 
 nummulites, while the highest sub-division of the Sind tertiary 
 series, the Manchhar group, represents in all probability the well- 
 known Siwaliks of Northern India, consisting of clays, sandstones, 
 and conglomerates, and attaining in places a thickness of about 
 10,000 feet. "Westward of the British frontier the Manchhar beds 
 die away, and are succeeded by high hills of hard greyish-white 
 marls or clays, conspicuous at Bas Malan, Ormara, Pasni, Gwadar, 
 near Jashk, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and on the Persian 
 shores of the gulf itself. The headlands of Has Malan, Ormara, 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 243 
 
 and Gwadar consist of great horizontal plateaux surrounded by 
 cliffs of whitish marl or clay, and capped by dark calcareous grit. 
 These remarkable rocks have been called the Makran group, and 
 though the coast of Baluchistan has never been examined 
 geologically, there appears a considerable amount of probability 
 that the marine Makran group may represent the Manchhars and 
 Siwalikhs on the edge of the Indo-Gangetic plain. 
 
 The completion of the " Manual of the Geology of India " was 
 the principal event in 1878. Though not the first general de- 
 scription of the Geology of India it differed from most previous 
 works in the extent of the area described and the amount of 
 information. Since the establishment of the survey in 1851, 
 data in the shape of detached papers and reports had been 
 accumulating rapidly, and these were not even confined to the 
 oflficial channels of publications but had overflowed into the 
 journals of various scientific societies throughout the world. There 
 was thus an urgent need of a general view of the existing 
 knowledge, and Mr. Medlicott and Mr. Blanford's efforts supplied 
 the want. While the work itself is a joint prodiiction, each chapter 
 bears the initials of its actual author. The first two volumes deal 
 with the more strictly scientific side of Indian Geology, while a 
 third volume of over 600 pages from the pen of Mr. Valentine Ball 
 treats of the Economic Geology of the country, its Mineralogy being 
 described by Mr. F. R. Mallet in the fourth and last volume. A 
 map on the scale of 64 miles to the inch and geologically coloured 
 forms a valuable accompaniment to the work. 
 
 During the same year Mr. Hacket examined a very large area at 
 the northern extremity of the Arvali range, and extending up to the 
 Jumna at Delhi. Though not abundant in mineral wealth the Arvali 
 region contains several extensive mines, now abandoned, from which 
 in bygone times large quantities of copper and lead ores have been 
 extracted, and a number of small pits or burrows where ores in small 
 quantities were found. None of these mines, however, were worked 
 deeper than a few feet below the water level on account of the 
 difl&culty of raising the water. Marble is of frequent occurrence 
 among the Arvali rocks, and is extensively quarried in several 
 places, the principal place being Makrana. It is generally white, 
 but coloured marbles are occasionally met with, and black marble 
 in one spot. 
 
 Q 2 
 
244 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 A description of the previously unsurveyed basins of Palamau 
 was given by Mr. Ball in Vol. XV. of the Memoirs. 
 
 Palaman had attention directed to it about 60 years ago, when 
 the object was to open out the coal-fields then known to exist, and 
 so to obtain a supply of cheap fuel for the steam navigation of the 
 Ganges. To meet this demand the Daltonganj field was worked 
 by the Bengal Coal Company up to the time of the mutiny, when 
 the works were attacked by the rebels and destroyed. On the 
 completion of the main canal, the question of connecting the 
 Palamau fields M'ith the Bast Indian railway arose, and an examina- 
 tion of the coal and iron ores available became necessary. Mr. Ball 
 speaks highly of the coal from the Daltonganj field, which has 
 great heating power and is admirably adapted for steam purposes ; 
 that from the other two fields of the Palamau basin, the Aurunga 
 and Hutar, being of only average quality. The Aurunga field is, 
 however, the only locality where there are iron ores and limestone 
 suitable for iron manufacture. 
 
 The Rajmahal hills, which are described by Mr. V. Ball in 
 Vol. XIII. of the " Memoirs " are of complex geological structure, but 
 the mutual relations of the several rock groups within their limits 
 have supplied a useful key to the geological problems of far distant 
 localities. Amongst other notable features in this area are some 
 curious examples of radiating columnar trap,"^ while at least two 
 varieties of laterite occur. The coal found is inferior to that of 
 a large series of Raniganj coal, but it can be easily worked, though 
 the difficulties and cost of transit to rail and rivers render it 
 unavailable except to stations in the immediate neighbourhood. A 
 considerable variety of rocks suitable for building purposes exists 
 in the Rajmahal hills, while the basaltic trap is capable of affording 
 an inexhaustible supply of road material. Clays suitable for 
 pottery and iron also occur. 
 
 The geology of the district of Manbhum, which lies about 
 120 miles west of Calcutta, and of Singhbhum, which is situated 
 to the south of Manbhum, is also described by Mr, V. Ball (in 
 Vol. XVIII. of the Memoirs). The tract abuts on the headlands 
 (as they may be called) of the eastern frontier of the rocky and 
 elevated country of western Bengal, the headlands themselves being 
 lapped round by the Cangetic alluvium, which spreads over Lower 
 
 * See illustration facing page 60, latter iii>.rt of Vol. XliJ. of " Memoirs of Geological 
 Sui-vev of India." 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 245 
 
 Bengal. The nortliern part of the region is occupied by ineta- 
 morphic rocks, which pass across the boundaries of Manbhum on 
 the north into Birbhum ajid Hazaribagh, on the west and south 
 into Lohardaga and Singbhum, and on the east into Bankura 
 and Midnapur, while the southern half is covered by sub-meta- 
 morphic rocks, the term adopted by the Geological Survey of India 
 for a series which, though showing distinct signs of metamorphism, 
 do so in a much less degree than do the gneissose or metamorphic 
 rocks proper. The prefix sub refers to the amount of metamorphism, 
 not, as might be supposed, to the position in the geological scale. 
 Speaking generally, the sub-metamorphics of Bengal may be said 
 to occupy a position in the geological scale roughly corresponding 
 to that of the Huronian of Canada or the Cambrian of Europe. 
 
 The determination of further obscure points in the great Gondwana 
 series occupied the attention of several members of the Geological 
 Staff in 1878. Dr. King was engaged in endeavouring to fix the 
 middle Gondwana horizon on the lower Godavari, while Mr. Hughes 
 came across plant fossils of decided upper Gondwana type between 
 the Pranhita and Godavari rivers. Early in the season Dr. Feist- 
 mantel visited the Satpura coal basin to examine on the spot some 
 good secti(ms of the Gondwana series. He shows that they belong 
 to the horizon of coal-bearing strata represented by the Karharbari 
 measures in Bengal. And on the western confines of the Peninsula, 
 where the Gondwanas become associated with marine strata, 
 Mr. Pedden broke new ground in Kathiawar, of which he surveyed 
 about 1,800 square miles. He speaks very highly of the excellence 
 of the sheets of Captain H. Trotter, K.B.'s Topographical Survey 
 of that province. The country is for the most part flat, and the 
 rocks consist of Deccan traps overlying sandstone in which some 
 remains of plants were found. These plants prove to be identical 
 with those occurring in the uppermost Jurassic or Umia beds of 
 Cutch, and it is thus clear that a portion at least of the Cutch 
 Jurassic series extends into northern Kathiawar. The greater part 
 of the area examined consists of Jurassic sandstone, the hills being 
 of trap, but to the southward, where the surface is more hilly, the 
 traps cover the country. 
 
 In Southern India Mr. Poote took up new ground to the south 
 of Trichinopoly. The region belongs partly to the Madura, Tanjore, 
 and Trichinopoly districts, and partly to the native state of Pudukotai 
 or Tondiman. It may be described as a gently undulating inclined 
 
246 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 plane, rising very slowly westward from the delta of tlie Cauvery 
 or the sea board. It is only on tlie western part that the surface is 
 broken by a few low but steep hills rising in the gneissic area and 
 by the lines of scarp corresponding generally with the western 
 boundary of the lateritic formations, which occupy by far the 
 greater part of the country now under consideration. The district 
 is poor in economic minerals. In the extreme North-western Punjab 
 Mr. Wynne made a preliminary examination of some new ground in 
 Hazara, having been prevented by difficulties on the frontier from 
 following the formation of the Salt range across the Indus into 
 Bannu as had been proposed. He made a useful reconnaissance 
 of the ground and defined the limits of the crystalline rocks forming 
 the higher mountains. One general inference was that the gneiss of 
 Hazara is much newer than the central gneiss of the Himalayas. 
 Mr. Lydekker's work in the N.W. Himalayas was much hindered 
 by the famine in Kashmir, so he spent the season in the mountains 
 of Dras and Tilail where he described some important sections 
 of the sedimentary rocks. Colonel McMahon also made some 
 noteworthy observations in the Central Himalayan districts to the 
 north of the Simla region of the Lower Himalayas, on the relation 
 of the limestone and slate series of the latter range to the central 
 gneiss. Mr. Theobald made large additions during the same season 
 to the collections of Siwalik fauna, the results of which are recorded 
 in Mr. Lydekker's papers in the Records and the " Palseontologia 
 Indica." 
 
 Mr. Mallet was deputed to report upon some coal seams in Ramri 
 Island, which had been reported by the Commissioner of Akyab. 
 Mr. Mallet could not form a favourable opinion of the practical 
 value of these measures ; the coal is inferior to that of Bengal, and 
 the measures are greatly disturbed and would be difficult to 
 work. Specimens of a very different coal, a bright jetty lignite, 
 were forwarded by the Commissioner from the Baranga islands. 
 Mr. Medlicott also made a short trip to the North West Provinces 
 to serve on a committee appointed for investigating into the causes 
 of deterioration of land by reh or effiorescence in the Aligarh 
 district. His notes were published in the report of the committee. 
 
 Two large parts of the Paleeontologia Indica were issued during 
 the year, one by Dr. Feistmantel on the flora of the Jabalpur group, 
 containing 14 yjlates, and one by Mr. Lydekker on the crania of 
 fossil ruminants, containing 18 plates. By order of Government 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 247 
 
 the price of these publications, and that of the " Eecords," were 
 lowered. 
 
 During 1878 the surv^ lost Mr. Walter Lindsay Willson, who 
 died on the 23rd of March 1878. He had joined the Indian service 
 in March 1857, having at that time been for some years Senior 
 Greologist on the Geological Survey of Ireland ; the training he had 
 there received was very marked in the finished neatness of his 
 field maps in India. His place was taken by Mr. C. L. Grriesbach, 
 F.Gr.S., who was appointed by the Secretary of State in the latter 
 part of the same year. 
 
 The great tract of Gondwana rocks, occupymg the lower half 
 of the Godavari valley, is conveniently divisible into two areas, 
 separated physically by that portion of the Eastern Ghats sometimes 
 called the Golconda range of mountains, and geologically in that 
 the upper division of this formation is in gi-eat part of marine 
 origin to the south of the hills, while there are only river and 
 lacustrine members of the series in the upper part of the valley. 
 The portion below the Ghats, or in other words the coastal region 
 corresponding to the lower division of the Godavari district, is 
 described by Mr. King in Vol. XVI. of the " Memoirs." The 
 country mainly consists of the deltaic deposits of the Godavari and 
 the Kistna, rising gradually amid groiips of small hills up to the 
 Kaurkonda-Papakonda range. It is a puzzle how the Godavari 
 river came to cut its way down through a 2,000 feet high range of 
 crystalline rocks (where the famous " gorge" of the Godavari lies), 
 Avhen it might have deviated and flowed through the more easily 
 worn sandstone to the south- west near Ashwaraopet, where the great 
 gap (crossed by the Kistna) in the continuity of the Eastern Ghats 
 commences. The economic geology of this region is of no great 
 importance, though old diamond workings exist in the sandstone 
 near Muleli, west of BUore. 
 
 In 1879, Mr. King's researches were prosecuted among the 
 Gondwana rocks in the Pranhita-Godavari area, and the detailed 
 account is contained in Vol. XVIII. of the " Memoirs." The 
 Godavari valley for a considerable length of its lower course 
 traverses a great area of Gondwana rocks, which connects the 
 Nagpur or Kamthi and Chan da fields of these with the patch of the 
 same great formation on the Coromandel coast. The Ohanda rocks 
 extend southward by the "Wardha river valley, and so with the 
 Pranhita river to its junction with the Godavari, whence they are 
 
248 GEOLOGICAL SCUVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 continued down the valley of the latter river, and it was in the 
 following out of this great series of the plant-bearing sandstones 
 with the economically interesting coal measures of their Damuda 
 subdivision that this immense tract of wild and poorly populated 
 country came to be visited by the survey. The Pranhita-Godavari 
 area is thus a narrow strip of Peninsular India, extending from 
 about Dhaba or Porsa on the Wardha in a S.S.B. direction to 
 within 40 miles north of EUore. With the exception of the bottom 
 or floor rocks, namely, the gneiss or crystalline series, which extends 
 far to the eastward and westward, all the other formations occur as 
 roughly parallel outcrops or bands. It is still practically wbat 
 it has been for ages, the home of a great portion of the old 
 Pre- Aryan race of Kols or Gonds, and a centre for the huge trains 
 of grain- and salt-carrying pack bullocks of the Brinjaris, who find 
 the region well adapted for their temporary settlements and feeding 
 grounds. Judging, however, by the ruins of many large forts, 
 splendid temples, and great tanks scattered over part of the country, 
 the Aryan conquerors exercised there a benign and prosperous 
 sway. 
 
 The better known outcrops of Barakar strata showing workable 
 coal of any value are in the southern part of the above field, 
 at Damerchela, Lingala, and to the westward in the two fields of 
 Kamawaram and Singareni."^' Iron is obtained from the Chikiala 
 sandstones, and gold in small quantities has been washed for, having 
 been found to be brought down into the Godavari by streams from 
 Haidarabad territory. 
 
 An irregularly shaped strip of the Carnatic, including rather more 
 than the southern half of the Xellore district and portions of the 
 northern edges of those of Madras and j^orth Arcot, was traversed 
 byMr. W.King and the late Mr. Charles M. Oldham in 1861, 
 while following out the transition rocks of the Cuddapah district. 
 Mr. King's account was written subsequently-}- and after Mr. Oldham's 
 death. The region is in the nature of a coastal plain with a more 
 or less distinct step or ghat edging an upland, the former being of 
 gneiss, covered up in a scattered way (more perfectly towards 
 the coast) by later formations, while the western hill wall is of 
 
 * A. report on the progress and results of borings for coal in the Godavari valley 
 near Damagudem and Bhadrachalam, by Mr. W. T. Blanford, forms an Appendix to 
 Vol. XVIII. of tlie " Memoirs." 
 
 t See " Memoirs," Vol. XVI. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 249 
 
 the hardest rocks of the transition or Ciiddapah series. The 
 carving out of the great plain and step of mountain wall was 
 evidently in the greatest#neasure the work of marine denudation, 
 though subsequent atmospheric and river degradation and later 
 deposits have obliterated most traces of this. An interesting 
 feature observable in this region is a narrow and low sandstone 
 ridge, from 40 to 70 feet above sea-level, with a lateritic 
 covering running generally north and south at from 10 to 
 20 miles inland from the sea shore, and forming an extension of the 
 Red Hills of Madras, Pondicherry, Cuddalore, and Samulcotah 
 in the Godavari district. This plateau ridge marks what may be 
 considered the last permanent upheaval of the Coromandel, but 
 the views of the Survey differ as to the period when this may 
 have taken place, Mr. Poote inclining to date the upheaval during 
 the human period, while Mr. King is doubtful whether it can be 
 fixed so late. 
 
 The eastern coast from latitude 15° and northward to Masulipatam 
 is described by Mr. Poote in Vol. XVI. of the " Memoirs." The 
 topography is simple, consisting as it does of an inclined plane 
 sloping gently eastward from the foot of the Eastern Ghats to the 
 Bay of Bengal, diversified only by scattered hills. Piscally the area 
 is divided between the Kistna and Nellore districts. The geological 
 structure is almost as simple as the topographical, the western part 
 being occupied by a broad band or zone of ancient crystalline rocks 
 belonging to the gneissic series, the eastern part by marine and 
 fluviatile alluvia, while the intermediate part, roughly speaking, 
 is occupied by a band of patches of sedimentary rocks of two ages, both 
 older than the alluvial formations. The economic resources of this 
 region are very small as regards all the really valuable and important 
 minerals ; there is a great deal of good iron ore, but unfortunately 
 no coal or mineral fuel accompanies it, while in the matter of building 
 and road materials, the supply, though plentiful, is no better than the 
 average districts further to the south. 
 
 Mr. Poote's exhaustive description of the geological features of 
 the South Maratha country {i.e., the country which formed the 
 southern part of the Maratha empire without reference to the 
 distribution of the Maratha people) is published in Vol. XIT., 
 Part I., of the "Memoirs." Although a very large portion of this 
 area is inhabited by Kanarese people, who diff'er very widely in 
 appearance and language from their Maratha neighbours, the term 
 is a convenient one for the irregular belt stretching from near 
 
250 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Haidarabad in the Deccan to the western coast between Eatnagiri 
 and Goa. Of the several rock series found there the gneissic is the 
 mostly widely developed, and occurs chiefly in the eastern, southern, 
 and south-western parts of the area, while the Deccan trap covers 
 very nearly as large an extent of ground in the western and northern 
 parts. The iron clay or lateritic beds cover a much smaller area, 
 but claim notice on account of their remarkable features. They 
 cap all the highest ridges and peaks in the Kolhapur and Belgaum 
 mountains, rendering them perfectly table-topped, and in consequence 
 favourite sites for old Maratha strongholds and forts. 
 
 In continuation of Mr. Ball's survey of the Aurunga and Hutar coal 
 fields (.see " Memoirs," XV., Parts I. and II.), Mr. Griesbach, during 
 1879, mapped and described some 900 square miles of Gondwana 
 rocks in Ramkola between Takapani and the lier river. The ground 
 is the easternmost prolongation of the great central area of South 
 Rewa or the Son, extending westwards to near Katni on the 
 Jabalpur railway and south-eastwards into the Mahanadi basin to 
 near Sambalpur. In Kathiawar, on the southern confines of the 
 Arvali metamorphic region, Mr. Fedden completed the survey of 
 some 1,900 square miles in continuation to the south of his previous 
 season's work, besides making some preliminary traverses of 
 adjoining ground. Nearly the whole area is occupied by the great 
 eruptive formation. It is mostly stratified, having a slight inclina- 
 tion to the south, but huge dykes traverse it in various directions, 
 forming prominent ridges across the low undulating country. The 
 isolated central hill forming the sacred peak of Girnar is a mass of 
 thoroughly crystalline rock, which seems to be the core of a volcanic 
 focus. Owing to the scattered position of the outcrops in a wide- 
 spread waste of sand, Mr. Hacket was enabled to add a very large 
 area (more than 10,000 square miles) to his previous study of the 
 Arvali region, extending to the south-west as far as Erinpura. The 
 Vindhyan strata were found to cover a large area to the north and 
 east of Jodhpur ; they everywhere rest flatly upon the old rocks, 
 the gneiss, schists, felsites, or Alwar quartzites. 
 
 With the aid of the new maps of Kumaun, Mr. Theobald explored 
 the belt of tertiary rocks at the base of the mountains between the 
 Ganges and the Kali, in continuation of the work done several years 
 previously to the west of the Ganges. 
 
 Mr. Wynne, besides making a reconnaissance of the ground far to 
 the north between Kohat and Thai on the Kuram, accomplished the 
 
GEOLOaiCAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 251 
 
 survey of the "western extension of tlie Salt range from the Indus to 
 the outskirts of the Suliman range beyond Shakh Bndin. The 
 Salt range proper, or pastern section, between the Indus and 
 Jehlam rivers, had been examined by Mr. Wynne in 1869-70, with 
 the assistance of Dr. W. Waagen, for the palaeontology, but the 
 report was not published till 1878, when it appeared as Vol. XIV. 
 of the " Memoirs," forming a volume of over 300 pages. The 
 range had long been known as one of the most interesting and 
 important regions in British India, its geological interest being 
 enhfinced by its highly fossiliferous rocks, and its importance chiefly 
 derived from its enormous deposits of rock salt. Years before the 
 British conquest of the Punjab, our ofl&cers penetrated thither and 
 reported on the geology of the region. In making a detailed 
 examination, Mr. Wynne had the advantage of the excellent maps 
 constructed by Captain D. Gr. Robinson, R.B., one of the best set of 
 maps ever produced in India.^' The Salt range occupies historic 
 ground, one extremity resting upon the ancient Hydaspes or Jehlam 
 river, the other on the Indus, while its eastern extension overlooks 
 the battle field of Chilianwala, which is marked by a, memorial 
 obelisk built of materials taken from the range. The Mayo mines 
 in the eastern plateau of the range are probably the most extensive 
 salt mines in the world. Old chambers occur in them up to 
 320 feet in width and 130 feet in height, besides natural shafts 
 formed by rain water, one of which is 312 feet deep. The old 
 workings had long been in a dangerous condition, and disastrous 
 falls have taken place — one in 1870. When visited in 1869-70 the 
 position of the miners was anything but enviable, perched upon 
 a lofty tripod of slender sticks and picking at a roof full of fissures 
 and unsupported for many yards. The colour of the salt is red and 
 white, red earthy or merely coloured layers being very numerous 
 in some of the beds. The main mass of the gypsum overlies the 
 salt, and is succeeded by the purple sandstone and other groups in 
 their proper order. The Salt range geology is peculiar and differs 
 greatly from that of neighbouring countries, so far as they are 
 known, comprising as it does various consecutive paleozoic, 
 mesozoio, and tertiary formations, and even including among the 
 older rocks a group of Silurian age. Nevertheless, there is a 
 remarkable degree of continuity preserved throughout the deposits. 
 The range thus forms a continuous series, embracing alternations 
 
 * ^ee Mr. Markham's notice of these maps, p. 121 of "Memoir on tiie Indian 
 Surveys," (2nd Edition). 
 
'loZ GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 of calcareous, earthy, and arenaceous deposits, chiefly marine, but 
 possibly in part of fresh water origin — a series comprising thirteen 
 main divisions, of which nine are distinctly referable each to one of the 
 thirteen principal formations known to geology, and the ages of four 
 are less accurately ascertained. The development of the whole range 
 is not at any place complete, the groups changing along their 
 outcrop in thickness if not also in character ; from the fourth to 
 the seventh group in ascending order the series extends westwards 
 across the Indus. 
 
 For the four years ending 1871 the receipts of the Inland 
 Customs Department were Rupees 38,81,440 per annum, and as the 
 rate at which the salt is sold at the mines is Es. 3.1 per maund, an 
 idea may be formed of the out-turn. Notwithstanding the enormous 
 waste that goes on, especially in regard to carriage, the salt being 
 reduced to rough spherical lumps to prevent the corners being 
 rubbed off during its transport in open nettings or hair cloth bags, 
 the supply seems practically inexhaustible. Coal is also found in 
 the range, the Kalabagh coal or lignite, which is of Jurassic age, 
 being the best, as well as petroleum, bailding and ornamental 
 stones, and gypsum. 
 
 The trans-Indus extension of the Salt range is also described by 
 Mr. A. B. Wynne, in Vol. XVII. of the " Memoirs." Its geological 
 structure repeats in a great measure that of the western portion of 
 the Salt range proper, but with some important differences, the 
 purple sandstone, for instance, of the latter disappearing at 
 Kalabagh. Kalabagh itself is an interesting place, which has 
 always attracted the attention of visitors. It is thus referred to by 
 Thorburn, who states that the town was devastated by the Indus, 
 on the western bank of which it is situated, in 1841 : — 
 
 '' The houses rise one above the other ou the hill side, nestling close packed in an 
 abandon of dirt and confusion amid the glistening carnation-coloured salt of the recks. 
 It has a municipality and an old standing grievance : for as G-overnmont levies a duty of 
 about 8«. 4<Z. on every hundredweight of salt quarried in the range, and as half the town 
 is built of salt and on salt, the people are fined heavily should they attempt to eat their 
 houses ; and their cattle, when they loiter by the way in order to lick the rocks or the 
 house walls, are ordered to move on by stern-visaged constables whose mud and salt- 
 built sentry-boxes are [lerched about on every commanding knoll."* 
 
 Both orographically and geologically the Salt range is continued 
 through the trans-Indus of the Bannu and Derajat districts to the 
 Suliman mountains, both sections including with many variations 
 palaeozoic, meso^oic, and cainozoic formations. The salt all belongs 
 
 * " Bannu," p. 8, note. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 253 
 
 to the same horizon as that of the Salt range proper, alum also 
 occurs and is manufactured from the pyritous shales of the Jurassic 
 and eocene formations^ but the industry seems to have greatly 
 fallen oflF. 
 
 During 1879 Mr. Lydekker explored a large area of Ladak to the 
 east of his previous observations and determined several points 
 of interest, while Mr. Griesbach accomplished a very successful 
 season's work in the higher Himalaya of Kumaun and Hundes, 
 and despite the severity of the climate prevailing at this altitude 
 succeeded in mapping the snowy range between the Niti and Milam 
 passes. 
 
 The Records for 1879 contained 22 papers of various interest 
 with 11 maps and plates, two being articles by contributors 
 not attached to the survey ; that on Hangrang and Spiti by Colonel 
 McMahon, and that on the old mines at Joga on the Narbada by 
 Mr. G. T. NichoUs of the Civil Service. Four parts of the " Pal^on- 
 tologia Indica " were issued during 1879, one by Dr. Eeistmantel on 
 the flora of the Gondwana outliers on the Madras coast, and another 
 by the same author on the flora of the Talchir-Karharbari beds, 
 one by Mr. Lydekker on the Reptilia and Batrachia of Indian 
 pretertiary formations, and the first part of the Salt range fossils 
 by Dr. Waagen. 
 
 Mr. Richard D. Oldham, the son of the founder and successful 
 director of the survey, was appointed by the Secretary of State as 
 an assistant in the survey, and took up duty with Mr. King in the 
 Godavari valley. The two native apprentices, Kishen Singh and 
 Hira Lai, having served their five years of probation with sufficient 
 credit and having acquired a serviceable knowledge of rocks and 
 minerals, received, on the recommendation of Mr. Medlicott, 
 permanent promotion as sub-assistants. 
 
 In 1880 Mr. 0. L. Griesbach was sent to the Bolan pass and 
 Southern Afghanistan to report on the gold near Kandahar and the 
 petroleum traces near Sibi. The first task was, however, much 
 impeded (though eventually accomplished) by A.yub Khan's revolt, 
 and Mr. Griesbach had to perform military duties for a time, after 
 which the rising of the Marris prevented his visiting the petroleum 
 locality at all, lying as it does 40 miles east of Sibi. 
 
 Mr. Griesbach ip certain that the hills between the Indus plain 
 and the Quetta valley are simply a continuation of the Kirthar 
 range, already described by Mr. Blanford in his geology of 
 Western Sind, while the range of hills which in turn bears the 
 
254 GEOLOGICAL SURVKT OF INDIA. 
 
 name of Suliman range, Marri hills, Brahuik and Kliirthar ranges, 
 all form links of one great chain with a uniform geological structure. 
 Speaking generally, the area examined on this occasion by Mr. 
 Griesbach can be grouped into three divisions, viz. : — 
 
 1. The Brahuik area of Baluchistan, coinciding with the lime- 
 
 stone f acies of the older tertiaries ; 
 
 2. The Pishin valley, with its eastern and western ranges 
 
 (Ghaziaband and Khojak) falling in with the sandstone and 
 shales (flysch) facies of the eocene group ; and, lastly, 
 
 3. The Kandahar and Shah Maksud ranges are formed of 
 
 cretaceous limestone and eruptive rocks of the same age. 
 
 Of special interest are the vast deposits of aerial origin, which not 
 only cover extensive tracts of country in the great deserts of 
 Registan, Seistan, &c., but also encroach rapidly on the more fertile 
 plains of Southern Afghanistan, the valleys of the Helmand, 
 Argandab, the lower Khakrez, and the great tracts lying between 
 Kandahar and Quetta. The great deserts are formed of huge 
 accumulations of blown sand and other material, among which 
 a fine densely red clay is conspicuous. South of Kandahar this 
 loose material, constantly changing its position, is seen to surround 
 and creep up into the hollows, creeks, and fissures of the jagged 
 cliffs of limestone and trap. E^ery season material is thus added, 
 and the time must come when the whole Kandahar valley will 
 be covered by this deposit and be merged into the endless expanse 
 of desert to the south. 
 
 The gold near Kandahar occurs about three miles north of the city 
 in quartz veins, between the hippuritic limestone and the extensive 
 trap outbursts.* During the first months of the British occupation 
 the gold was obtained in considerable quantities by a native con- 
 tractor, who rented the mine from the Kandahar Government. 
 Apparently, the process of extracting the gold with mercury, 
 though rude, was paying, but the native workers, being ignorant of 
 all engineering science, went on blasting the rock with gunpowder 
 and sinking the shaft lower and lower, until the sides fell in and 
 buried the miners below. Part of the auriferous vein is still visible, 
 and about two inches thick, but Mr. Griesbach was told that it 
 thickened lower down to about two feet or more, and some of the 
 nuggets of gold obtained were of the size of a man's fist. He 
 considers it highly probable that gold will be found all along the line 
 of trappoid beds, north and west of the city, but the then disturbed 
 
 * Described also at p. 30 of Bellew's Seistan Mission, Calcutta, 1H7?. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 255 
 
 state of the country fnistrated any effort on his part to test the 
 rocks. Gold is also found and worked in some fashion in the 
 Ha.zarah country and in various streams of Northern Afghanistan, 
 
 Among other mineralf found in Southern Afghanistan may be 
 mentioned copper, which is worked in the Shah Maksud range, lead 
 and antimony ores, argentiferous galena, and native silver, sulphur, 
 petroleum (east of Sibi, since examined and reported on), coal, and 
 gypsum, from olden times Kandahar has been celebrated as a 
 market where precious stones were sold to the merchants coming 
 from Shikarpur, but apparently only varieties of chrysolite and 
 chrysotile with some cornelian are actually found there, both being 
 derived from the amygdaloidal variety of the traps. 
 
 Mr. Blanford was officially deputed by the Government of India 
 to represent the Indian Geological Survey at the Congress held at 
 Bologna in 1881. This Congress had originated in a meeting of 
 geologists of various nations at Buffalo in 1876, who, in their turn, 
 arranged for an International Geological Congress at Paris in 1878, 
 for the purpose of deciding upon rules for the construction of 
 geological maps and for geological nomenclature and classification. 
 Out of this second meeting arose the Bologna Congress of 1881, to 
 which the questions at issue were referred, and which was attended 
 by about 200 members, of whom 130 were Italians and 70 foreigners. 
 On the whole, it cannot be said that much was done towards the 
 unification of nomenclature, or of the colouring and signs for 
 geological maps. It is an obvious drawback to congresses of this 
 character that they are not strictly representative, and that their 
 resolutions can have no binding force on absentees or dissentients. 
 But it is very profitable to gauge, however tentatively, the general 
 feeling of an important scientific body, and to those who have to 
 pass most of their lives in remote regions like India, it is of vast 
 importance to meet fellow-workers in similar fields and to exchange 
 ideas. 
 
 One of the most important events in 1882 was the proving of the 
 new coal field of Umaria,* at the west end of the South Eewa 
 Gondwana basin. The actual area of exposed coal measures is 
 small (about five square miles) in an angle between the gneissic rocks 
 and the great spread of newer Gondwana sandstone to the north- 
 east. The outcrop of coal had been known for many years, but its 
 surface appearance was unpromising. An extensive field was thus 
 opened to enterprise, Umaria being the nearest possible source of 
 
 * Noticed by Mr. Hughes in the " Records " for 1881 (Vol. XIV., Part 4). 
 
256 
 
 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 coal for the North-Westera Provinces, and immediately west of the 
 immense coal field of Sohagpur, which district is also rich in 
 agricultural produce, and the natural entrepot for the surrounding 
 forest tracts, whiie southwards from Sohagpur lies the least difficult 
 line of communication between northern a.nd southern India, into the 
 plains of Chattisgarh, leading down the Mahanadi valley to Cuttack, 
 and up it over the plateau of Bustar to Vizagapatam. Again, an 
 opportunity was also offered, for successful iron manufacture, there 
 being probably no spot in India where such an abundant supply of 
 first-class iron ores exists as at Katni, on the East Indian Railway. 
 A survey for a line from Katni to the coal field was commenced. 
 The Shapur coal borings in the Satpura region proved unsuccessful, 
 but the cretaceous coal field of Darangiri, in the Garo hills, reported 
 on by Mr. La Touche during the preceding season,* proved good, the 
 quantity being very considerable and the quality serviceable. 
 
 Mr. Foote was engaged in Madura and Tinnevelli, principally in 
 completing his map of the coast region and joining this work on to 
 Dr. King's in Travancore. Mr. Hacket took up work in the wilder 
 parts of the Arvali range in Southern Mewar, but being warned by 
 the Political Agent of the hostility of the Bhil tribes, he employed 
 the rest of the season very usefully in examining some intricate 
 features along the Vindhyan boundary north-east of Neemuch. In 
 Kathiawar a large area along the coast region, from Bhaunagar 
 to Madhapur, consisting mostly of trap and post-tertiary rocks, with 
 a remnant of tertiary beds on the western sea-margin, was examined 
 by Mr. Fedden. 
 
 The principal object of Mr. Blanford's work in the field season 
 1881-82 was to endeavour to trace northward the well-marked series 
 of tertiarjr rocks of Sind, and to follow their continuation if possible 
 into the Punjab, where there is not the same clue to classification in 
 the presence of marine beds above the eocene. Before taking up 
 this work Mr. Blanford was called upon to report again upon the 
 coal deposits to the west of Sibi, so he marched by the Bolan pass 
 to Quetta, examining the coal seams of Mach on the road. From 
 Quetta to Sibi he returned by the Harnai route, and visited the 
 Sharag coal locality, after which he skirted the western boundary 
 of the Bugti hills, and then marched from Jacobabad to Harrandin 
 the Punjab, through the heart of the Bugti country. From Harrand 
 he proceeded northward along the eastern flank of the Suliman 
 
 * « Records," Vol. XV., Part 3. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 257 
 
 range to some distance nortb. of Dera G-liazi Khan. Here a severe 
 attack of fever compelled him to leave end return to England, 
 Besides effecting some ijpportant alterations in Mr. Griesbach's 
 vfork about Quetta, one of the results of Mr. Blanford's work was to 
 show that post-eocene marine deposits of Sind do not continue north 
 to the Punjab border. It was also found that the main chain of the 
 Suliman is composed of hard whitish sandstones, apparently- 
 cretaceous, overlying limestones and limestone shales, with a few 
 fossils belonging to the same system. By this important piece of 
 reconnaissance the greater portion of the gap between Sind and the 
 Punjab was bridged over. Throughout the area no beds of older 
 age than cretaceous were observed ; by far the greater portion being 
 covered with tertiary deposits, the cretaceous rocks protruding only 
 in the neighbourhood of Quetta to the westward and along the 
 Suliman range to the eastward. The efforts made to trace a con- 
 nexion between the tertiary deposits of Sind and those of the Punjab 
 by following the rocks themselves to the northward, were fairly 
 successful, and some interesting fossils, mammalian and moUuscan, 
 were obtained from Lower Siwalik beds, at localities discovered by 
 Captain Vicary nearly 40 years previously in the Bugti hills. 
 
 On the termination of his short leave in England Mr. Griesbach 
 obtained permission to visit some places ou the Continent, the 
 collections made in Armenia by Staatsrath von Abich proving 
 especially interesting in their close relationship to some of the 
 Himalayan fossils. On his return Mr. Griesbach proceeded to the 
 Tibetan frontier, but the cold was so intense as to impede his 
 explorations considerably. Mr. Oldham, who accompanied the 
 Manipur-Burma Boundary Commission, made a complete traverse 
 of the main range into the great alluvial and tertiary basin of the 
 Chindwin river. He also marched from Manipur northward into 
 the ISTaga hills, returning by the Assam valley, the indications 
 proving that the range is altogether a secondary one, a mere fender 
 of the great Malayan crystalline axis. 
 
 During the year two parts of Vol. XIX. of the " Memoirs " wei-e ' 
 published, the first being a description, with numerous illustrations, 
 of the great Cachar earthquake of the 10th January 1869. 
 
 The circumstances of this earthquake were observed and noted by 
 the late Dr. Oldham, superintendent of the survey, but the materials 
 were not published till 1883, when they were collated and skilfully 
 discussed by Mr. R. D. Oldham. The shock, it appears, originally 
 
 I Y 20321. E, 
 
258 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 came on at Silchai' at a quarter to 5 p.m., with a gently undulating 
 movement, which, however, rapidly increased until neither men nor 
 animals could keep their legs, but were thrown down ; the water in 
 tanks and rivers was violently agitated, and the Barak river rose in 
 huge waves and wrecked numbers of boats. The landslips caused 
 were numerous and extensive, and many homesteads were carried 
 down into the stream. At Manipur the Political Agent found the 
 motion of the ground most violent ; it seemed to rise and fall in 
 waves of about three feet in height, and the Raja's palace as well as 
 other houses were ruined, and there was some loss of life. At 
 another place (Kussilong), about 90 miles from Chittagong, a corre- 
 spondent reported that '* It burst with tremendous force. The 
 " undulations were very severe and lasted nearly two minutes. 
 " It seemed as if some mighty wave were sweeping on under the 
 " earth, and as it passed the solid earth rose and fell with a motion 
 " distinctly visible along the banks of the river and in the hills 
 •' beyond. The ground was seen to roll wave-like, the hills to reel, 
 " and the trees to wave to and fro. The spectacle was wonderful 
 " and fearful." The extreme limits of the area over which the same 
 shock or group of shocks was experienced must have exceeded 650 
 miles from north-west to south-east, and 400 miles in the conjugate 
 direction of north-east to south-west. Allowing for those districts 
 from which no reports happened to be received, the area affected 
 must have been fully a quarter of a million of square miles, a 
 tolerable index to the vastness of the forces developed. 
 
 Mr. Oldham is of opinion that the shock originated in a fissure 
 above 20 miles long, running underneath an area about three or four 
 miles broad and from 20 to 30 miles long, situated in north latitude 
 26° and east longitude 92° 40', on the northern borders of the 
 Jamtia hills. The mean depth of the focus was probably about 
 30 miles, and the velocity of the wave particle 20 or 30 feet per 
 second. The rate of transit could not be satisfactorily determined.* 
 
 The second part of Vol. XIX. of the " Memoirs " issued during the 
 same year (1882) contained a list of the thermal springs of India, 
 compiled by the late Dr. T. Oldham, and brought out by his son. 
 The geographical position, latitude and longitude, elevation of the 
 locality above sea-level, and the temperature of the water of the 
 spring are all given. The list is far completer than the last one 
 
 * A catalogue of Indian earthquakes, from 833 A.D. up to 1869, was prepared by 
 Dr. Oldham and published in the " Memoirs," Vol. XIX. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 259 
 
 prepared by Mr. R. Schlagintweit,* containing as it does 301 names 
 of springs as against only 90 enumerated by Mr. ScMagintweit. 
 
 Five fasciculi of tte Palffiontologia Indica were brougtt out in 
 1882, comprising a description of the fossil flora of tte Soiitli Eewa 
 basin by Dr. Feistmantel, the Siwalik and Narbada Bquidee, being 
 Part 3, Yol. II., of the Tertiary Yertebrata Series, by Mr. Lydekker, 
 a fasciculus on the Brachiopoda of the Salt range by Dr. "Waagen, 
 and two fasciculi on the fossil Bchinoidea of Sind by Professor 
 Martin Duncan and Mr. Percy Sladen. 
 
 During the year 1882 Mr. TV. T. Blanford was obliged to 
 take sick leave to Europe, and under medical advice he was 
 subsequently compelled to retire from the service. He had spent 
 27 years in the arduous work of the Greological Survey, in which 
 from the very outset he had taken a leading part. He wrote 
 part of the report on the Talchir coal fields, the first paper in 
 the "Memoirs," which have since extended to twenty-four volumes, 
 containing numerous contributions from his pen. Besides his 
 regular geological labours, Mr. Blanford has done a vast deal 
 for the zoology of India, on which he is the highest atithority. 
 He was twice deputed on special missions out of India — with the 
 army to Abyssinia, and with the Seistan Boundary Commissioners to 
 Persia: and published special accounts of his researches in both 
 those countries. He was twice (in 1878 and 1879) elected President 
 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and so long ago as 1874 he was 
 elected, at his first nomination, a Pellow of the Royal Society. 
 In 1876 Dr. Oldham, on retirement, recommended Mr. Blanford as 
 his successor as Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India ; 
 of this he was deprived only by a small matter of seniority, and in 
 recognition of his high claims Government rewarded him with a 
 special personal remuneration above the pay of his appointment. 
 Personally, as well as professionally, Mr. Blanford's departure was 
 much regretted by his colleagues and the Government. 
 
 Since Mr. Blanford's return to England, he has undertaken the 
 editing of the "Fauna of British India," at the request of the 
 Secretary of State, 5^ volumes of which have already appeared. 
 It is designed to form a complete series of manuals of Indian 
 zoology for schools and for students, and will be the standard work 
 on the subject. 
 
 • Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XXXIII., p. 49, 1864. 
 
 R 2 
 
260 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Of the work achieved during 1883 Mr. Griesbach's was probably 
 the most interesting, dealing as it did with the main Himalayan 
 range and its grand formations. He completed the survey of the 
 Hundes basin to its western limit on the flanks of the gneissic mass 
 of the Porgyal mountain which separates Hundes from Spiti. For 
 some important horizons he satisfied himself of the identity of the 
 sections in Spiti (as partly determined by Dr. Stoliczka) and those 
 in Hundes. From this region Mr. Grriesbach had to hurry late in 
 October to join the expedition to the Takht-i-Suliman, on the 
 North- West frontier.* This remarkable peak consists of the 
 cretaceous sandstones with limestones described by Mr. Blanford 
 as forming the crest of the range 80 miles to the south. f 
 
 In Jaunsar, in the l/ower Himalayas, Mr. Oldham succeeded in 
 introducing two unconformable and almost wholly detached groups 
 above the Deoban limestone where a great gap had always existed 
 between the tertiaries in the Simla section and the Krol group, for 
 which no age later than the trias had been conjectured. Further 
 researches into the character of the granitoid gneiss of the 
 Himalayas were made by Colonel McMahon, leading to the con- 
 clusion that much of it is intrusive and must properly be called 
 gneissose granite. 
 
 An important contribution to the literature of the year was 
 Mr. Lydekker's volume on the north-west Himalayas (" Memoirs," 
 Vol. XXII.), the researches in the field for which had been concluded 
 two years previously. 
 
 Mr. La Touche was to have taken up the examination of the coal 
 field in the Garo hills, his preliminary visit to which was described 
 in the " Kecords," Vol. XVI., page 164, but instead he was deputed 
 to accompany Colonel Woodthorpe's party in the exploration of the 
 Dehing basin, a region of much interest, as it probably reaches 
 beyond the zone of tertiary rocks fringing the Upper Assam valley 
 and beyond the range of the Arakan-Manipur axis. Unfortunately 
 this plan was interrupted by the Aka raid, the party being diverted 
 into that territory and Mr. La Touche with it. The ground is 
 Himalayan ground proper not far to the west of the Daphla 
 district, visited by Colonel Godwin- Austen in 1865, and probably 
 like it in structure. 
 
 The eastern parts of the Madura and Tinnevelli districts were 
 examined by Mr. Foote, and a sketch of the geological features of 
 
 * See above, p. 147, f " Memoirs," Vol. XX., Part 2. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 261 
 
 the region appears in tlie " Memoirs," Vol. XX., Part 1. The districts 
 both form part of the tract lying between the water-parting along 
 the axis of the Southern Q-h^ts and the Bay of Bengal. Along the 
 sea-board there runs a belt of sedimentary rocks, and westward a 
 great band of crystalline rocks, whila the greater part of the low 
 country occupied by gneissic rocks in South Madura and North 
 Tinnevelly is covered with a widespread deposit of regur or black 
 cotton soil. Along the coast from Cape Comorin to the Paumben 
 channel a series of marine rocks, generally calcareous grits, forms a 
 narrow and broken fringe. This formation was once widely 
 extended, but has been removed by denudation, while the outliers 
 and patches of beds which have been left testify to the fact that 
 since their formation under the sea the country must have under- 
 gone an elevation of close upon 200 feet, if not more. There is 
 evidence of a somewhat similar phenomenou in an upheaved coral 
 reef on the northern coast of Rameswaram island, between India and 
 Ceylon ; and the same cause, in Mr. Foote's opinion, upraised both 
 tlie island and the mainland. It is difficult to resist the inference 
 that the same upheaval led to the formation of what is known to 
 the Hindus as Rama's bridge, and to Mussulmans and Christians as 
 Adam's bridge, the long narrow isthmus which once united Ceylon 
 to India ; while to the same action again may be attributed the 
 formation of the long line of islets running parallel with the south 
 coast of Madura. Local history claims that Rameswaram island 
 was once completely joined to the terra firma on both sides, and 
 that both the Paumben strait and the other passages to the eastward 
 were breached by a tremendous storm about 1480 A.D. The action 
 of the waves has broken the barrier into large flat blocks, which so 
 strongly resemble a series of gigantic stepping stones that it is easy 
 to fall in with the i'magination of the author of the Ramayana, 
 which ascribed artificial construction to the bridge.* 
 
 The two great groups into which the soils of Tinnevelly and 
 Madura are divisible are the red and the black, the former being 
 
 * According to the famous old Hindu epic, the construction of the bridge was due 
 to the industry of the great army of monkeys and bears led by Eama iind his long-tailed 
 friends, Sugriva and Hanuman, when they proceeded to invade Lanka (Ceylon), during 
 tie war with Eama, the king of demons and the abductor of Sita, Eama's wife. 
 The engineering part of the undertaking was speci:illy entrusted to the moidiey Kala 
 a sou of Viwakarma, the famous architect. Perhaps the upheaval of Eama's bridge 
 may have occurred within the semi-mythical time preceding some invasion of the 
 heretical Buddhist kingdom of Lanka (Ceylon) by the Brahmaiiical Aryans of the 
 mainland and their Dravidian allies. 
 
262 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 generally tlie product of decomposition in situ of underlying 
 ferruginous rocks. A very curious feature connected witli this red 
 loamy soil is tlie enormous number of white-ants' nests, -which are 
 of a bright red colour, attain a height of five to eight feet, and are 
 often so numerous as to affect very strikingly the character of the 
 foreground. There is no part of the south of India in which blown 
 sands play so large and important a part as in the Tinnevelly 
 district and along the south coast of Madura. They are of two 
 kinds — the red sand or teris and the white, which are ordinary sand 
 dunes. The former are attributed by Mr. Foote to the action of 
 the heavy and continuous gales prevalent (sometimes for four 
 months) during the S.W. monsoon on the broad belt of deep red 
 loam which skirts the eastern base of the Grhats. It is evident that 
 these sands bear a great resemblance, though on a smaller scale, to 
 the red sands of the ISTefud or great desert of Central Arabia 
 described by Mr. Palgrave, Lady Anne Blunt, M. Huber, and other 
 Arabian travellers. But the origin of the red sands of the Nefud is 
 still involved in uncertainty. 
 
 Mr. Mallet's investigation of the iron ores in the Katni district, 
 in north Jabalpur,* shewed that all the other conditions for extensive 
 iron manufacture were favourable if suitable coal could be found, 
 Mr. Fedden, by prolonging the season's work well into the hot 
 weather, was enabled to complete his survey of Kathiawar. 
 The area is principally occupied by Deccan trap, of which it was 
 not desirable to attempt a detailed survey throughout, so the work 
 lay principally in tertiary or post-tertiary deposits of the coastal 
 region, with some secondary rocks on the north-east margin. 
 
 Five parts of the " Memoirs " were published during the year. 
 Part 3 of Volume XIX. contained the catalogue of Indian earthquakes 
 mentioned above (page 258, note), and Part 4 Mr. Oldham's account 
 of his examination of an area of about 1,800 square miles to the east 
 and in the north of the valley of Manipur, with the neighbouring Naga 
 hills. This country is densely covered with vegetation, and for whole 
 days one naay march without seeing a single rock, while the want 
 of population or else savages of doubtful temperament offered great 
 impediments to Mr. Oldham's researches. Geologically, the region 
 has no great feature of interest, and the economic minerals are 
 poor. 
 
 * "Records," Vol. XV., Part 2. 
 
GEOLOOICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 263 
 
 The other volumes issued during the year (XX. and XXII.) 
 contain the memoirs by Messrs. Blanford, Foote, and Lydekker, 
 already referred to. 
 
 The Records for the year (Vol. XVI.) embrace 24 articles of varied 
 interest with numerous maps and plates. Of the " Palaeontologia 
 Indica," a full part containing a large section of the Brachiopoda 
 of the productus limestone of the Salt range, by Dr. "Waagen, was 
 published ; also a part on the tertiary Bchinoidea of Kach and 
 Kathiawar, by Dr. Duncan. Mr. Mallet issued a descriptive catalogue 
 of the systematic series of minerals in the museum, and a guide to 
 the economic mineral products, giving a very instructive account of 
 each class of substance, its use and distribution. 
 
 With the co-operation of Mr. H. F. Blanford, the Meteorological 
 Reporter to the Government of India, some simple seismometric 
 instruments were set up at Silchar, Sibsagar, and Shillong, forming 
 a group for the determination of centres of earth disturbance in 
 Assam. 
 
 During the year two able members of the Department retired. 
 Mr. Wynne, who had left India on medical certificate in 1880, had, 
 after several extensions of sick leave, to bo finally invalided in 1883. 
 He had joined the Indian Service in 1862, having already had 
 several years' geological experience in Ireland. In India some 
 choice fields of work fell to him, such as Cutch and the Salt range, 
 excellent illustrated descriptions of which have appeared in the 
 " Memoirs." Mr. Lydekker, the other retiring member, had had a 
 short but a very busy career. He joined the Survey in 1874, and 
 as soon as the collections were moved to the new museum and 
 amalgamated with those of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he under- 
 took the arrangement and description of the extensive series of 
 tertiary vertebrate fossils, large additions to which were made by 
 Mr. Theobald in the Punjab. Mr. Lydekker's description of the 
 Siwalik fauna in the " Palaeontologia Indica " will form an enduring 
 record of his zeal and ability. 
 
 During the same year two new assistants joined the Survey, 
 Mr. E. J. Jones, A.S.R.M., and Mr. 0. S. Middlemiss, B.A. (Cantab). 
 
 The Karnul cave explorations commenced by Mr. Foote, and 
 continued by his son Lieut. H. B. Foote, R.A., proved to be on the 
 whole encouraging, a large number of bones were secured, some of 
 animals that do not now inhabit the region, some human remains 
 and articles of human manufacture, the latter at the considerable 
 
264 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 depth of 16 feet, but nothing to show that the caves had ever been 
 used as dwellings or as a place of sepulture. Mr. Foote was ait^o 
 called upon to explore for coal along an intended line of railway 
 between Haidarabad and the Kistna. Between Bezvada and the 
 Singareni coal field, and from the latter to Haidarabad, the country 
 proved to be all of gneissic rocks, but Mr. Foote's labours were 
 rewarded by the discovery of a strong lode of rich iron close to the 
 Singareni coal field. 
 
 Dr. King's survey of the coal fields on the north-east confines of 
 Chattisgarh was described in the " Records " (Yol. XVII., Part 3). 
 In South liewa regular mining explorations of the Umaria coal 
 field had been commenced under Mr. Hughes's direction in 1883, 
 and the shafts proved so satisfactory that steps were taken to 
 establish a colliery there with a branch railway from Katni to 
 Jabalpur. Mr. Hughes also managed to complete the examination 
 of the southern coal fields of the Rewa Gondwana basin, the total 
 area of exposed measures proved to be no less than 1,800 square 
 miles. 
 
 Mr. Bose took Tip new ground in the basin of the upper 
 Mahanadi, but the results were not deemed satisfactory by Mr. 
 Medlicott, who indeed referred prominently to this as an additional 
 proof of the unsuitableness of natives of India for the faculty of 
 independent research and critical observation required to make a 
 good geologist. j\ir. Medlicott adds that the Geological Survey is 
 about the only branch of the public service in which natives could 
 not as yet reasonably find employment. 
 
 Mr. Oldham submitted full progress reports of his work in the 
 Himalayan region, embracing a section from the [)lains to the base 
 of the main range ; his detailed conclusions are summarised under 
 nine different heads in Mr. Medlicott's report. Mr. Griesbach was, 
 unfortunately, taken seriously ill at Kohat, after the expedition to 
 Takht-i-Suliman, but after recovering his strength, at Simla he 
 was appointed to accompany the Afghan Boundary Commission in 
 the capacity of geologist. The results of the Takht-i-Suliman 
 observations were published in the " Records" (Vol. XVII., Part 4), 
 and the same volume contains Mr. l^fallet's examination of ores 
 from the Andaman islands. 
 
 Early in the season Mr. La Touche accompanied the expedition 
 into the Aka hills, north of Tezpur, in Assam. The dense vegeta- 
 tion prevented any observation of the rocks except in the stream 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 265 
 
 courses. The section was found to correspond witli that observed in 
 the Daphla hills to the east by Colonel Godwin Austen, and 
 with that described by Mr. Mallet in the Bhutan Duars to the 
 west. Inside the tertiary zone there is a belt of carboniferous 
 Damuda strata bordering the schistose rocks of the higher hills. 
 Here too, as elsewhere, along the foot of the Himalayas, the coal 
 is so crushed as to be unserviceable. Later on Mr. La Touche 
 examined the Longrin coal field on the south-west edge of the Garo 
 hills. His report, which is published with a map in Vol. XVII. of 
 the " Records," Part 3, shows that the field ofiers an abundant supply 
 of very fair coal easily accessible on the very borders of the plain of 
 Sylhefc. 
 
 In connexion with the record of Indian geological progress, men- 
 tion may be here made of a very instructive discussion of geological 
 homotaxis given by Mr. W. T. Blanford in his address as 
 President to the Geological Section of the British Association on 
 the occasion of their meeting at Montreal, Being mainly illustrated 
 from Indian geology the paper was reprinted in the " Records." 
 Mr. Blanford is inclined to modify Professor Huxley's statement 
 that " for anything that geology or palaeontology is able to show 
 " to the contrary, a Devonian fauna and flora in the British Islands 
 " may have been contemporaneous with Silurian life in North 
 " America, and with a carboniferous fauna and flora in Africa."* 
 Granting such conditions to be possible for a terrestrial fauna or 
 flora, Mr. Blanford considers that the marine fauna would give 
 a much nearer approximation to synchrony. Mr. Oldham also 
 dealt with the same subject in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of 
 Bengal for 1884 (Part II., p. 187), and illustrated from Indian 
 palaeontology the great discrepancies in correlations of time from 
 fossil evidence. He also endeavoured to establish synchronous 
 relations of distant formations through the evidence of periods of 
 glaciation, and arrived at the conclusion that in early secondary 
 times the crust of the earth did not occupy the same position with 
 respect to the axis of rotation as it does now. 
 
 Two memoirs were published in 1884, Mr. Bose's on the Lower 
 Narbada valley between Nimawar and Kawant, and Mr. Fedden's 
 on Kathiawar, each with a map. They form Parts 1 and 2 of Vol. 
 XXL In the " Palasontologia Indica," five parts of Series X., the 
 Indian Tertiary and Post Tertiary Vertebrata by Mr. Lydekker, 
 were published daring the year, forming a very valuable addition to 
 
 • Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Vol. XVIII., p. xlvi. 
 
266 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 that bran ell of the Survey publications. Dr. Waagen also furnished 
 two parts (Nos. 3 and 4) of the Brachiopoda of the Productus 
 Limestone, and a huge fasciculus of Series XIV., with 18 
 admirably executed plates descriptive of the tertiary and upper 
 cretaceous fossils of Sind, was issued from the pen of Professor 
 Martin Duncan. 
 
 Some interesting contributions of ores, rocks, and other 
 geological specimens were made to the museum from the Inter- 
 national Exhibition held in Calcutta, the principal presentations 
 being made by the Ministers for Mines in New South Wales and 
 Victoria, and the Tasmanian Commissioners. 
 
 During 1885 Mr. R. D. Oldham took a trip to Australia to enable 
 him to study the Gondwana rocks of that region, and his memo- 
 randum on the correlation of the Indian and Australian coal-bearing 
 beds is published in Vol. XIX., Part 1, of the " Records." Dr. King 
 was chiefly engaged in directing the practical exploration of the 
 Rampur coal field, which is the southern portion of the Raigarh 
 and Hingir basin, formerly surveyed by Mr. Ball in 1876, but 
 unfortunately the coal has proved uniformly bad in quality. 
 
 During 1884-85 Mr. Foote was able to take up his survey in the 
 Bellary district, from which he had been called away in the 
 previous season to search for coal in the gneiss of Haidarabad. The 
 Sandur hills to the west of Bellary were the principal objects of 
 investigation ; they are formed by one of the bands of transition 
 rocks that traverse the peninsula with a N.N.W. trend, and are all 
 remnants of a once widespread formation which Mr. Foote now 
 unites and distinguishes as the Dharwar series, and shows to be 
 unconformable to the gneiss with which it has been intimately 
 associated by complete folding together. In the Sandur hills 
 there occur masses of rich haematite. Mr. Foote made a careful 
 examination of the well-known diamond field at Wadjra Karur, to 
 which special interest attached on account of mining operations 
 started there by Messrs. Orr and Sons of Madras. But in spite of 
 the occurrence of a peculiar trappean rock, declared to be identical 
 with the famous diamond matrix of Kimberley, no speck of the 
 gem was discovered. Mr. Hacket covered a large area (some 
 3,000 square miles) of new ground in Mewar, in continuation of 
 his previous work to the north. It is entirely composed of the 
 same obscure rocks — the schist limestones and quartzites of the 
 Arvali system in transitional relation with gneiss and granite masses. 
 Mount Abu is a mass of coarse highly felspathic gneiss. 
 
GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF INDIA. 267 
 
 Mr. Griesbach contributed to tbe February number of the 
 " Records " a small instalment of his observations with the Afghan 
 Boundary Commission, ^^he southern route taken to Herat crossed 
 the continuation of the tertiary and cretaceous formation previously 
 described by him at and west of Kandahar (" Memoirs," XVIII., 1), 
 the hippuritic limestone being very prominent with copious intrusions 
 of basic trap and syenitic granite. In the axial range of the Siah 
 Koh and Doshakh, south of the Herat valley, paleozoic rocks make 
 their first appearance, as represented by a carboniferous Productus 
 limestone, dipping northwards towards the Hari Eud valley. The 
 Paropamisus range, north of the valley, seems to be largely made 
 up of a great plant-bearing series which Mr. Griesbach provisionally 
 parallels with the Indian Gondwana system, conjecturing that it 
 overlies the carboniferous productus-limestone. In notes of a 
 year's later date, published in the " Records," Mr. Griesbach adheres 
 to this general rock sequence, and describes its distribution in the 
 Binalat and other ranges of eastern Khorasan. 
 
 The result of Mr. Oldham's observations in the Andamans is 
 published, with a map, in the " Records," and gives generally the 
 classification and distribution of the rocks, with a digest of all 
 previous explorations. Mr. La Touche was again despatched from 
 the Garo hills to take advantage of the topographical exploration 
 party to the head waters of the Dehing* on the extreme east frontier 
 of Assam. In that region the conditions are very unfavourable for 
 geological observations on account of the dense vegetation. It has, 
 however, been ascertained that the whole upper valley of the Dehing 
 is occupied by tertiary deposits, chiefly sandstones, while the actual 
 crest of the ridges to north and east are of crystalline rocks. IJn« 
 fortunately, Mr. La Touche did not accompany the officers who 
 crossed the water-shed, consequently the opportunity of extending 
 the geological observations into the valley of the north-west branch 
 of the Irawadi. A good season's work was done by Mr. Jones in 
 mapping the whole area hitherto known as the Pench coal field, and 
 for some distance to the west in the direction of the Shahpur coal 
 field, on the south side of the Satpura Gondwana basin. The field 
 is, however, remote and inaccessible. Further light was shed on the 
 geology of the Lower Himalayan region, where the absence of fossil 
 guidance has always proved a perplexity, by the discovery by 
 
 * ISee p. 79. 
 
268 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Mr. Middlemiss of some fossils east of the Tal river. He ascribes 
 the normal position of this Tal group as above the massive limestone 
 and thus next below the nummulitic band. Mr. Middlemiss also 
 investigated the circumstances of the Bengal earthquake, and 
 secured some good observations in positions favourable for ascer- 
 taining the focus of the shock. The Kashmir earthquake, which 
 was reported on by Mr. Jones, was far more difficult to investigate 
 critically, owing to the rough mode of construction of the native 
 houses, the heavy earthen roofs having simply collapsed between 
 crumbling walls, leaving little trace of direction. The same cause 
 also made it most disastrous in respect of loss of life. 
 
 Dr. Feistmantel, the permanent Palgeontologist of the Survey, 
 resigned his appointment at the termination of his two years' 
 furlough, having accepted a professorship at Prague. In his three 
 volumes on the Gondwana Flora this learned and energetic officer 
 has cleared up many difficulties connected with the principal rock 
 system of India, and supplied a standard for future work in that 
 branch of palaeontology. 
 
 The work of the Survey had necessarily suJTered from the absence 
 of a palaeontologist, but, nevertheless, the co-operation of savants 
 enabled some important papers to be issued during the year. The 
 fossil Bchinoidea from the Gaj or miocene series of Sind were 
 described by Professor Martin Duncan and Mr. Percy Sladen, and 
 two instalments of Dr. Waagen's work on the Salt range fossils were 
 also published. Mr. Lydekker also brought out two parts of the 
 " Palaeontologia Indica," dealing with Indian Pretertiary Vertebrata, 
 and a third part (No. 6 of Series X., on the Siwalik and ISarbada 
 Chelonia) devoted to tertiary and post-tertiary vertebrata. 
 
 During 1886 Mr. Foote, whose work had been confined to the 
 Madras Presidency during the two previous seasons, mapped a con- 
 ;,iderable area, in extension of his previous work in Bellary, both of 
 o-neiss and of his Dharwar schistose series. The researches of 
 Mr. Foote's son, Lieutenant H. Foote, E.A., in the Karnul cave 
 resulted in the discovery of very interesting fauna, which has 
 been described by Mr. Lydekker in the " Pal^ontologia Indica." A 
 large number of the species, according to this authority, are now 
 either totally extinct or not living in India, and are not newer than 
 pleistocene. They display numerous affinities with African types, 
 ii feature previously note:l regarding the tertiary Siwalik fauna 
 
GEOLOOICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 269 
 
 of India. Dr. King's regular work in the hills west of the Ohattis- 
 garh plains was necessarily interrupted by his having to superintend 
 the coal explorations in Jhe fields far to the east, which, however, 
 did not promise a fair supply of fuel. In the remote hill country, 
 far to the north of Korba, a large new coal field was traced out by 
 Sub-assistant Hira Lai ; it is the western extension of the measures 
 noticed some years ago by Mr. Ball at their eastern extremity as the 
 Lakanpur field. Mr. Hughes' deputation in charge of the Umaria 
 colliery was followed by his examination of the rocks above the coal 
 measures, in which he found some new localities for fossils. 
 Mr. Jones's work during the season of 1886 was the completion of 
 the survey cf the southern coal field of the Satpura Gondwana 
 basin. There are altogether 11 separate areas where the coal 
 measures group is exposed, seven of them being in the Chindwara 
 disti'ict, while four adjoining areas in the Betul district were mapped 
 and described some years ago.* The quality of the coal, as ascer- 
 tained from outcrop samples, was not very encouraging, and during 
 the two seasons' work no recognisable fossils were found. Mr. 
 Hacket's operations in Rajputana were confined to the older rocks, 
 the Arvalis and the Vindhyans, to the west of which, in the more or less 
 desert country of Jaisalmer, the existence of fossiliferous limestones 
 has been known for many years. Mr. Oldham was deputed to 
 explore in 1886 the northern extension of the Jurassic strata towards 
 Bikanir, for the purpose of seeing whether he could fix upon a 
 Talchir bed, which all over India forms the base of the Gondwana 
 coal measures. Mr. La Touche made good progress with his work in 
 the Garo hills, and his notes appeared in the " Records" (Vol. XX.) ; 
 and Mr. Middlemiss investigated an obscure point presented by the 
 discovery of a long ellipse of crystalline schists suiTounded by a 
 narrow fringe of newer strata, immediately east of the Ganges and 
 at the edge of the lower Himalayan region just inside the fringing 
 zone of sub-Himalayan rocks. 
 
 On the 1st November Mr. Griesbach returned to India with the 
 Afghan Boundary Commission not much the worse for his two years' 
 wanderings. His notes appear in the " Records." The geology of the 
 Herat valley is shortly described in Vol. XVIIL, Part 1. Afghan 
 and Persian field notes, dealing with Eastern Khorasan and the 
 Herat province, are contained in Vol. XIX., Part 1, while a very 
 
 * "Records," G. S. I., VIII., 1875. 
 
270 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 full and valuable sketch of the geology of Afghan Turkistan appears 
 in Part 4 of the same volume. The fourth or concluding batch of 
 notes treats of the return march of the Commission from Turkistan 
 over the Hindu Kush and through Kabul to India. 
 
 In the little known region of Gilgit, Astor, and Baltistan, and the 
 country beyond, the observations made by Dr. Gr. M. Giles, though 
 not those of a professed geologist, supplied some valuable informa- 
 tion about a large area from the Pamir through "Wakhan and 
 eastern Badakhshan across the Hindu Kush at its supposed roots, 
 and back through Chitral and Yasin. The whole of the large area 
 presented apparently an extension of the conditions known in 
 Baltistan ; no trace of a fossiliferous rock was seen ; crystalline and 
 schistose rocks greatly preponderated, with only a few less altered 
 slaty specimens. Throughout the eastern and central part of the 
 area an east-west strike was very constant, while on the west side, 
 i.e., on what is represented as the axis of the Hindu Kush, the 
 prevailing strike of the rocks was north to south, though often 
 irregular. There remains a belt of unknown ground (over 150 miles) 
 between Charikar and Chitral to which peculiar interest attaches, 
 both from a geological and geographical point of view. 
 
 Several parts of the " Palgeontologia Indica " came to a natural 
 close with the end of the year, Mr. Lydekker, who has earned much 
 reputation in that branch, having pretty well cleared off all the fossil 
 vertebrata, though of course further collections have since been made. 
 "With the fasciculus on the Bchinoidea of the Makran series of the 
 Baluchistan and Persian Gulf coasts Professor P. Martin Duncan 
 completed a portly volume, forming Yol. I. of Series XIY., the 
 " Tertiary and Upper Cretaceous Fauua of "Western India." Dr. 
 Waagen made good progress with his important volume on the fossils 
 of the productus-limestone of the Salt range, one part (the 
 Coelenterata) being issued in 1886. 
 
 The year 1887 was marked by the retirement, on the 27th of 
 April, of Mr. H. B. Medlicott, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., after a con- 
 tinuous service of over 30 years in India. Mr. Medlicott became 
 Superintendent (a title afterwards altered to Director) after the 
 retirement of the late Dr. T. Oldham in 1876, and the admirable and 
 ef&cient manner in which he conducted the responsible duties of the 
 Department is amply borne out by the ofl&cial records of the Survey. 
 In collaboration with Mr. W- T. Blanford, then Senior Deputy 
 Superintendent, he produced the first and second parts of the 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 271 
 
 '' Manual of the Geology of India," since out of print. Besides his 
 part in the Manual, Mr. Medlicott wrote five of the memoirs of the 
 Geological Survey of India, which are works on special formations 
 or districts ; but his peculiar genius for conducting the Survey and 
 for treating the mialtifarious questions which came before him is 
 more specially displayed in the " Records," to which he contributed 
 no fewer than 44 papers in all.* His long and valuable services 
 were thus acknowledged by the Government, on the receipt of his 
 last annual report : — 
 
 " As this is the last occasion on which the annual report will be submitted by yon, 
 the Government of India desires to take the opportunity of placing on record its 
 appreciation of your long and valuable services, and to recognise the zealous manner 
 in which you have discharged the duties of superintendence and direction, and the 
 devotedness with which you have supported the cause of Geological Science in Indin. 
 I am to add that the marked advance which has been made in the investigation of the 
 
 * The complete list of his non-official writings, as far as ascertainable, is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " On the Geology of Portraine, county of Dublin." — Jour. Dub. Geol. Soc, V. 26.5, 
 1850-53. 
 
 " On the Sub-Himalayan rocks between the Ganges and the Jumna." — J. A. S. B., 
 XXX., 22. 
 
 "Note relating to Siwalik Tauna."— J. A. S. B., XXXIV., pt. 2, 63. 
 
 "On the action of the Ganges."— P. A. S. B., 1868, 232. 
 
 "On a celt from the ossiferous 'Pliocene' deposits of the N"arbada valley." — 
 P. A. S. B., 1873, 138. 
 
 « Eecord of the Khairpur Meteorite of 23rd Sept. 1873."— J. A. S. B., XLIJI., 
 pt. 2, 33. 
 
 " Exhibition of a Meteorite from Eaipur."— P. A. S. B., 1876, 115. 
 
 " Exhibition of Meteorites recently fallen in India, with remarks upon them." — 
 P. A. S. B., 1876, 221. 
 
 "Eemarks on Himalayan Glaciation." P. A. S. B., 1877, 3. 
 
 "Note on Mr. J. P. Campbell's remarks on Himalayan Glaciation." — J. A. S. B., 
 XLVI., pt. 2, 11. 
 
 " ICxhibition of the new Geological Map of India." — P. A. S. B., 1878, 124. 
 
 " Exhibition of some Geological specimens from Afghanistan." — P. A. S. B., 
 1880, 3. 
 
 "Exhibition of a specimen of rock-salt from the Chakmani Territory." — P. A. S. B., 
 1880, 123. 
 
 "Note on Chloromelanite."— P. A. S. B., 18P3, 80. 
 
 "Note on the Reh efflorescence of North-Western India, and on the waters of some 
 of the rivers and canals." 
 
 " Lithological Nomenclature."— Geol. Mag. IV., 83, 1867. 
 
 " The Alps and the Himalayas : a Geological comparison." — Quar. J. Geol. Soc, 
 XXIIL, 323, 1867 ; XXIV., 34, 1868 ; Phi). Mag., XXXIV., 396, 1867. 
 
 " On faults in Strata."— Geol. Mag. VI., 341, 1869, VII., 473, 1870. 
 
272 GEOLOaiCAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Geological conditions of InJia duriug youi' tenure of office is most creditable to your 
 self, and that it iij undoubtedly leading to the development of the mineral resources 
 of the empire, as ^^■ell as the material extension of scientific knowledge." 
 
 On Dr. King taking over the directorsliip in April 1887 from 
 Mr. Medlicott, he found the staff of the Survey still below the 
 normal number. The distribution over the vast area of the Indian 
 Empire was as follows : — 
 
 Mr. Foote on special deputation to the Mysore Government. 
 
 Mr. Mallet, Museum and Laboratory. 
 
 Mr. Hughes, special deputation with the Deccan Company, 
 
 Hyderabad. 
 Mr. Fedden, Vizagapatam. 
 Mr. Hacket, Kajputana. 
 Mr. Griesbach, just returned from the Afghan Boundary 
 
 Commission. 
 Mr. Oldham, Salt range. 
 Mr. Bose, Chattisgarh. 
 Mr. La Touche, Assam. 
 Mr. Middlemiss, Himalayas. 
 Mr. Jones, Upper Burma. 
 
 Two of the vacancies were subsequently filled up by the appoint- 
 ment of Dr. Fritz Noetling (Berlin University) as Palaeontologist, 
 and of Mr. Philip Lake (Cantab.) as assistant superintendent ; on 
 the other hand, Mr. Hughes's engagement with the Deccan Company 
 continued until May 1888, and Mr. Griesbach was deputed for two 
 years to Afghanistan as geologist to the Amir of that country. 
 Mr. La Touche was also selected for work under the Kashmir 
 Government. These various calls from Native administrations were 
 of course in the nature of distinction ; nevertheless, they formed an 
 interruption to the regular work of the Survey. Mr. Foote's study 
 of the auriferous veins of Mysore resulted in a lengthy and valuable 
 report, founded on a rapid tour through the province. Mr. Fedden, 
 who was transferred to the Madras Presidency at the end of 1886, 
 took up work in the Vizagapatam district, with the endeavour to 
 fill in the large unsurveyed gap between the Godavari and the 
 Ganjam districts in the Northern Circar, and ho had been going on 
 steadily with his work when he suddenly died at Vizagapatam on 
 the 27th December 1887. He was one of the oldest and most valued 
 members of the Department, and had only just attained the long 
 looked-for promotion to the Ist grade. 
 
GEOLOaiCAL SURVEY OF INDIA.-- 273 
 
 Dr. King's executive work closed witli his boring experiences in 
 tlie Chattisgarli coal fields, one tract in wliich, near Korba, yielded 
 workable coal of good quality. The credit of the find was due to 
 Sub-assistant Hira Lai. Mr. Hacket continued his researches in 
 Rajputana, and Mr. Middlemiss steadily and energetically pursued 
 his pi'oper work in the lower Himalayas about British Garhwal and 
 Kumaun, the results of which are given in a series of papers in the 
 " Records." 
 
 On. the application of the Kashmir Government for a geologist to 
 report on the sapphires in Zanskar, Mr. La Touche was detached 
 from his recess work in Assam. He was able to work for a month 
 at the spot which lies just below the snow line, and took the 
 advantage to examine the Jammu coal, originally discovered by 
 Mr. Medlicott, on which he was inclined to look hopefully. Mr, E. 
 J. Jones was fully occupied until the end of the season in examining 
 the principal coal fields in Upper Burma as well as the metalliferous 
 mines in the Shan hills, reports on which appeared in the " Records." 
 Another work by Mr. Jones claiming notice was the 24th volume of 
 the memoirs " Southern Coal Fields of the Satpura Gondwana 
 basin." Mr. R. Lydekker's description of the " Eocene Ohelonia 
 from the " Salt range "* was issued during the year, as well as 
 Mr. Mallet's Part IV., " Mineralogy," of the " Manual of the 
 Geology of India," a very fitting complement of that important 
 and useful work. 
 
 The Madras gold-bearing rocks occupied Mr. Foote during the 
 whole of 1888, and his observations thereon were published in the 
 " Records " with a map showing the localities of gold occurrence in the 
 presidency. The area over which these bands of transition rocks 
 occur in Southern India is enormous, extending N.N.W. and S.S.E. 
 over 192 miles, while the number of spots in this huge tract which 
 have been mined in past times by a so far unknown people is very 
 remarkable. The story of the struggles and ultimate success of the 
 Kolar mines, which occur in the easternmost part of the Dharwar 
 rocks, is well known, and Dr. King favours the conclusion that other 
 gold fields of equal, if not superior, richness to these are still lying 
 fallow. The Singareni coal field was successfully exploited by 
 Mr. Hughes ; the area proved greater than that of the Umaria estate 
 and the Karharbari field ; the coal was good steam coal with little 
 
 * In Series X., Vol. IV., Part III., of the " PalBeontologia Indica." 
 t Y 20331. ^ 
 
274 GEOLOGICAI, SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Or no clinker, and containing only the average amount of asli, while 
 the entire series of the measures is within the easy reach of the 
 surface. 
 
 Mr. Lake was deputed to work out the geology of the west coast 
 in the long strip of country between Cochin and Karwar. One 
 noteworthy discovery made was that of an oil shale among the 
 strata underlying Calicut, indicating a possible relation with the oil 
 traced in the Alleppi mud bank and the smooth waters adjacent. 
 Mr. Bose was commissioned to make a thorough examination of the 
 Gosalpur manganese ores in the Central Provinces. He estimated 
 the total quantity of pyrolusite (manganese ores) at about 50,000 
 tons in addition to about 20,000 tons from neighbouring deposits, a 
 supply which may be described as practically inexhaustible. Mr. 
 Bose subsequently resumed work in Balaghat among the transition 
 and Yindhyan rocks, while Babu Kishen Singh investigated the 
 limits of the Deccan trap in the Chindwara district, after which he 
 joined Mr. Bose in the study of the more intricate but economically 
 important rocks of Balaghat. Mr. Hacket was unfortunately unable 
 to extend his observations sufficiently to the westward of Jodhpur 
 to touch on the Gbndwanas. His work lay west of Mount Abu and 
 the Arvalis, but partly from the increasingly complicated associa- 
 tion of the very altered rocks in that region, and partly from failing 
 health which necessitated his retirement from the service, but little 
 progress was made towards a solution of the geology of the region. 
 Mr. Oldham procured specimens of flexible sandstone, a very peculiar 
 decomposition-form of certain quartzites belonging to the transition 
 series occurring at Kaliana in the Jhind State, for which frequent 
 inquiry had been made both from Europe and America, 
 
 Renewed search for materials required for the development of 
 the iron industry at the Barakar (Bengal) works was prosecuted by 
 Mr. Jones, and further progress was made by Babu Hira Lai in 
 mapping the extensive coal tracts of the western portion of Chota 
 Nagpur. Portions of the Rampur, Sirgujah, arid Lakhanpur coal 
 fields and of the adjacent area were described; all the coal outcrops 
 were examined and recorded, and assays were made of such seams 
 as were thought worth trying, some of them giving very fait* 
 results. Attempts were also made to test the capabilities of two 
 of the coal fields of the Eajmahal hills, but the results were not 
 thoroughly conclusive. On this point Dr. King remarks that 
 skilled and experienced miners are rare in India, while boring plant 
 
GEOLO&ICAL 'StJRtiiY OF liSDlA. 275 
 
 is almost equally difficult to obtain. Tlie best plan for coping with 
 these difficulties, lie suggests, is to vest the conduct of these 
 operations in the hands of the Geological Survey, who would arrange 
 for sets of boring and mining plant to be stored at a convenient 
 centre, the &,ctual duties being entrusted to a mining mianager with 
 a small staff of subordinates, selected in some cases from young 
 men ti^ained in an engineering school like Sibpur College. By this 
 means mining questions would be settled more quickly and econo- 
 mically, and a class of trained reliable men would be gradually 
 formed in India ready to fill the many posts now filled by highly 
 paid men imported from England or the Continent. 
 
 Dr. King paid a visit to Baluchistan and the Siiid frontier to 
 inspect the coal outcrops and oil resources in those parts. At 
 Khost on the Sind-Pishin Railway thin seams of tertiary coal were 
 being worked at the outcrops a mile or so behind the station, but 
 in face of the Very fitful continuity of the coal and the extremely 
 unstable character of the beds above and below, necessitating a costly 
 mode of holding up the workings, Dr. King recommended a close 
 stratigraphical survey of the valley before further extension of the 
 operations. As to petroleum, that brought to the surface by 
 Mr. R. A.. Townsend at Khatan gave good prOmisei and Dr. King 
 says there are other likely localities among certain bands of the 
 tertiary rocks. 
 
 During the year Mr. La Touche's deputation with the Kashmir 
 Durbar came to a close ; he had not only given valuable information 
 regarding the sapphire rocks in the Zanskar district, but also on 
 the Jammu coal and the ironworks and ores near the village of 
 Soap in the Kashmir valley. On his return through Murree he also 
 furnished a report on the water supply of the station. 
 
 Owing to the demand for latest information respecting the 
 geological structure of the Himalayas, and to the fact that there 
 had been no general review of our knowledge thereof since the 
 publication of the " Manual," Mr. Oldham put forward a valuable 
 paper in the " Records " on the sequence and correlation of the pre- 
 tertiary sedimentary formation of the Simla region of the Lower 
 Himalayas. A later paper of his on the geology of the North- 
 Western Himalayas gives further observations in Spiti, Ladak, and 
 Kashmir. Mr. Middlemisa also contributed a further paper 
 (No. III.) on the study of the crystalline and metamorphic rocks 
 of the Lower Himalayas, Garhwal, and Knmaun. 
 
 kS 2 
 
276: QJEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Mr. R. A. Townsend, superintendent of petroleum works in 
 Baluchistan, was deputed during the rains to look up the oil 
 indications in the neighbourhood of the Naga hills, the geo- 
 logical relations of which had already been dealt with in the 
 papers of Messrs. Medlicott and Mallet. Mr. Townsend's report 
 on Makum was very encouraging. The oil fields of Yeiiang-gyung, 
 Thayetmyo, and other places in Burma were examined by 
 Dr. Noetling, though this involved of course the temporary stoppage 
 of his proper work as palaeontologist of the Survey. He also 
 recognised silurian rocks in the Shan liills, with the limestones of 
 which is associated a very important and extensive band of iron 
 ore, and his expedition to the ruby limestone tracts of Madya and 
 Kya-whyat yielded some satisfactory information. Mr. Hughes on 
 rejoining the Survey was also posted to Burma. In connexion with 
 his researches there he made a special visit to the mines of Perak, 
 after which he investigated the tin ores of Tenasserim. 
 
 The publications of the year comprised 16 papers (five of which 
 were of considerable economic interest) in the " Eecords," a very 
 useful bibliography of Indian geology compiled by Mr. Oldham, 
 and the concluding part of the " Productus Limestone Fossils of the 
 Salt Range," by Dr. Waagen. 
 
 At the International Geological Congress held in London in 
 September 1888, the Indian Survey Avas represented by Mr. Medlicott 
 and Mr. W. T. Blanford, while Mr, Oldham also availed himself 
 of a brief term of privilege leave to exhibit there specimens of 
 interest from India. Mr. Blanford had also been officially deputed 
 by the Government of India to represent the Indian Survey at the 
 Congress in Bologna in 1881 (see page 255), and at Berlin in 1885. 
 
 In 1889 Mr. Poote examined the auriferous tract around 
 Chiggateri, and considered it well worthy of being systematically 
 prospected. He also investigated the economic geology of the 
 Sandur State, where are great beds of hsematitic iron ore, aff'ording 
 a practically inexhaustible supply of iron. The only difiiculty in 
 the way appears to be the scarcity of fuel in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. On the southward slope of the western range of the 
 Sandur hills, Mr. Foote discovered an important argillite formation 
 very rich in nodular oxide of manganese or pyrolusito, capable of 
 being easily mined by open workings on a large scale. Mr. Lake 
 surveyed a considerable tract extending over some 1,000 square 
 miles in South Malabar, but was unable to complete the blank still 
 existing here in the geological map, as he was then transferred to 
 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 277 
 
 Baluchistan to explore for coal and oil. At the close of the working 
 season, and just as the S.W. monsoon was bursting on the coast, 
 Mr. Lake was deputed tcf AUeppi to study the action of the famous 
 mud banks there,* 
 
 The question of utilising the clays and coals occurring in the 
 neighbourhood of Jabalpur for pottery works has claimed attention 
 for years past, and Mr. Mallet made an exhaustive examination 
 which led to the satisfactory result of works being started at 
 Jabalpur by Messrs. Burn and Co. of Calcutta.f Mr. Mallet also 
 made an interesting series of experiments on steatite from various 
 parts of India. This was in response to a demand preferred by the 
 Secretary of State, and the tests applied proved that the product of 
 the Karnul district of Madras was the most likely to compete 
 successfully with the costly material now imported from Germany. 
 Dr. King considers that if steps were taken to work quarries the 
 prospect of this new industry would be very hopeful. 
 
 The development of the gold industry in Madras has led to 
 attention being turned to Chota Nagpur, which from time immemorial 
 has been known for its native gold washings and occasional finds of 
 decided fragments of gold, and a syndicate has been formed to work 
 the neighbourhood of Sonapet. Greological reports on the subject 
 already exist from the pen of Mr. V. Ball, but Dr. Noetling has 
 submitted a reportj containing some further information. 
 
 Tn Extra-peninsular India Mr. E. J. Jones took up a further 
 examination of the outcrops of coal in the Sharigh valley, and came 
 to the conclusion that the Khost seam is still the one which can be 
 relied iipon for fuel for that section of the frontier railway. 
 Mr. R. D. Oldham has been investigating the coal and oil condition 
 of the tract traversed by the railway, a task which has for the 
 present delayed the publication of his work in the Dehra and Simla 
 portion of the Lower Himalayas. Mr. La Touche was engaged on 
 more detailed reports on the coal fields of the Khasia and Jaintia 
 hills, and at the conclusion of the working season he was attached 
 to the Lushai column of the Chin-Lushai expedition, which investi- 
 gated the wild and obscure intermediate country between Chittagong 
 and Upper Burma. 
 
 * A full account of these banks and of the literature of the subject has been written 
 by Dr. King, and will be found in the " Records of the Geological Survey of India," 
 Vol. XVII.rpp. 14-27. 
 
 •j- Mr. Mallet's report appeared in the " Records" for M.ny 1889, 
 
 J See " Records " for 1890, Part II. 
 
278 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 The investigation and working of tin in Tenasserim continued 
 in the hands of Mr. Hughes, and towards the end of the year a 
 professional staff of Europeans and Chinese miners were obtained 
 from the Straits Settlements. The conditions of tin mining in the 
 Mergui district are fully set forth in Mr. Hughes's paper in the 
 " Eecords " for August 1889. 
 
 In Upper Burma much was done by Dr. JSToetling in the 
 rather rapid explorations which he had to make in regions known 
 for coal, oil, iron, and precious stones ; while so engaged he was 
 also employed in framing suggestions for the Government for a 
 code of mineral concessions and leases. His most important works 
 were reports on the Yenan-gyung oil fields and Chindwin coal field. 
 
 In July 1889 Mr. Griesbach returned to India after his tour of 
 deputation to the Amir of Afghanistan. During his journey in the 
 previous year up the Logar valley to the Khurd Kabul valley, 
 Upper "Wardak, Oherkh, Kharwar, Zanakhan, Ghazni, &c., the most 
 interesting geological work was the recognition of at least three 
 horizons, the rhajtic with lithodendron (in Kharwar), the upper 
 Jurassic (or possibly neocomian) plant beds near the Shutargardan, 
 and finally, well-developed nummvilitics in Kharwar and Shilghar. 
 He examined the copper lodes of the Logar and Khurd Kabul areas, 
 the magnesite of the Logar and entrance to the Tangi Wardak, the 
 graphite of Cherkh, the iron and lead ores of Kharwar, and the 
 argentiferous lead ore of Zanakhan near Ghazni. It turns out also 
 that the entire Surkhab valley from near Doab-i-Mekhyari to near 
 Dahana Iskar is practically one big coal field with numerous thick 
 seams of good coal of triassio and rhastic age. 
 
 Dr. Waagen's further contribution on the Salt range fossils in 
 Part I., Vol. IV. (Geological Results), was issued at the close of 
 the year. Several important modifications in the classifications 
 originally adopted have become necessary, owing to very interesting 
 discussions of fossils by Dr. Warth, the last and most remarkable 
 of these discoveries, that of trilobites, having been announced by 
 Dr. King, in the Records for 1889, p. 153. 
 
 During 1890 Mr. Foote, the only ofl&oer of the Survey left to 
 carry on the work in Southern India, completed the examination 
 of the southern half of the Bellary district, in quest of the auriferous 
 condition of the Dharwar series. The auriferous indications were, 
 however, not worthy of particular notice, though considerable 
 additions were made to the existing knowledge of the occurrences 
 
GEOlOQICAl SURVEY OF INDIA. 279 
 
 of iron ore in the Dharwars. During the construction of tbe 
 Bengal-Nagpur Railway, a seam of coal was struck in the founda- 
 tion of a bridge on the Jb river, in the Central Provinces ; but the 
 coal proved to be not of much better quality than that already 
 known in the field, though its uniformity and thickness were all 
 in its favour. In the Bengal Presidency the Daltonganj coal field 
 became the scene of fresh boring operations, while Mr. Bose 
 explored the coal area south of Kalimpong, in the Darjeeling district. 
 As a rule, the coal is very high dipping and much crushed, while 
 faults are numerous ; thus the working of it will be very difficidt 
 "and precarious. The quality of the coal is, however, good, and a 
 great part of it can be coked. In Baluchistan, Mr. Oldham added 
 very considerably to our knowledge of the coal, oil, and water 
 resources in British Baluchistan, and a special report on the more 
 favourable sites for petroleum explorations in the Harnai district 
 was published in the May number of the Records. A hopeful 
 specimen of mineral oil was obtained from the Sherani country, and 
 Mr. Oldham was enabled to visit the spot during the late Zhob 
 Valley expedition in November last. Tlie oil is clear, limpid, of a 
 pale yellow colour, and issues from a band of hard unfossiliferous 
 sandstone, near Mogulkot, perfectly free from water. Mr. Oldham's 
 general conclusions are that there can be no doubt of the existence 
 qf oil of excellent quality and great value in the district, but that it 
 would be premature to undertake any expensive operations at 
 present. Exploration for coal in the Baluchistan region has been 
 prosecuted in the Bolan valley and in the hills east and south-east 
 of Quetta. The best coal, a^s regards both quantity and quality, is 
 found in the Zarakhu yaUey. 
 
 The elucidation of certain obscure points in the geological history 
 and structure of the Salt range was left to Mr. Middlemiss, who was 
 seconded by Mr. Datta ; the former also examined the coal tract in 
 the Hazara country. Tin exploitation is still being carried on in 
 Tenasserim under Mr. Hughes, but under considerable disadvantages 
 in the way of climate and insufficient means of communication. 
 Dr. Noetling has been engaged in directing the demarcation of the 
 oil-bearing tracts in the Magive, Mingyan, and Pakoku districts, 
 and in surveying the coal fields, ruby, and tourmaline mines in the 
 Shan States. 
 
 As m9-J he inferred ivQva. t'b^e fprpgoing, the larger and more 
 important results in J 89.0 were in econofliip research. StiiU geological 
 
280 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 investigation has not been allowed to stand still, and some advance 
 lias been made in Baluchistan, the Punjab, and Burma, by Mr. 
 Oldham, Mr. Middlemiss, and Dr. Noetling. A discovery of fossils 
 in a series of limestones on the outskirts of the Shan plateau, east 
 of Mandalay, which he had already noticed as beax'ing a very strong 
 resemblance to certain limestones of the lower Silurian system of 
 Sweden and "Western Eussia is pronounced by Dr. King to be of the 
 grearest geological interest and importance as indicating that a 
 branch or arm of the Arctic portion of the ocean by which the lower 
 Silurian beds were deposited, reached at least to 22° N. lat. of the 
 Indo-Chinese peninsula ; it is even likely that it extended still 
 further to the south, as the limestone beds of the Shan hills are 
 again met in Tenasserim. 
 
 Mr, Griesbach was engaged until October 1890 on his Memoir on 
 the Geology of the Central Himalayas, which will be issued very 
 shortly ; and has since been attached in the capacity of geologist to 
 the Miranzai Expedition. 
 
 During the same year (1890) the usual volume of the " Kecords," 
 consisting of 23 papers, has been issued ; of these, 12 bear on 
 industrial or economic subjects. Vol.^XXIII. also contains the second 
 part (Madras and the North-West Provinces) of the Provisional Index 
 of the local distribution of important minerals, miscellaneous 
 minerals, gem stones, and quarry stones in the Indian Empire, which 
 has been much sought after. 
 
 One memoir was published, forming Part 2 of Volume XXIV. 
 In this, Mr. Middlemiss has contributed much new research to the 
 physical geology of the Sub-Himalaya of Garhwal and Kumaun. 
 The remarkable speculation arising out of a sudden develop- 
 ment of interest in the auriferous conditions of the Chota Nagpur 
 Province has created a great demand for those publications of 
 the survey which contain even a slight reference to the geology 
 of that region, and as a consequence. Vol. XVIII., Part 2, of the 
 Memoirs, and several parts of the volumes of the records are now 
 out of print. 
 
 A complete and detailed index to all the papers published in the 
 first 20 volumes of the Records has been 'prepared during the past 
 year, and issued quite recently. This publication will prove of the 
 greatest use to those desiring to consult the detailed papers on 
 Indian geological topics. A " Bibliography of Indian Geology," or 
 list of books published up to the end of 1887, has also been 
 published by Mr. R. D, Oldham. 
 
GEOLOaiCAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 281 
 
 The tracts throughout the Indian Empire still awaiting geological 
 examination are of very large extent. In India proper, south of the 
 Himalayas, an area of aljout one-fourth is represented on the latest 
 " state of progress " map of the Geolog'ical Survey as having been 
 " mapped, reported on, and published." It is true that throughout 
 a considerable area thus represented, the topographical maps used 
 as a basis' for geological surveying were very imperfect, and conse- 
 quently a more detailed survey may hereafter be necessary. But, 
 on the other hand, most of the tracts, such as coal fields, demanding 
 close mapping, have been completed, and an enormous area is occupied 
 by the alluvial deposits of the Indo-Gangetic plain and by the 
 Deccan trap, neither of which, so far as is known at present, 
 requires to be surveyed in detail. The remainder of the unsurveyed 
 area is occupied to a great extent by gneissose rocks, the examina- 
 tion of which has been postponed partly because of the rarity 
 amongst them of useful minerals, partly because of the great 
 difficulties presented by them. 
 
 It is very difficult to form a trustworthy comparative estimate of 
 the work that remains to be done before the geological mapping of 
 the Indian Peninsula can be regarded as fairly complete, but 
 probably about half the work of actual mapping remains to be 
 done. 
 
 In the Punjab, Kashmir, and Sind, the progress has been greater, 
 though much of the work (as has been shown in the case of the 
 Salt range) will need revision. Baluchistan is almost untouched. The 
 North-western Himalayas cannot be regarded as nearly half finished, 
 and of course the range east of Garhwal is, with the exception of 
 a few sections, chiefly in the lower ranges, geologically unknown. 
 Of the countries east of the Bay of Bengal, some portions of the 
 Assam hills and the province of Pegu, with the southern part of 
 Arakan, have been surveyed, all the remainder of Burma, including 
 besides Upper Burma, Martaban, and Tenasserim, together with 
 the enormous tract of country between Burma, the Assam valley, 
 and Eastern Bengal, is unsurveyed. 
 
 Eoughly, it may be said that west of the meridian of Calcutta, 
 the mapping is half finished or nearly so ; east of the meridian of 
 Calcutta only a very small proportion of the area, certainly not 
 more than one-sixth, has been geologically surveyed. A large 
 amount of exploration and of reporting upon useful minerals has 
 
^82 GEOIOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 been carried out, but mucli of this reporting, wbich delays the 
 regular work of the survey, and at present appears to have com- 
 pletely stopped it, is necessary because the survey has not been 
 extended to the areas on which reports are required.* 
 
 There is still great uncertainty as to the total annual yield or 
 out-turn of the diflferent kinds of minerals in India. With a 
 view to the improvement of our existing knowledge, a valuable 
 index of the local distribution of important minerals, miscellaneous 
 minerals, gem stones, and quarry stones in India, has been prepared 
 by Dr. King. The primary object of the list was to help the local 
 authorities in drawing up the returns for an annual statement, 
 showing the quantities and value of mineral products in British India, 
 which should be published in the "Mining and Mineral Statistics of 
 the United Kingdom " of Great Britain and Ireland. The products 
 themselves are grouped by Dr. King under the following headings : 
 Important Minerals, including coal, iron ores, gold, petroleum, and 
 salt ; Miscellaneous Minerals, including alum, antimony ores, arsenical 
 minerals, asbestos, bismuth and cobalt ores, borax, chrome ores, 
 copper ores, corundum, gypsum, load ores, magnesia minerals, 
 manganese ores, mica natron, nitre, ochres, phosphates, platinum, 
 plumbago, soapstone, soda, salts, sulphur, tin ores, zinc ores ; Gem 
 Stones, including amber, beryl, diamond, garnet, jade and jadeite 
 quartz, &c., rubellite, ruby, sapphire, spinel, and Quarry Stones, 
 including clays, granite (gneiss, &c.), laterite, limestone (marbles, 
 Isunkar, &c.), slate, and trap. 
 
 * I am indebted to Mr. II. li. Medlicott and Mr. W. T. Blivnford, the two greatest 
 authorities in this country on the subject of Indian geology, for the above statement 
 respecting the geological work that still remains to be done, 
 
28^ 
 
 XIS. 
 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 The Indian Meteorological Department was officially establislied 
 by the Order of the Government of India, in the Department of 
 Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce, No. 56 of the 27th 
 September 1875. A few mpnths before that, Mr. H. F. Blanford, 
 F.R.S.v the Reporter and head of the Department, had made a tour 
 through Berar, the Central and the North-West Provinces, Oudh, the 
 Pimjab, Bengal, and subsequently the Madras Presidency and the 
 Nizam's dominions, visiting the principal observatories, and taking 
 steps to supply stations with instruments in which they were 
 deficient, to get all the barometers satisfactorily compared, and to 
 obtain trustworthy determinations of the elevations of the instru- 
 ments above sea-level. 
 
 At the time of the establishment pf ^he Department there were 
 84 observatories in India and its dependencies (exclusive of Ceylon). 
 Two of these (a private observatory at Vizagapatam, and one 
 established by the Portuguese Government at (aoa) were inde- 
 pendent of the British Government ; eight were under special 
 superintendents, or attached to special Government departments, 
 and 74 were administered by local meteorological reporters or by 
 the provincial sanitary comniissiouer^. The pbservatories were 
 very unequally distributed, being ppmevbat overprpwded in the 
 alluvial Sub-Himalayan plaiu, and unduly sparse over the whple of 
 "Western India and some part^ of the peninsula- But much valuable 
 information on the meteorology of the coiintry might, nevertheless, 
 have been gathered from them, had the resulting data been cpm- 
 parable and accessible to persons in other presidpncie§j 
 
 Neither of tbese conditions were fulfilled, ho-vyever, except 
 partially and very imperfectly, and up to 1876 it had been 
 impossible to pollpct and utilise the registers for disciissing the 
 meteorology of India as a whole. 
 
284 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 The reorganisation of the department, which was sanctioned on 
 the lines suggested by Mr. Blanford, involved : — 
 
 1. A redistribution of the observatories, and the provision of 
 suitable additional stations. Except under some special conditions, 
 it was proposed to arrange as uniform a distribution of tho obser- 
 vations as the circumstances of the country would admit of. 
 
 2. The rendering the data from all observatories comparable 
 inter se and also with those o£ known standards. To accomplish this, 
 a rigorous comparison of the instruments was requisite, uniformity 
 in the mode of their exposure and methods of reduction, and a 
 knowledge of the surroundings of each station. 
 
 3. The establishment of one or two observatories of a higher 
 class in the interior as well as on the coasts of India, to furnish 
 detailed and continuous registers, and also serve as dejoots for 
 verifying instruments, training observers for the minor stations, &c. 
 
 4. To more effectually supervise the work of all observatories, 
 by relieving the local reporters of a large part of their former 
 duties, which were henceforth to be undertaken by the General 
 Department. Also to provide an additional local reporter for 
 Western India. 
 
 5. To bring together the materials furnished by the observatories 
 in all parts of India, and, as far as possible, from adjacent regions, 
 for the purpose of discussion and publication, and this with the 
 least possible delay. 
 
 The number of .observatories was to be raised to 95, eight of the 
 former observatories being abolished and 22 new stations being 
 established. 
 
 The whole were divided into three classes, as follows : — 
 
 I. Three iirst-class observatories, at Calcutta, Allahabad, and 
 Lahore, in addition ^to the Madras and Colaba observatories, which 
 were to remain under the independent management of their own 
 superintendents. These new observatories were to be furnished 
 with self-recording instruments ; that of Calcutta with barograph, 
 thermograph, &c., similar to those of the Kew observatory, and 
 those of Allahabad and Lahore with the meteorograph of M. Van 
 Eysselberghe. These observatories were to be under the immediate 
 charge of the reporters. 
 
 II. Twenty-one second-class observatories, at which (with two 
 exceptions, viz., False Point and Saugor Island) observations were to 
 
INPIAN METEOROLOGY. 285 
 
 be recorded hourly, from midniglit to midniglit, on four days in each 
 month, and at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on all other days. The chief 
 object of this arrangement was to ascertain the diurnal variation of 
 the chief elements and*to furnish the means of correcting registers 
 to true daily mean values. These stations were also to be furnished 
 with self-recording anemometers. They were as follows : — 
 2 in Assam . - _ Sibsagar and Goalpara. 
 
 6 in Bengal - - - Patna, Hazaribagh, Outtack, 
 
 False Point, Saugor Island, 
 and Ohittagong. 
 
 2 in North- West Provinces - Agra and Rurki. 
 
 1 in Oudh - - - Lucknow. 
 
 3 in Central Provinces - Nagpur, Jabalpur, and Pach- 
 
 marhi. 
 
 4 in Bombay - - - Belgaum, Poena, Disa, and 
 
 Karachi. 
 
 2 in Madras - . - Bellary and Trichinopoly, 
 1 in Burma - _ . Rangoon. 
 
 At False Point and Saugor Island stations, which were established 
 chiefly for warnings of storms, the orginal plan of six-hourly 
 observations at 4 and 10 a.m. and p.m. was retained. 
 
 III. Seventy-one third-class observatories, at which two sets of 
 observations of the principal instruments were to be recorded daily, 
 at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. 
 
 The publications of the Meteorological Department were to 
 consist of an annual report on the meteorology of India for each 
 calendar year, giving the abstract of the registers of all stations, 
 together with a discussion of the meteorological features of the 
 year, illustrated by charts of temperature, pressure, and wind 
 directions, and also the original observations (corrected and reduced) 
 of some of the more important stations. The other departmental 
 serial was to be termed " Indian Meteorological Memoirs," and to 
 include such of the work of the officers of the department as did 
 not properly come within the scope of the animal report. 
 
 The library of the Bengal Meteorological Office was transferred 
 to the general office, and was thus rendered available for both 
 departments. It has since been greatly enlarged by purchases and 
 presentations of works. 
 
 During the following year (1876-77) 11 new stations were 
 founded, and an important improvement was effected in the work 
 
286 iNDiAij M:feffi&aoLOQY. 
 
 of the older bbservatorieSj by the Verification of all the thermo- 
 meters and the withdrawal of all inferior instruments. A first 
 instalment of the tabulated observations in Indian seas, extracted 
 from the meteorological log-books in the Marine Department of 
 the British Meteorological Office, was received during the same 
 year, and proved to be of such extent and value that Mr. Blanford 
 strongly recommended the speedy completion of the work. 
 
 Progress was also made in the collation of the registers of rainfall 
 in former years. Unfortunately, the records for Northern India, 
 ranging from 1851 to 1860, had been made over to the Messrs. Von 
 Sohlagintweit, to aid them in the preparation of their work on 
 magnetic and meteorological observations in India, and although 
 application was made to Mr. Hermann Yon Schlagintweit-Sakiilunski 
 for the return of the original registers, that gentleman practically 
 declined to let them go, except on conditions which were held to be 
 unreasonable. Eventually, however, on Mr. Blanford's proceeding 
 on furlough to Europe, he availed himself of the opportunity to 
 visit Munich and obtain copies of the registers in question. 
 
 The meteorology of 1876 possessed a sinister interest in that in 
 the two southern presidencies the failure of the annual rains was 
 followed by wide-spread suffering and a heavy mortality, while 
 Bengal was visited by a terrible storm flood of almost unprecedented 
 destructiVeness. With respe'ct to the rainfall, it is certain that 
 from an early period of 1876 the distribution of pressure in the 
 Punjab and the Indus valley must have weakened, and perhaps 
 diverted, the summer monsoon that reaches India from the Arabian 
 Sea, and have given prevalence to the dry westerly winds that, as a 
 normal feature of the hot season, blow from Baluchistan across a 
 considerable part of the Bombay Presidency. Other causes also were 
 probably at work, but the mere fact that a great disturbance in the 
 normal distribution of the rainfall is found to accompany an 
 abnormal distribution of pressure, which distribution was manifested 
 some months in anticipation of the rainy season, is of considerable 
 importance. 
 
 A manual of instruction for the guidance of meteorological 
 observers was completed and issued during the year, together with 
 the tables of reduction specially drawn up for use in India. To 
 supplement this and encourage inquiry, a sketch of the meteorology 
 of India, accompanied by an introductory chapter on the physical 
 laws of the atmosphere and an outline of the physical geography of 
 India, WAS prepared by Mr. Blanford, the Whole forming an octavo 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 2BT 
 
 volume of about 300 pages, and published under the title of the 
 " Indian Meteorologist's Yade Mecum," 
 
 Besides the Eeport on the Meteorology of India in 1875, the 
 publications issued during the year were — 
 
 Part I. of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs, containing three 
 papers, viz. : — 
 
 {a.) On the winds of Calcutta ; 
 
 (b.) On the , climate and meteorology of Kashghar and 
 
 Yarkand ; 
 (c.) On the diurnal variation of barometric pressure at 
 Simla. 
 
 Part I. of the Indian Meteorologist's Vade Mecum. 
 
 The Meteorological Office for Bengal also published Mr. J. Eliot's 
 report on the Vizagapatam and Bakarganj cyclones of October 
 1876. In this report, Mr. Eliot gave a very full discussion of the 
 formation and progress of these two storms, based on data collected 
 partly from ships which encountered the storm and partly from the 
 registers of the coast observatories. He also gave an account of the 
 disastrous flood which submerged the low alluvial tracts at the mouth 
 of the Meghna. But perhaps the most valuable part of the report was 
 that which dealt with the formation of cyclones. Previous theories 
 had laid it down that cyclones originated from the action of two 
 opposing winds, which resulted in a rotatory action. But as the winds 
 preceding the formation of a cyclone are generally very lights this 
 was practically a mechanical impossibility. Mr. Eliot's theory, on 
 the other hand, ascribes the formation to the continued precipitation 
 of rain raising the temperature of the cloud-forming strata by the 
 emission of the latent heat of the condensed vapour and lowering 
 the atmospheric pressure. 
 
 Mr. N. R. Pogson published a tabular statement during the year 
 of the rainfall registered at the Madras Observatory in every month 
 during the previous 62 years. The data in this table were discussed 
 by Mr. W. W. Hunter, with special reference to the supposed 
 periodicity of droughts and famines in Southern India, in a 
 pamphlet which obtained a large circulation and attracted Very 
 general interest. Mr. Blanford, however, after investigating the 
 question with a wider field of materials, was compelled to conclude 
 that Mr. Hunter's results required some limitation. 
 
 The following year (1877-78) -was marked by ati important 
 a'ddition to the work of Ihe Department, i.e., the transmission by 
 post daily of the 10 a.m. readings from nearly all the observing 
 
288 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 stations. As, however, several of the distant observatories com- 
 municated very slowly with Calcutta, the charts compiled from these 
 giving the isobars, isotherms, wind direction, and rainfall were neces- 
 sarily often a fortnight in arrear. But as a step towards the trans- 
 mission of weather reports daily by telegraph, and the eventual 
 publication of weather probabilities, the new departure was important. 
 It also enabled the reporter to exercise a continuous and most useful 
 supervision over the daily work of each observer. 
 
 Altogether, on the 31st March 1878, there were 103 observatories 
 at work in India and its dependencies (excluding Ceylon), and one 
 in the Persian Gulf. All, except the private observatories, were 
 furnished with barometers and thermometers, carefully verified and 
 adjusted to those of the well-known standards in India or in 
 Europe, and the elevations of by far the greater number of the 
 barometers had been ascertained with great accuracy, while the 
 preparation by the central office of the daily charts from the postal 
 returns was already beginning to throw light on the connexion 
 between the seasonal and daily atmospheric changes over the whole 
 of India. 
 
 Besides the General Eeport on the Meteorology of India for 1876, 
 and Part II. of the Indian Meteorologist's Yade Mecum, Part II. 
 of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs was issued, containing the 
 following papers : — 
 
 1. Storms in Bengal in 1876, with increased atmospheric pressure. 
 
 By J. Eliot, M.A. 
 
 2. On the rainfall of Benares in relation to the prevailing winds. 
 
 By S. A. Hill, B.Sc. 
 
 3. On the diurnal variation of the barometer at Calcutta and 
 
 Hazaribagh. By H. F. Blanford. 
 
 Mr. Blanford also drew up from all the accessible records a 
 catalogue of the cyclones of the Bay of Bengal. This was com- 
 municated to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 
 
 A system of issuing daily reports of the weather in all parts of 
 India was set on foot experimentally by Mr. Eliot on the 15th June 
 1878, the observations recorded at 10 a.m. being telegraphed to 
 Simla, To facilitate the transmission of these reports, a special 
 telegraphic code was devised by Mr. Eliot and Mr. Pedler, which 
 gave the whole of the requisite information in six words. 
 
 This system was found so satisfactory that it was determined to 
 extend it to all observatories having telegraphic communication. 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 289 
 
 and furthermore to supplement it by an extended system of report 
 of the rainfall from stations other than those provided with 
 meteorological obsewatories. Arrangements were also made for 
 transferring to the Meteorological Department the duty of working 
 the time-ball on the semaphore tower of Fort William, which had 
 been previously performed by the Surveyor-General's Department. 
 
 An important incident of the year was a tentative forecast of the 
 character of the monsoon season, made by Mr. Eliot (who officiated 
 for Mr. Blanford during his absence on furlough). The retardation 
 of the monsoon rains in 1878, following on their almost complete 
 failure in the North-West Provinces in the previous year, was a 
 cause of grave anxiety. Mr. Eliot's opinion, on examination of the 
 whole subject, was that the advent of the rains would probably be 
 retarded, but that they would be more equally distributed than in 
 previous years. This prediction was borne out by the results. 
 
 The work sanctioned by the Secretary of State in 1875, of 
 copying the ship observations relating to the Indian seas that had 
 accumulated in the Marine Department of the London Meteorological 
 Ofl&ce, was fast approaching completion, and by it the basis of a 
 knowledge of the general meteorology of the adjacent seas, com- 
 parable to the existing knowledge of the land observatories, was 
 being laid. The observations of the Department had finally 
 dissipated some of the long prevalent errors respecting the Indian 
 monsoons, such as, for instance, the idea that the summer monsoon 
 of India is caused by the heat of Central Asia, and blows towards 
 that region. But with respect to the seas, there was still no 
 accurate knowledge of the origin of the summer wind, and it was 
 still doubtful whether the general body of the southern trade winds 
 crossed the equator and fed the monsoon, or whether, on the other 
 hand, the North Indian Ocean was not the chief source of the 
 vapour supply, and the connexion of the monsoon with the southern 
 trades only fortuitous and partial. Another problem awaiting 
 solution in the study of the meteorological marine logs was the 
 possible deficiency of pressure over parts of the ocean as bearing 
 on land droughts such as those of 1876. 
 
 Owing to the increasing attention attaching to the connexion 
 between solar physics and meteorology (a matter discussed so long ago 
 as the beginning of the century by Sir John Herschel), Mr. Blan- 
 ford entered into communication with Professors Norman Lockyer and 
 Balfour Stewart, and, at their suggestion, obtained the Secretary of 
 State's sanction for the purchase of a new form of actinometer for 
 
 I Y 20321. T 
 
290 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 measuring the solar heat. Mr. Blanford also took the opportunity 
 during his stay in Europe to study and practise the process of solar 
 photography as elaborated on a large scale by Mr. Janssen, the 
 Director of the Physical Observatory at Meudon. 
 
 Mr. Meins, a trained solar photographer, had been despatched to 
 India in 1877, and was engaged in taking daily photographs of the 
 sun's disc up to the date of his death in 1879. This unfortunate event 
 caused a delay of nine months, but at the close of 1879, Sergeant 
 White, of the Royal Engineers, was sent to India to continue the 
 work, under the superintendence of Mr. J. B. N. Hennessey, M.A., 
 F.R.S. A large photo -heliograph, suitable for taking pictures of 
 the solar disc 12 inches in diameter, was subsequently supplied to 
 the Dehra Observatory under the direction of the Surveyor- Greneral's 
 Department (see page 234). 
 
 The Report on the Meteorology of 1877 was prepared by 
 Mr. Eliot. Like the Reports of the two previous years, it included 
 a general description of the meteorological features of the year, 
 with comparative tables showing the average values of the several 
 meteorological elements derived from past years, and the anomalies 
 or differences in 1887, descriptions of the newly-established 
 stations, and the geographical co-ordinates and elevations of all 
 stations. The report was illustrated by 12 charts in coloured 
 lithography, showing the mean distribution of temperature, 
 atmospheric pressure, and wind direction in each month of the 
 year. According to a notice in the Journal of the Austrian 
 Meteorological Society, under the very competent editorship of 
 Professor Hann, the annual volume on the Meteorology of India 
 at this time already ranked with that of the Russian Empire in the 
 extent and comprehensiveness of its data, while it appeared at a 
 very much earlier date. 
 
 Part III. of the Meteorological Memoirs was issued in 1879, 
 containing the following papers : — 
 
 1. On the variations of rainfall in Northern India by 
 
 S. A. Hill, B.Sc. 
 
 2. Meteorological and hypsometrical observations in "Western 
 
 Tibet, recorded by Dr. J. Scully, with a discussion by 
 
 Henry F. Blanford. 
 
 Mr. Eliot also published a Report on the Madras cyclone of 1875. 
 
 The year 1879-80 completed the first lustrvm of the existence of 
 
 the Department. Up to March 1880, 117 stations in India and 
 
 neighbouring countries had been established, not including the 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 29 i 
 
 observatories in Ceylon. There still remained, however, some 
 portions of the country in which they were somewhat sparsely 
 scattered, but most of4hese were the wilder tracts where no suitable 
 stations existed. 
 
 The Tamine Commission Eeport issued during the year 1880-81, 
 gave emphatic expression to the objects of the department and the 
 practical importance of meteorology. After giving a summary of 
 what is known respecting the distribution of rainfall in India and 
 the variations to which it is subject, the Commissioner remarked : — 
 
 " As at present no power exists of foreseeing tlie atmospheric changes effective in 
 producing the rainfall, or of determining beforehand its probable amount in any season, 
 such as would admit of timely precautions being taken against impending drought, the 
 necessity becomes the greater for watcbing with close attention the daily progress of 
 each season as it passes, for ascertaining with accuracy and promptitude the actual 
 quantity of lain in all parts of the country, and for forming the bent and earliest judg- 
 ment possible from the facts as they occur, whether the supply will be sufficient or 
 otherwise. For the present, at least, as far as the rainfall directly affects the subject 
 under consideration, these are the only precautioi\s that appear possible. Within the 
 last few years a very satisfactory, system of meteorological observations has been 
 established all over British India, and, in oui' opinion;, it is of primary importance that 
 it shall be maintained in complete efBciency, and shall so far be strengthened and 
 improved as to ensure the early and punctual supply of information to the executive 
 Governments, and to the officials in all depar.tments concerned with the agriculture of 
 the country, or the preparations required to meet famines, as to the actual progress of 
 the periodical seasons of rain in all parts of the provinces, for which those Govern- 
 ments or officers are respectively responsible. So far as it may become possible with 
 I he advance of knowledge to form a forecast of the future, such aids should be made 
 use of, though with due caution. 
 
 " We are also satisfied of the importance of the diffusion of more sound und accurate 
 knowledo-e of the causes and mode of occurrence of the periodical rains, on which 
 the well-being of India is so largely dependent, not only among the officers of the 
 Government but also among all classes of the community. Any measures which the 
 Government may find possible with a view to the publication and diffusion of such 
 knowledge cannot fail to be highly beneficial." 
 
 In the annual return of the rainfall prepared in 1879 for the 
 information of the Secretary of State, considerable tracts were 
 unrepresented, owing to the absence of registers. Measures were 
 therefore taken during the following year to supply these deficien- 
 cies, and to establish rain-gauge stations in the Tributary Mehals of 
 Orissa, Ohutia Nagpur, South Rewa, the eastern districts of the 
 Central Provinces, Jaipur, Bastar, and also in Khairpur, on the 
 borders of Sind. An endeavour was made to do the same in 
 Western Kajputana. Rainfall registers for the past six years were 
 also obtained from several stations in Haidarabad, so that this 
 territory was as well repres-ented as most other parts of India. 
 
 T 2 
 
292 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 A system of storm-warning, by means of telegraphic report to 
 Bombay from seven stations on tlie west and three stations on the 
 east coast, was brought into operation on the 13th June, the inclu- 
 sion of eastern stations being rendered necessary, as it was known 
 that the storms which are felt on the west coast of India originate 
 in many cases over the Bay of Bengal. In Bengal an improvement 
 in the provincial system of reports was introduced by Mr, Eliot, the 
 number of stations sending daily telegrams to Calcutta being increased 
 from 7 to 15. All with the exception of Dacca were situated on the 
 coasts of the Bay of Bengal. Arrangements were also made for 
 lithographing the Calcutta daily reports and issuing them about 
 3 p.m. to the port authorities, the chamber of commerce, merchants, 
 and newspapers. The reports were accompanied by a lithographed 
 chart of the Bay of Bengal. 
 
 The observations of the temperature of the ground at Alipore, at 
 the surface, and at depths of 1 foot and 3 feet respectively, disclosed 
 the fact that the mean annual temperature of the ground was not 
 less than 5° in excess of that of the air. These observations also 
 showed that the ground acts as a reservoir of the heat received from 
 the sun, which it stores up and slowly gives forth to the atmosphere. 
 Subsequent research showed that the ground temperature is subject 
 to slow but not inconsiderable fluctuations, which depend evidently 
 much more on the rainfall than on any variation in the radiant 
 intensity of the sun. The importance of these deductions, from an 
 agricultural point of view, led to the institution of similar observa- 
 tions at Allahabad. 
 
 The remaining portion of the observations extracted from the 
 meteorological logs in the possession of the London office was 
 received in 1880-81. It consisted of all the observations recorded 
 in Indian seas north of the equator, between Bast longitude 50° 
 and 100° up to the end of the year 1878, and the data were reduced, 
 corrected, and tabulated according to the months and squares of 
 1° latitude and longitude, and arranged in 154 data books, one for 
 each 10° square in each month. The discussion of this large 
 mass of material therefore now became possible, and was eventually- 
 undertaken by a special officer, Mr. Dallas, who had been trained in 
 the London Meteorological Office, and was appointed, partly for this 
 purpose, in 1882. 
 
 Part IV. of the Indian Meteorological Meraoirs was published 
 during the year. It contained a paper by Mr. F. Chambers on the 
 winds of Karachi, being a discussion of three years anemographic 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 293 
 
 records at that station, illustrated by eight plates. Mr. Hill pub- 
 lished a table giving the monthly total rainfall at each station in the 
 North-West Provinces for 1880, the number of rainy days in each 
 month and the average monthly rainfall of each place. 
 
 Owing to the prevalence of haze in fine dry weather, the actino- 
 metric observations taken for two years at Alipore were less 
 successful than had been hoped for, and on the recommendation of 
 the Solar Physics Committee, Leh, in Ladak, was selected as being 
 situated, as was hoped, in a clearer atmosphere and at a height above 
 the disturbing influences of the haze of the plains. 
 
 During the year Mr. Eliot devised a new and improved system of 
 storm signals for the port and signalling stations on the Hugli, 
 below the port. The knowledge of such storms had by this time 
 advanced sufficiently to enable Mr. Eliot to a certain extent to predict 
 their course, a'matter of great importance to outgoing ships. The new 
 system of signalling made provision for this special information. In 
 connexion with the Bombay storm-warning system Mr. F. Chambers 
 drew up an interesting list of some 70 storms of the west coast, 
 which was published in Vol. II., Part 1, of the Indian Meteorological 
 Memoirs. 
 
 In 1881 Miss E. Isis Pogson was appointed meteorological super- 
 intendent to the Government of Madras, a step which resulted in 
 the prompter transmission of the Madras registers to headquarters, 
 and less delay in the preparation of the annual report. 
 
 The filrst volume of the Meteorological Memoirs was completed by 
 the publication of Parts V. and YI., containing two papers by 
 Mr. Hill on the Meteorology of Allahabad and on that of the North- 
 western Himalaya, and a discussion of the hourly observations of 
 the barometer at Goalpara, Patna, and Leh, by Mr. Blanford, 
 
 The following year was marked by efforts to obtain information 
 respecting the extent and thickness of the Himalayan snows, a 
 physical feature which appeared to exercise considerable influence 
 on the meteorology of the plains, and to which attention was first 
 directed in 1877. In April 1882, a communication was made by the 
 Government of India to the local governments of the northern 
 provinces, requesting that the attention of the civil officers and 
 Residents of Hill States might be particularly directed to this 
 matter, and it was recommended that monthly reports on the 
 state of the snows on the passes and higher ranges of the interior 
 should be drawn up from information obtained from native traders, 
 travellers, and others, and communicated to the central office. 
 
294 INDIAN METEOKOLOaY. 
 
 The observed facts are thus described by Mr. Blanford : — 
 
 " A fall of snow on the hills is followed, as scon as the weather clears, by a consider- 
 able rise of pressure over the mountains, and freciuently also over the north-western 
 plains, and this rise is accompanied by a steady wind on the plains, from north along 
 the foot of the hills ; from north-west on the more distant plains. In the cold weather 
 and early spring, when there is often rain simultaneously on the plains, there is also a 
 considerable fall of temperature ; but in April frequently, and generally in May, there 
 is no rain on the plains, and any fall of temperature is restricted to the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the hills. In these months the cooling effect of the snow is local, 
 but it is also persistent ; and since the snow reflects a large portion of the sun's rays, 
 and that which is absorbed does not raise the temperature of the surface, nor that of 
 the air resting on it, above the freezing point, this air remains denser than it would be 
 over a bare rock surface. It floats away as a north-west wind at a high level, towards 
 the plains communicating its high pressure and southward inovinnent to the lower 
 strata, and thus the whole mass of dry air moves towards the region of low pressure 
 (which then exists over the plains of Behar, Bengal, and the peninsula), constituting 
 the dry land winds, nsually characteristic of the spring, and in seasons of unusual 
 snowfall lasting into the summer months. These winds are hot, the heat being 
 absorbed from the dry strongly-heated land surface, and the lower strata, thus heated, 
 mingle by convection with the higher, while the latter descending are also heated, 
 partly by the compression, which the air necessarily undergoes, partly by being 
 brought within the healing influence of the ground." 
 
 During the same year a chart of the average rainfall of India was 
 drawn on a map of 64 miles to the inch and displayed at the 
 Amsterdam Exhibition, and also prepared for reproduction by 
 lithography. The chart accompanying it shows the names of 985 
 places, with the average rainfall of each to the nearest integral inch, 
 while the distribution of rainfall is shown by eight tints, representing 
 respectively the areas with an annual fall below 5 inches and successive 
 increments up to above 100 inches. The only general rainfall charts 
 of India previously published were, first, that drawn in 1872 by Dr. 
 {now Sir) D. Brandis, the late Inspector-General of Forests, when 
 engaged in the preparation of his work on the Indian Forest Flora, 
 and published in Yol. II., No. 7, of Ocean Eighxvays, and, second, 
 a revised edition of the same chart, prepared in Mr. Blanford's 
 ofiice and published in 1878. 
 
 Progress was made by Mr. Blanford with the discussion of the 
 rainfall data of past years and by Mr. Eliot in the study of the 
 origin and development of storms, by his paper (printed in Part I., 
 Volume II., of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs) on a small 
 cyclonic storm which originated over the Bay of Bengal, and thence 
 travelled northwards across Bengal in the third week of November 
 1878. He showed that the origin, existence, and motion of the 
 storm were due entirely to the atmospheric conditions of the area 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 295 
 
 which it actually traversed, and the course of the cyclone across 
 Bengal took place where the air-motion was relatively least, prior to 
 its advent. ^ 
 
 The arrival of Mr. W. L. Dallas, appointed Scientific Assistant 
 to the Meteorological Reporter to the Grovernment of India, enabled 
 the important work of reducing and discussing for publication the 
 marine meteorological observations collected during the 20 years 
 1856-75 by the London Meteorological Office to be taken vnp, and 
 a beginning was made with the barometic and wind data of the Bay 
 of Bengal for the month of January. 
 
 With regard to the collection of current meteorological data for 
 the Bay of Bengal this was undertaken by Mr. Eliot. Observations 
 were regularly recorded with duly verified instruments on board the 
 light-ships ofP the mouth of the Hugli, and a form of return 
 showing the meteorological information which it is desired to 
 obtain was handed to the captain of every vessel. A large number of 
 captains duly responded to this appeal, and information of great 
 value was derived from their returns. On the whole the extracts 
 proved that the weather in the whole extent of the bay (excluding 
 the Andaman sea) was fairly indicated by the observations taken at 
 the coast stations, and that the progress of every important storm 
 might be traced and followed with more or less exactness, almost 
 from its origin, from the shore observations. 
 
 Among the more important incidents of the year 1883-84 should 
 be mentioned the arrival of Sergeant Rowland and Mr. Shaw at 
 Leh, in November 1883, for the purpose of instituting actinometric 
 observations there. For some months previously they bad been 
 undergoing most valuable training at the hands of Mr. Hennessey 
 at Dehra. 
 
 A body of valuable information with regard to the question of 
 the influence of the Himalayan snowfall on the dry westerly winds 
 in Northern India was obtained from officers stationed in the Hill 
 States, and the abnormal features of the snowfall in the spring and 
 winter months enabled Mr. Blanford to frame forecasts with regard 
 to the duration and nature of the dry winds in the plains, which 
 were fairly justified by the events. During the year observatories 
 were established at Kailang, in Lahul, at an elevation of 10,000 feet 
 above the sea, and to the north of the second survey range, and al^o 
 at Chamba. 
 
 Among the more notable publications of the year were Part II. of 
 Vol. II. of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs, containing a memoir 
 
296 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 by Mr. Blanford on tlie storms of tlie west coast and on the 
 land-formed cyclone of Grujrat of July 1881, and a very 
 important paper by Mr. Hill on the normal temperature of 
 Northern India. 
 
 The observatories in existence in 1880-85 were classified by 
 Mr. Blanford as follows : — 
 
 Low-level observatories in India. 
 Hill observatories. 
 Himalayan valley observatories. 
 Extra-Indian observatories. 
 Ships. 
 
 Of the first four classes there had been 117 in 1880, and these 
 were increased to 128 in 1885, exclusive of 22 observatories in 
 Bengal, which were established in connexion with the provincial 
 system of telegraphic weather report. 
 
 The actinometric observations at Leh, after 17 months, did not 
 prove so successful as had been anticipated, for owing to the cloudi- 
 ness of the skies, Leh turned out, during a large part of the year, to 
 be even a less favourable station than Mussoorie. Fifty-two com- 
 plete sets of three daily observations and six long series, together 
 with 64 imperfect sets of the former and 14 of the latter, were the 
 total reiult of the 17 months' work. It was, therefore, deemed in- 
 expedient to continue the experiment, and arrangements were made 
 for Sergeant Eowland and Mr. Shaw to return to India at the close 
 of the season. 
 
 Before 1884 all the officers of the department had been Europeans, 
 who had either received a special education in science or had been 
 trained in the technical work of a meteorological office. During 
 that year it was resolved as an experiment to train an educated 
 native to prepare the daily weather reports. Lalla Euchi Eam 
 Sahni, a native of the Punjab, who had taken his B.A. degree in 
 Physical Science and had passed for an M.A. degree, was selected 
 for the post. 
 
 In the spring of 1884 the snows on the North-Western Himalayas 
 were more extensive and later than they had been in any previous 
 year since 1878, and Mr. Blanford, predicted a somewhat retarded or 
 weak and interrupted monsoon. So far as the rains of the early 
 part of the monsoon of North-Western India were concerned the 
 forecast was fully justified by the events. After a general burst in 
 the latter part of June the rains of all Western and North-Western 
 
INDIAN METEOEOLOGY. 297 
 
 India were entirely suspended for three weeks or more, and even up 
 to August they were somewhat defective in the Punjab. But the 
 conditions there exig,ing did not operate throughout the whole of 
 the monsoon and the latter months brought abundant rain. Nothing 
 was said in the forecast respecting the deficiency of the Bengal 
 rainfall in the latter part of the season, nor that of the Deccan 
 and Oarnatic. The causes of that deficiency were obscure, and, 
 therefore, reserved for future investigation. 
 
 On the 26th July 1884, heavy floods occurred in the rivers Tapti 
 and Narbada, which resulted in the submergence of a portion of 
 the city of Surat. These were followed on the 31st by the flooding 
 of the Subarmati, Mahi, and neighbouring rivers which discharge 
 into the gulf of Oambay, causing serious breaching of the Bombay 
 and Baroda Railway. Again, on the 3rd September, the same rivers 
 were in flood with like disastrous consequences. All these floods, 
 and also a flood which occurred in September 1882, were the 
 consequences of small cyclones of the south-west monsoon type, 
 which either travelled to Western India from Bengal or the Central 
 Provinces, or in the last instance had travelled up the west coast at 
 the end of August. It was accordingly arranged that the super- 
 intendents of observatories situated near the head waters of the 
 Tapti and Narbada should be instructed that in the event of the 
 rainfall exceeding 3 inches in the 24 hours an urgent telegram 
 should be sent to certain Bombay officers, and also that premonitory 
 warnings should be sent from the Simla, giving notice of the 
 approach of a storm to the Central Provinces, Central India, and 
 Gujrat. At the same time the Meteorological Eeporter from 
 Western India was requested to take up the question of the floods 
 and investigate the circumstances attending their origin, Avith a view 
 to the greater efficiency of the system. 
 
 An important addition was made during the year under review 
 by Mr. J. Eliot to his previous admirable work on the law of storms. 
 Taking as his basis the daily weather charts of India, drawn up in 
 the office since 1877, he took out the track of every storm generated 
 over the Bay of Bengal between the months of May and December, 
 during the five years 1877-81 (46 in all), and discussed them in a 
 memoir of 216 quarto pages, illustrated by seven plates, issued as 
 Part IV. of Vol. II. of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs. 
 
 In regard to marine meteorology, Mr. Dallas completed, during 
 1384-85, the set of monthly charts showing the distribution of 
 barometric pressure, the prevalent winds, and marine currents of the 
 
298 INDIAN METEOKOLOGY. 
 
 Bay of Bengal. The January chart was lithogi'aphed on a reduced 
 scale as a specimen of the work, and circulated to the port officers, 
 Marine Weather Institutes, and some ship commanders for criticism, 
 some valuable suggestions being offered in reply. 
 
 Up to 18S5 the daily weather reports had been issued at Simla 
 from the 1st May to the 1st October, and at Calcutta during the cold 
 season, but in this year it was arranged for the work to be carried 
 on permanently at Simla in future. 
 
 Before 1885 there were only three observatories fully equipped 
 with autographic instruments for furnishing either a continuous 
 register or one repeated at short intervals : these were the Govern- 
 ment observatories at Calcutta (Alipore), Bombay (Colaba), and the 
 Maharajah's observatory at Jaipur. During 1885-6 a fourth was 
 established at Allahabad, and a portion of the instruments for a fifth 
 at Lahore were received shortly after, a suitable building having 
 been already provided. 
 
 Some further additions were made to the stations transmitting 
 regular returns of rainfall to the Central Office, some being of 
 especial value as representing the arid region of "Western Hajputana, 
 which but a few years since was an almost complete blank on the 
 charts of recorded rainfall. Improved returns of the Himalayan 
 snowfall were also received from hill stations on the north and 
 western frontiers. 
 
 Attempts had been made to estimate the prospects of the monsoon 
 rains from the snowfall reports, and the wind and pressure distribu- 
 tion in the period immediately before the rainy season in each of the 
 preceding two or three years. In 1885, Mr. Blanford's prediction 
 on the 21st May was that the influx of the monsoon rains on the 
 west coast and in Southern and Western India generally would be 
 retarded, and this was amply borne out by the subsequent history of 
 the season. 
 
 Some time before Dr. Brandis's retirement from the office of 
 Inspector- Gleneral of Forests with the Government of India, he 
 conferred with Mr. Blanford as to the establishment of observatories 
 in connexion with the forests, with a view to ascertaining the effect 
 of forests more especially on temperature and rainfall. As a result 
 an observatory was established at the Forest School at Dehra Dun, 
 which should serve as a model for the forest observatories and also 
 as a training school for observers. In July 1884, the first pair of 
 comparative observatories was started at the Forest Nursery, Ajmir, 
 in the following years various other pairs were established near 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 299 
 
 Ajmir and Dehra. The tendency of the results was to show that 
 the existence of forest increases the rainfall. Mr. Ribbentrop, the 
 ofl&ciating Inspectgr-Greneral of Forests with the Government of 
 India, starting from the fact that extensive tracts of forest, previously 
 devastated by jungle fires with a view to the nomadic system of 
 cultivation practised by the hill tribes, had been brought under 
 protection in 1875, and that thereby the area of vigorous forest 
 growth had been enormously increased, was led to inquire whether 
 this measure had sensibly affected the rainfall. Mr. Blanford's data 
 showed that the rainfall of the years subsequent to 1875, when 
 compared with that anterior to that date, manifested a large increase, 
 attributable to the preservation of forests. Subsequently, however, 
 some doubt was thrown on the trustworthiness of the registers of 
 the earlier years, which had led to this conclusion. 
 
 On the 22nd September 1885, a cyclone, small in extent, but 
 accompanied by a high storm, devastated the settlement of HukitoUa, 
 at False Point, in Orissa. The terrible destruction of life and 
 property which resulted from this storm, aroused public attention 
 to the subject of storm warnings to the coast ports, and led to the 
 adoption of measures for extending the system. It was therefore 
 arranged that whenever the telegraphic reports showed the existence 
 of a storm over the bay, an intimation to that effect should be sent 
 to the port officers of the chief places on the Indian Coast, who should 
 be instructed to depend on their own observations of the wind and 
 barometer for taking all necessary precautions. 
 
 During 1885-86, Part I. of Yol. III. of the Meteorological 
 Memoirs was issued, containing the first part of a memoir on the 
 rainfall of India. Three other memoirs, viz., one by Mr. Eliot, 
 on the Akyab cyclone of the 12th to the 17th May 1884 ; one by 
 Mr. Blanford, on the diurnal variations of the rainfall of Calcutta ; 
 and one by Mr. Dallas, on the meteorology of a sea tract to the south 
 of the Bay of Bengal, were also printed. 
 
 As a consequence of the annexation of Upper Burma, an enormous 
 tract of country, of the meteorology of which scarcely anything 
 was previously known, was in the same year brought under the 
 operations of the department. Three fully equipped meteorological 
 observatories were established at Mandalay, Bhamo, and Kind at, 
 and in addition rainfall registers were received for a portion of 
 the year from ten other stations. The three principal observatories, 
 however, very inadequately represented the enormous tract added to 
 our possessions, and it was felt that it would be soon necessary to 
 
300 INDIAN METEOEOLOGY. 
 
 increase their number. One other observatory commenced work 
 during the year, i.e., at Coco Island, which, being situated between 
 Diamond Island and Port Blair, and close to the cradle of most of 
 the violent storms that occur at the change of the monsoon, formed 
 a valuable addition to the Indian system. 
 
 Preparations were also made for establishing an observatory 
 at Baghdad, in connexion with the British Political Residency, and 
 proposals were also afoot with respect to a fresh observatory at 
 Srinagar. A third rainfall register from Baluchistan {i.e., from 
 Pishin) was obtained, so that the Baluch highlands were thus 
 represented as adequately as other parts of India. 
 
 The investigation of the vicissitudes of Indian rainfall, made 
 by the light of all the numerous rainfall registers that had 
 accumulated in the Meteorological Office relating to the last 22 
 years, were concluded during the year under review. The result 
 shows that in the Oarnatic there is really a tendency to drought at 
 intervals of about 11 years, but not necessarily of such intensity 
 as to be disastrous. In all other parts of the peninsula such 
 regularity was not shown by the numerous registers consulted. 
 But this appeared to arise from the cyclical variation being much 
 more liable to disturbance by seasons of copious or deficient rainfall, 
 which are due to other and non-periodic causes. The most im- 
 portant law relating to the droughts of previous years in Northern 
 India, and which appeared to hold good equally of temporary and 
 prolonged suspension of the rainfall, was that they were preceded 
 by hea.vy snowfall on the Himalaya, particularly the North-west 
 Himalaya. Such was the case before the famines of 1868, 1877, 
 1878 (Kashmir), and also in the period preceding the temporary 
 droughts of 1880 and 1883. 
 
 A volume of weather charts of the Bay of Bengal, exhibiting the 
 barometric pressure, winds, and currents prevalent in every part 
 of the sea, and as far south as the equator, in each month of the 
 year, was published during 1886-87. The work was prepared 
 by Mr. Dallas, from the data furnished by the meteorological logs 
 collected by the London office between 1855 and 1878 and copied, 
 tabulated, and reduced at the cost of the Government of India. 
 Each chart was reduced to convenient dimensions, and accompanied 
 with a page of description, giving statistical and other details. 
 These publications have been much appreciated by the naval and 
 mercantile marine. 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY, 301 
 
 Mr. Hill communicated to the Royal Society an important paper 
 on " Some anomalies in tlie winds of Northern India, and their 
 " relations to the distribution of barometric pressure," * which 
 was published in the Philosophical Transactions. 
 
 In May 1887 Mr. H. F. Blanford went on furlough, and Mr. J. Eliot 
 acted as meteorological reporter to the Government of India, 
 Mr. Pedler acting as reporter to the Bengal Government. Shortly 
 after taking charge, Mr. Eliot was asked to submit proposals for 
 the more efficient working of the department. Mr. Eliot's report 
 was duly submitted to Government, together with a memorandum 
 from Mr. Blanford approving most of the suggestions. After some 
 delay, Government sanction was eventually given to various changes, 
 of which the following were the most important : — 
 
 (a.) The discontinuance of the solar and terrestrial radiation 
 
 observations, except at a few selected stations ; 
 (6.) The adoption of 8 a.m. as the hour for the observations 
 embodied in the weather telegram transmitted daily to 
 Simla, Calcutta, and Bombay ; 
 (c.) The tabulation of all the observations hitherto recorded, 
 in a form admitting of easy reference, and the calculation 
 of daily averages of air pressure, maximum and minimum 
 temperatures, aqueous vapour pressure, cloud, and rainfall. 
 (d.) The extension and improvement of the methods of collecting 
 rainfall data for the information of the Government of 
 India, and the adoption of a uniform system of rainfall 
 registration throughout India. 
 
 These changes were all recommended on well considered grounds, 
 which were explained at length by Mr. Eliot. Eor instance, with 
 reference to the collection of rainfall data, he pointed out that the 
 rainfall stations communicating with the Imperial Government were 
 only 497 in number in all, while those communicating with the 
 provincial governments were 1,390 in number. Next, there was an 
 utter want of uniformity in the hours and methods of rainfall 
 observation. The measurement of rainfall was initiated, like so 
 many other Indian institutions, provincially under the revenue 
 authorities, and it had never been systematized for the whole of 
 India. A striking instance of the difficulty and inconvenience of 
 
 * An abstract of this was published in Proceedings of the Eoyal Society for 
 January 1887. 
 
302 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 dealing with unsystematized observations cropped up in connexion 
 witli the question of the influence of forests on rainfall. The rain- 
 fall statistics of the Central Provinces for the previous 20 years, 
 if they could be accepted as true, would have established most 
 conclusively that the extension of forests had been accompanied by 
 a marked increase in the average rainfall of the forest districts. 
 But when Mr. Blanford proceeded to make further inquiry into the 
 value of these rainfall returns, the Chief Commissioner for the 
 Central Provinces in his reply had to acknowledge that, owing to the 
 uncertainty as to the gauges used in past years and the carelessness 
 in registration, the records were unreliable. The effect of this 
 unsystematic registration was to postpone the decision as to the 
 influence of forests on rainfall in that area for another 20 years. 
 
 Improvements were also made by Mr. Eliot in the daily weather 
 report, which was in future to be accompanied by a chart. By the 
 1st April 1888, copies were issued to 228 Government ofl&cers in all 
 parts of India, and to a limited number of meteorological bureaux 
 and authorities in Europe and America. The daily weather report 
 and chart in its new form compared not unfavourably with those 
 published by the meteorological departments of England, France, 
 Italy, Algeria, Austria, Germany, Australia, and the United States. 
 It also possessed a special value as dealing almost entirely with a 
 tropical region, and one where the most striking example of the 
 semi-annual system of south-west and north-east monsoons occurs. 
 
 In November 1886 the duty of issuing storm warnings to the 
 Burma and Madras ports was entrusted to the meteorological 
 1 eporter to the Government of Bengal, and this had been accepted 
 by Mr. Eliot, with the proviso that certain arrangements should be 
 made for rapid telegraphic communication between the Calcutta 
 weather office and the distant port officers and observatory superin- 
 tendents at the Burma and Madras ports during stormy weather. 
 
 The charts of the Arabian sea, prepared by Mr. Dallas from the 
 data collected by the Board of Trade from ships navigating that 
 sea during the period 1855-78, were published during the year 
 1887-88, in exactly the same form as the charts of the Bay of 
 Bengal. Part TV. of Volume IV. of the " Indian Meleorological 
 Memoirs," giving a list of storms during the years 1882-86, 
 with brief descriptions similar to the list published in Part VI., 
 Vol. II., and intended as a continuation of that list, bringing 
 the information up to date and followed by a full account of 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 303 
 
 the three cyclones of November and December 1886 in the Bay of 
 Bengal, was issued in February 1888. An account of the Balafiore 
 cyclone of May 1887 was prepared as the first part of a new publi- 
 cation of the Department, called the " Cyclone Memoirs." 
 
 Special attention was paid by Mr. Eliot to the condition of the 
 barometers used at various stations, and steps taken to remedy the 
 irregularities discovered. 
 
 In publishing the summary of the winter snowfall, and the 
 monsoon forecast based chiefly upon it, Mr. Eliot announced in the 
 first week of June 1887 that the general indications were favourable 
 in North-east and North India, and somewhat unfavourable in 
 Southern India. He predicted early and abundant rain in Northern 
 India, and more especially in Upper India, and more or less deficient 
 rains in the Poena, Sholapur, Belgaum, and adjacent districts. 
 The forecast was in general agreement with the actual character of 
 the monsoon. 
 
 During 1888-89 there were some important changes effected in 
 the Department. Part of these had been sanctioned tentatively in 
 the previous year, and as they were found to work smoothly, 
 Mr. Eliot eventually submitted his final proposals, which were 
 sanctioned with effect from the 1st January 1889. Tbey were as 
 follows : — 
 
 (I.) The permanent retention of 8 a.m. as the hour for the obser- 
 vations telegraphed daily to Simla, Calcutta, and Bombay for the 
 various daily weather reports issued by the Department, and the 
 discontinuance of the 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. observations at 88 of the 
 157 observatories maintained by the Department. The change of 
 the general hour of the morning observations from 10 a.m. to 8 a.m. 
 enables the Simla Office to issue the daily weather report in the 
 afternoon of the same day, and the Bengal reporter to issue the 
 Bay of Bengal report at about 11 a.m. or at the beginning of the 
 office day to Calcutta merchants, shippers, &c. The acceleration in 
 the publication of the daily reports was much appreciated in 
 Calcutta and Bombay, as well as by the Grovernment of India. 
 
 ' A great change was also made with regard to the returns used 
 for scientific discussion in the annual report. Inasmuch as in the 
 case of 88 stations the previous records were vitiated, owing to 
 careless observations or imperfect instruments, it was decided to 
 discontinue the 10 and 16 hours observations at these stations, and 
 to continue them only at the remaining 69 stations, the meteoro- 
 
304 INDIAN METEOBOLOQY. 
 
 logical returns of which could be accepted as of the highest standard 
 of accuracy, and as forming a reliable basis for scientific discussion 
 in the annual report. This had the efiect of increasing the accuracy 
 of the report, diminishing its bulkiness by more than half, and 
 considerably expediting its appearance. 
 
 In consequence of these changes, the following re-classification of 
 the observatories became necessary : — 
 
 1st. — First class Observatories, including Calcutta, Allahabad, and 
 Lahore, at which continuous registration is effected by auto- 
 matic methods, and Mussoorie or Simla, at which special 
 actinometric observations of a strictly scientific character are 
 taken. 
 
 27id. — Second class Observatories, at which a set of observations is 
 taken daily at 8 a.m., and telegraphed to Simla, Calcutta, or 
 Bombay, for the preparation of the daily, weekly, and monthly 
 reports, issued as early as possible for the information of the 
 public, and two sets of observations daily at 10 a.m. and 
 4 p.m. 
 
 3rd. — Third class Observatories, the great majority of which will 
 take daily a set of observations at 8 a.m. only, to be telegraphed 
 to Simla, Calcutta, or Bombay. 
 
 The other important changes sanctioned were : — 
 
 (II.) The permanent adoption of the system of telegraphing 
 rainfall information to Simla introduced tentatively in 1888, and 
 the establishment of a uniform system of rainfall registration 
 throughout India. 
 
 (III.) The permanent transfer of the working and control of the 
 Bombay Coast Storm Signal Service to Simla and the establishment 
 of a local system at Bombay, in order to give early weather informa- 
 tion to the commercial community of Bombay. 
 
 In connexion with this, arrangements were made by Mr. Eliot for 
 the preparation at Bombay of daily weather reports and charts 
 similar to those prepared in Calcutta, and Mr. Hutchinson, who had 
 succeeded Mr. Chambers in the local reportership for Western 
 India, was initiated into the methods employed at Simla and 
 Calcutta. The first report issued to the Bombay public was that 
 for Monday, 14th May 1890. It found much favour with the 
 Chamber of Commerce, who, with the Government, found the funds 
 for the undertaking. 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 305 
 
 (IV.) The extension of the existing system of collecting meteoro- 
 logical information from the captains of vessels navigating the 
 Arabian Sea and the ^ay of Bengal. The necessity for the extension 
 of the work of observation in this direction had been long recognised. 
 It is absolutely essential for the investigation of the causes of the 
 origin of cyclonic storms. Hitherto information had been mainly 
 sought of the weather during cyclones, but not of the antecedent 
 weather and conditions which led up to and originated these storms. 
 Information of the weather in the Indian Seas is even more 
 necessary in dealing with the causes which affect the strength of 
 the great rain-giving currents of the south-west monsoon. These 
 currents advance from the sea into India, and their strength and 
 variations of strength probably depend as much upon conditions 
 in the sea area from which they advance as in the land area of 
 India itself. It was hence necessary that observations of the weather 
 in the sea area should be collected as regularly and systematically 
 as for the land area. 
 
 (Y.) The introduction of arrangements for the collection of 
 special observations during storms, and the recognition of these 
 observations as part of the duties of observers by special payments 
 for these observations. The work of observation with regard to 
 storms had been previously very defective. It was recognised in the 
 rules drawn up many years before by Mr. Blanf ord for the guidance 
 of observers that it was part of their duties to take frequent 
 observations during storms but they neither received any pay for 
 this special work, nor was any deduction made from their pay, if 
 they neglected the duty of taking these observations. It was hence 
 voluntary unpaid work, and as its performance was attended with 
 much physical discomfort, it was almost entirely neglected. As, 
 however, storms form on the whole the most important feature 
 of the weather, the registration of meteorological observations 
 during their existence was clearly as absolutely essential as of the 
 regular observations. 
 
 (VI.j The introduction of arrangements for the utilisation of 
 the services of duly qualified scientists in Europe for the discussion 
 of some of the more important series of observations which have 
 accumulated in the Calcutta Office during the past 13 years. 
 This was rendered necessary by the great increase of work 
 thrown nn to the Simla and Calcutta Offices. Among several 
 
 I Y 20321. U 
 
306 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 important complete series of observations in the Calcutta Office 
 awaiting discussion were the following : — • 
 
 (1.) Hourly observations taken during a large number of years 
 (varying from 10 to 13) at 26 second-class stations. These 
 observations have cost Government upwards of a lakh and 
 a half of rupees. 
 (2.) J\ nomographic observations taken for several years at 
 14 stations in different parts of India by means of self- 
 recording instruments. 
 (3.) The continuous series of observations taken at Alipore, 
 Allahabad, and Jaipur during past years by self- 
 registering instruments. 
 In order that these observations, accumulated at much cost and 
 labour, should be promptly utilised, Mr. Eliot suggested the adoption 
 of the plan already been tried by the Geological Survey Department 
 and found to work very satisfactorily. There are several distin- 
 guished meteorologists in Europe who have ample leisure for the 
 discussion and investigation of any of the series of observations in 
 the previous list, and would probably be glad to undertake the work 
 for a moderate remuneration. An annual grant was therefore 
 sanctioned by Government for this purpose. 
 
 (VII.) The re-adjustment of work and establishments at the 
 central and local meteorological offices, and the adoption of certain 
 changes for increasing the efficiency of the Calcutta and Simla 
 offices. 
 
 The following parts of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs were 
 issued during 1888-89 : — 
 
 Parts III. and 17- of Vol. III., completing Mr. Blanford's very 
 valuable monograph on the rainfall of India. Part V. of Volume IV. 
 containing an account of the cyclone of May and June 1881 in the 
 Arabian Sea, drawn up by Mr. Chambers. 
 
 The Handbook of Cyclonic Storms in the Bay of Bengal for 
 the use of Sailors has also been issued recently. The following 
 were also prepared : — ■ 
 
 1. Account of the cyclonic storm of August 1888, prepared by 
 Mr. Pedler. This will form Part II. of the Cyclone Memoirs. 
 
 2. Account of the cyclonic storms of September 13th to 20th, 
 1888, and of the cyclone in the Bay of Bengal and the Vaitarna 
 storm in the Arabian Sea in October and November 1888, drawn up 
 by Mr. Eliot. This will form Part III. of the Cyclone Memoirg 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 307 
 
 and will, -with Part II., give an account of the most important 
 cyclonic storms of the year 1888 in the Indian seas. 
 
 3. A short paper by Mr. Dallas on the relation between sunspots 
 and weather as shown by meteorological observations taken on 
 board ships in the Bay of Bengal during the years 1885-78. 
 
 4. An account of the storm of the first week of Juno 1887, in the 
 Arabian Sea, compiled by Mr. F. Chambers. 
 
 The present arrangements for issuing storm warning signals are 
 the following : — 
 
 Ports on the Burmah, Bengal, 
 
 Ports on the West Coast of 
 
 and Madras Coasts warned by 
 
 India warned by the Bombay 
 
 the Bengal Reporter : — 
 
 
 Reporter : — 
 
 (a.) Bengal ports — 
 
 
 (a.) Bombay ports — 
 
 Calcutta and 
 
 River 
 
 Karachi. 
 
 Hooghly. 
 
 
 Bhaunagar. 
 
 Chittagong. 
 
 
 Daman. 
 
 Orissa ports, including 
 
 Bombay. 
 
 Pooree, False 
 
 Point, 
 
 Ratnagiri. 
 
 Chandbally, and 
 
 Bala- 
 
 Goa. 
 
 sore. 
 
 
 Karwar. 
 
 (&.) Burmah ports — 
 
 
 Vingorla. 
 
 Moulmein. 
 
 
 Kumta. 
 
 Rangoon. 
 
 
 (b.) Madras ports — 
 
 Bassein. 
 
 
 Cochin. 
 
 Akyab. 
 
 
 Mangalore. 
 
 (c.) Mado-as ports — 
 
 
 Calicut. 
 
 Bimlipatam. 
 
 Gopalpur. 
 
 Yizagapatam. 
 
 Cocanada. 
 
 Masulipatam. 
 
 Madras. 
 
 Negapatam. 
 
 Tuticorin. 
 
 During a cyclonic storm which crossed the coast of Kathiawar in 
 the early part of November 1888, the coasting steamer Vaitarna 
 was lost, and the court of inquiry recorded the opinion that if a 
 proper storm warning system had been in force, with communica- 
 tions to most of the northern ports, intimation could have been 
 conveyed in time to have enabled the Vaitarna to avoid the cyclone. 
 This was a striking proof of the seriously defective organisation of 
 
 U 2 
 
308 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 the Bombay system, and prompt remedial measures were taken as 
 far as possible by Mr. Eliot. A local daily weather report and 
 chart is now published and issued daily ; a new storm signalling 
 system has been devised, and steps have been taken to improve the 
 representation of Kathiawar in the meteorological system. 
 
 On the Sth May 1889, Mr. H. F. Blanford retired, after a 
 connexion with the Meteorological Department of 22 years. He 
 was appointed Meteorological Reporter to the Government of 
 Bengal in June, 1867, and initiated the local meteorological system 
 and the storm warning service for the port of Calcutta after the 
 experience of the cyclone of October 1864. When it was determined 
 to combine the various provincial systems into a common Meteoro- 
 logical Department for the whole of India, Mr. Blanford was called 
 upon to report on the best means of carrying this into effect. His 
 suggestions were approved, and he was appointed Meteorological 
 Reporter to the Government of India. The series of Annual 
 Reports and Papers written by him for the Indian Meteorological 
 Memoirs form a most valuable contribution to meteorological 
 science. Since his retirement he has published "A Practical Guide 
 " to the Climates and Weather of India, Ceylon, and Burma, and 
 " the Storms of the Indian Seas," which gives an admirable 
 summary of the results of meteorological observations taken in 
 India, and presents in a clear and intei'esting manner tiie more 
 important features of the climates and weather in India. The 
 Government expressed its high value of his services in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 "I am to take this opportunity to record the high estimate which has been formed 
 hy His Excellency the Govern or- General in Council of the zeal nnd ability displayed 
 during the ieveral years of his incumbency of the office of Meteorological 
 Keporter to the Government of India by Mr. Blanford, who has now retired 
 from the service, and 's^ho was practically ihe founder of systematic and uniform 
 Tueteorological obser^■alions in India." 
 
 During 1889-90, six third-class observatories were established 
 within India itself, while observations were also obtained for the 
 first time after a long interval from the observatory at Trivandrum 
 maintained by the Maharajah of Travancore, and from that at 
 Bhavnagar maintained by the Thakur of that State. Voluntary 
 observatories were established at Shortt's Island near Chandabally, 
 ajid at Lungleh in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, during the past year, 
 and useful observations obtained therefrom. From the distant 
 station of Zanzibar some excellent observations were obtained for 
 over a year from Dr. Charlesworth, the Medical Officer, but he was 
 then, unfortunately, invalided home, and Mr. Eliot thinks it may 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 309 
 
 be well, under the circumstances, to devote the cost to maintaining 
 fresh observatories in Burma. At the Seychelles, another distant 
 and isolated station,^rrangements were made for joining with the 
 Director of the Mauritius Meteorological Service, and so obtaining 
 improved observations. A set of instruments were supplied in 
 March 1888 to Dr. Woolbert, Medical Officer attached to the military 
 officers on special duty on the Perso-Afghan frontier, in order that 
 a series of observations might be taken at Mashhad, on the Perso- 
 Afghan frontier. These have been received from September 1889, 
 and are of very considerable interest. Mr. Eliot has also taken 
 steps to establish observatories at Perim and Paumben. The former 
 is much wanted in order to furnish meteorological data of the 
 southern part of the Red Sea, of which is not sufficiently representa- 
 tive, and the latter in connexion with the Bay of Bengal Storm 
 Signal Service. Additional observatories are much wanted in 
 Burma, in order to elucidate the meteorology of that area, and 
 ascertain the part it plays in deflecting the south-west current of 
 the Bay of Bengal, and in producing variations in its strength, and 
 the distribution of rainfall in North-Bast India. But it is 
 undesirable to open out new observatories in that province until 
 railway or telegraphic communication has been extended to all the 
 more important districts. Certain parts of India too are imper- 
 fectly represented, for instance, the north-west coast of Kathiawar, 
 certain parts of the Deccan (Fortb-East Haidarabad), the eastern 
 districts of the Central Provinces, and certain portions of Chota 
 Nagpur, Eajputana, a.nd Central India. 
 
 Progress is being made in the introduction of a uniform system 
 of rainfall registration, and in 1889 a common hour, 8 a.m., was 
 adopted. Rainfall charts and statements of a far more compre- 
 hensive character than before are now prepared, giving an 
 accurate and fairly complete view of the progressive distribution of 
 rainfall over the country. A weekly summary is published in the 
 " Gazette of India," and rainfall charts drawn by hand are prepared 
 weekly for the Viceroy and the Agricultural Department. Mr. Eliot 
 has, however, suggested further changes of importance, including 
 tbe adoption of a common type of rain-gauge {i.e., Symons') 
 throughout India, the supply and testing of all rain-gauges by the 
 Meteorological Office before issue, more frequent inspections, the 
 examination of all rainfall data for elimination of errors, and the 
 annual publication of tbe rainfall data for the whole of India in a 
 complete form for the use of engineers, irrigation officers, 
 meteorologists of all nations, sanitary authorities, and generally 
 
310 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 speaking, all persons interested in the subject. These reforms are 
 now under the consideration of the Government. 
 
 A seasonal forecast, based partly on information of the snowfall 
 in the mountain districts of Northern India during the previous 
 cold weather months, and partly in the distribution of pressure in 
 April and May, was prepared by Mr. Eliot, and published in the 
 " Gazette of India " on the 13th of June. The main conclusions 
 regarding the south-west monsoon of 1889 were as follows : — 
 
 (1.) The weather conditions in May over the land area, and the 
 character of the cold weather snowfall were both favour- 
 able to the probable occurrence of an early and strong 
 monsoon. 
 (2.) Conditions were unusually favourable for heavier rain than 
 usual over the whole of North-Bast India, including 
 Burma, Assam, Bengal, Behar, and the greater part of the 
 North- Western Provinces. 
 (3.) The conditions in the Peninsula were, on the whole, favour- 
 able, and hence it was probable that the Bombay monsoon 
 current would be at least of normal strength, and give 
 normal rainPall over the Peninsula generally. 
 (4.) The conditions in Upper India, and more especially the 
 
 Punjab, were more or less unfavourable ; and 
 (5.) So far as could be judged from the observation it was, on the 
 whole, probable that Ganjam and the Northern Circars 
 would receive at least normal rainfall. 
 A comparison of the statements of actual rainfall results with 
 the forecast shows a very fair agreement. In fact, with the 
 exception of Burma and Bengal, where the rainfall was normal 
 or very slightly in defect, and in the North-West Provinces where 
 it was considerably in excess, the forecast was fully verified. 
 
 The Bay of Bengal Storm-Warning Service was satisfactorily 
 performed during the year, cautionary telegrams being despatched 
 in good time in every case. Ample warning was also given from 
 Simla to the west coast ports under the new arrangements for the 
 Bombay Storm Signal Service. In the Bay of Bengal one of 
 the most pressing needs in connexion with storm-warnings is the 
 question of telegraphic communication Avith Port Blair, in the 
 Andaman Islands. Not only are the largest and most intense 
 cyclones generated in the centre of the Bay near the Andamans, but 
 the proximity of the ports of Bassein, Moulmein, and Rangoon to 
 this cradle of storms, and their distance from Calcutta from 
 which point, nevertheless, they have to be warned, has induced 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 311 
 
 Mr. Eliot to record his strong opinion that it is desirable, if not 
 absolutely necessary, for the warning of the Bengal and Madras 
 coasts and almost essential to the proper and complete protection of 
 the Burma coast that the cable should be laid. The Government 
 have, however, not felt justified in sanctioning such large outlay, 
 considering that such telegraphic communication was not urgently 
 required at the moment for any other object than for meteorological 
 purposes. Consequently this important measure is necessarily 
 postponed for the present. 
 
 The general administration of the observatories and offices during 
 the year 1889-90 was in the hands of the following officers : — 
 
 Names. 
 
 John Eliot, Esq.,M.A., 
 
 F.E. Met. Soc. 
 W. L. Dallas, Esq. 
 
 C. Little, Esq., M.A. 
 J. H. Gilliland, Esq., 
 B.A. (Offg.) 
 
 Lai a Hem Eaj - 
 
 A. Pedler, Esq., 
 
 F.C.S. 
 C. Little, Esq., M.A. 
 
 (<Jffs-) ^ . 
 
 J. R. Holt, Esq., 
 
 C.S. (Ofig.) 
 W. N. Boutflower, 
 
 Esq., B.A. (Offg.) y 
 S. A. Hill, Esq., 
 
 B.Sc, F.E. Met. 
 
 Soc. 
 W. L. Dallas, Esq. 
 
 S. A. Hutchinson, 
 Esq. 
 
 Miss Isis Pogson, F.R. 
 Met. Soc. 
 
 Dr. G. C. Chesnaye 
 Dr. J. Eichardson 
 Dr. J. G. Pilcher 
 Dr. C. Little - 
 Dr. D. Sinclair 
 
 Office. 
 
 Province. 
 
 Meteorological Reporter to the 
 
 Government of Lidia. 
 First Assistant Meteorological 
 
 Reporter to the Government of 
 
 India. 
 Second Assistaut Meteorological 
 
 Reporter to the Government of 
 
 India. 
 
 Personal Assistant, the Meteoro- 
 logical Reporter to the Govern- 
 ment of India. 
 
 Meteorological Reporter to the 
 Government of Bengal. 
 
 Meteorological Eeportcr to the 
 Government of the North- 
 Western Provinces and Oudh. 
 
 Meteorological Reporter to the 
 Government cf the Punjab. 
 
 Meteorological Reporter for 
 Western India. 
 
 Meteorological Reporter to the 
 Government of Madras. 
 
 Sanitary Commissioners, Central 
 Provinces. 
 
 Sanitary Commissioner, Berar 
 Sanitary Commissioner, Burma 
 
 > Central Office. 
 
 Bengal and Assam. 
 
 {North-Western Pro- 
 vinces, Oudh, Raj- 
 pufana, and Central 
 India (part). 
 
 Punjab. 
 
 Bombay, Berar, Raj- 
 pulanu, and Central 
 India (part). 
 Madras, Mysore, 
 
 Coorg, and Haidar- 
 abad. 
 Central Provinces. 
 
 Berar. 
 Burma. 
 
312 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 
 
 COLABA AND MaDRAS OBSERVATORIES. 
 
 The Government Observatory at Colaba is under the direction 
 of Mr. Charles Chambers, F.R.S. It is devoted principally to the 
 record and publication of facts and the prosecution of inquiry in 
 terrestrial magnetism and meteorology, to astronomical observation 
 for the purpose of time-keeping, and to the signalling of time for 
 purposes of navigation. The results of the observations are pub- 
 lished annually in the form of a quarto volume. The autographic 
 instruments, which are maintained in continuous action, are the 
 following : — 1. Declination raagnetograph. 2. Horizontal force 
 magnetograph. 3. Vertical force magnetograph. 4. Barograph. 
 5. Thermograph, dry -bulb and wet - bulb. 6. Pluviograph. 
 7. Anemograph, direction and velocity. 
 
 The harbour clock and time-ball are worked by electric current 
 from the Observatory, which is also charged with the custody of a 
 store of Indian Government and Admiralty chronometers. Chrono- 
 meters of merchant ships are also received for rating. 
 
 There is also an astronomical observatory at Madras, until 
 lately under the direction of Mr. N. R. Pogson, CLE., who held the 
 post of Government Astronomer from 1860 until hia death on June 
 23rd, 1891. This observatory gives uniform time to the greater part 
 of India for railway and other purposes, and its lougitude''' is the fixed 
 point of the departure of the Trigonometidcal Survey of India. 
 
 From the period of his taking charge up to 1885, Mr. Pogson 
 discovered the following six minor planets between the orbits of 
 Mars and Jupiter : — 
 
 Name. Date of Discovery. Period of Eevolution. 
 
 Asia - - 1861, April 17 
 
 Freia - - 1864, February 2 - 
 
 Sappho - - 1864, May 3 
 
 Sylvia - 1866, May 16 
 
 Camilla - 1868, November 17 
 
 Vera - - 1885, February 6 - 
 
 Asia was so named on account of its being the first astronomical 
 discovery made in that quarter of the globe. Preia was first dis- 
 covered by Professor D'Arrest, at Copenhagen, 1862, October 2l8t, 
 
 * Its latest (letermiuution of longitude, as mentioned on page 21.3, is 80' 14' 50'03"E. 
 of Greenwich. 
 
 Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 D. 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 23 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 22 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 24 
 
INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 313 
 
 •but was lost Q-wmg to insujEcient observations having been secured 
 to render tbe calculation of its orbit definite. It was re-discovered 
 independently at Madras. A bright telescopic comet was found at 
 Madras, 1 872, December 2nd. It remains a disputed point whether 
 tbis was a re-discovery of the lost periodical comet of Biela, or 
 whether the comet was a new one. Eight new variable and tem- 
 porary stars were also discovered, particulars of which, including 
 name, limits of magnitude, and period of variation, will be 
 found at page 520 (note) of Vol. I. of the Madras " Manual of 
 Administration." 
 
 The death of Mr. Pogson has now necessitated a reconsideration 
 of the position, organisation, and equipment of the Madras Obser- 
 vatory, as well as the question of the utilisation of the large mass of 
 observations awaiting publication. This matter is now under the 
 consideration of Government. Mr. 0. Michie Smith, F.R.A.S., 
 F.R.S. (Edinb.), is in temporary charge of the Observatory. 
 
314 
 
 XIV. 
 THE STATISTICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 The last decade has witnessed the completion of an important 
 undertaking in regard to our statistical knowledge of India, for 
 the statistical survey commenced under the auspices of Lord Mayo, 
 and placed under the supervision of Mr. (now Sir William Wilson) 
 Hunter, was brought to a successful conclusion. It was the 
 first systematic project of the sort, and at the same time, through 
 local co-operation, it was exhaustive. A brief review of the 
 previous efforts in the same direction, condensed mainly from 
 Sir W. W. Hunter's account, as given in the preface to the 
 " Imperial Gazetteer," is here desirable. 
 
 So far back as 1807 the Court of Directors of the East India 
 Company wrote to their representatives in Bengal " that a 
 " statistical survey of the country would be attended with much 
 " utility, we therefore recommend proper steps to be taken for the 
 " execution of the same. 
 
 The first attempt to make a statistical survey of Bengal dates 
 from 1769, four years after the province came into the hands of 
 the East India Company. 
 
 During the present century the Company issued a series of 
 instructions for a systematic investigation into the resources of 
 their dominions, the latest orders being three years before the 
 administration of India passed from the Company to the Crown. 
 During the ten years which followed the transfer of power, a new 
 set of efforts was made, the chief being the inquiries in the Central 
 Provinces, under the direction of Sir Richard Temple. At last, 
 in 1867, the Government of India, under instructions from the 
 Secretary of State, ordered an account to be drawn up for each of 
 the twelve great provinces of India. 
 
 The provincial administrations struck out widely divergent lines 
 for this scheme. It was just as if (Mr. Hunter remarked) a 
 command had been issued from some central power for a statistical 
 survey of all Europe, and each nation set about its execution on a 
 
STATISTICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 315 
 
 separate plan. It became apparent that vast sums of money would 
 be expended, while considerable uncertainty existed as to the 
 results. In the mea:^J)ime, the Royal Asiatic Society pointed out 
 that when the local accounts came to be digested, there would be 
 no basis for comparative statistics, and much " of the original work 
 " would have to be gone over again de novo." This opinion was 
 shared by the Governor-Greneral in Council, and Mr. Hunter was 
 directed to visit the various local governments and " submit a 
 " comprehensive scheme for utilizing the information already col- 
 " lected, for prescribing the principles, and for the consolidation 
 " into one work of the whole of the materials that may be 
 '•' available." The previous efforts were reviewed by the Viceroy 
 in a resolution dated 8th September 1871, the weak point being 
 shown to be the absence of a central organization, and the want of 
 a settled plan. 
 
 Mr. Hunter's scheme was submitted to the Governor- General in 
 Council in 1869,* and received the approval of the Government;, 
 who further secured for the execution of the design the supervision 
 of the designer. Mr. Hunter, who had been attached to the Bengal 
 Secretariat, and acted as Under Secretary to the Supreme Govern- 
 ment, was appointed Director- General of Statistics with a view 
 to the construction and execution of a Statistical Survey of 
 India. The object of the undertaking was to provide a 
 storehouse of statistical information for the controlling body, for 
 administrators in India and for the public, and the operations were 
 to extend over ten separate Governments, which, with their 
 Feudatory States administer a territory 1,500,000 square miles, and 
 govern a population then estimated at 200,000,000 souls, but since 
 found to be at least 255,000,000. Roughly speaking, this area and 
 population may be likened to those of all Europe, excepting Russia. 
 With the view of uniformity in the supply of materials, Mr. Hunter 
 drew up six series of leading questions, illustrating the topo- 
 graphical, ethnical, agricultural, industrial, administrative, and 
 medical aspects of an Indian district. These served as a basis for 
 the statistical survey throughout India. In this way the unpaid 
 co-operation of the administrative staff throughout the 240 districts 
 of India was enlisted, the best local knowledge was brought to 
 
 * rian for a Statistical Survey and an Imperial Gazetteer of India. Printed at tlie 
 Home Secretariat Press, CalcutU, 144 pp., folio, 18V0. 
 
316 STATISTICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 bear, while in eacli province a paid editor was answerable for the 
 completion of the provincial account ; tlie general supervision of 
 the undertaking resting with Mr. Hunter, as Director-General of 
 Statistics to the Government of India. 
 
 The district forms the administrative unit in India, and the 
 province the administrative whole. The statistical survey groups 
 all the district materials into fifteen provincial accounts or 
 gazetteers. 
 
 The Feudatory States and Chiefdoms, exceeding 300 in number, 
 with 50,000,000 of people, were from the first placed outside of the 
 scope of the statistical survey, as it was thought the native princes 
 would have misunderstood any attempt at systematic investigations. 
 Steps were taken, however, to collect some of the information 
 already existing with regard to Native States ; but no regular survey 
 was attempted, and a census of the territories did not exist, there- 
 fore, as a whole, the results as to feudatory India are far inferior to 
 the rest. This was due to the political exigencies of the case, which 
 were of course beyond the control of the Director- General of 
 Statistics. 
 
 The reduction of the numerous volumes of the Statistical Survey 
 to a practicable size for general reference was the last stage of the 
 undertaking, the results of this being the nine volumes of the 
 " Imperial Gazetteer." A list of towns, rivers, mountains, historic 
 sites, religious resorts, commercial fairs, harbours, or other places 
 of importance, were compiled from returns contributed by the 
 provincial editors and district ofl&cers. Eleven thousand names were 
 thus arranged in alphabetical order and printed in a folio volume, 
 and after that they had been checked by the local governments, 
 about 8,000 places were selected for inclusion in the " Imperial 
 Gazetteer." A few model articles were also drawn up for the 
 guidance of the contributors, showing paragraph by paragraph the 
 method of treatment. In this way the preparation of the work was 
 arranged for. 
 
 The bases of the statistics in the Gazetteer were the figures 
 of the census of 1872, but in certain provinces reliance had to be 
 placed on enumerations taken in 1867 to 1871, while the adminis- 
 trative and trade statistics were brought up to 1875 and even as far 
 as 1880. 
 
 In its historical aspect, Mr. Hunter considered that the work was 
 deficient, and the following extract from his preface to the 
 
STATISTICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 317 
 
 G-azetteer throws an interesting light on wHat was requisite and 
 what was actually achieved in this direction : — 
 
 " If the history of India is over to bo sinything more tlian a record of conquest and 
 crime, it must be sought for amongst the people themselvc:;. Valuable historical 
 materials had been collected fur the Statistical Survey, and ia 1877 the Secretary of 
 State for India decided that a wider scope should be allowed me for their use in the 
 ' Imperial Gazetteer.' I have done my best to give effect to that view, and it will be 
 seen thnt for the first time in these volumes that every Indian district has its own 
 history. The true territorial unit of Indian history is, indeed, much smaller tiian the 
 British district. For example, he who would study the history of Oudh must search 
 for it in ihe pargana or parish ; in other parts of India the zaoiindar or estate is the 
 historical unit ; in others the chiefship, while in a few the rural districts were mere 
 appendages to the great cities. Had it been permitted me to subject the rural annals of 
 India to systemiitic iuquiry, as I wished, a rich harvest would have been gathered in." 
 
 The latitudes and longitudes of the different localities were supplied 
 by the departmeat of the Surveyor-General of India, while areas, 
 distances, and similar data were furnished from the same source. 
 The statistics were not strictly comparable and not thoroughly 
 accurate, but India was then and is even now in its infancy as 
 regards statistical data. "When the survey was begun no one knew 
 exactly the population of a single province of India, or of a single 
 district of Bengal. In the latter province the census of 1872 
 suddenly disclosed the presence of 22,000,000 of British subjects, 
 whose existence had never previously been suspected. The popula- 
 tion of Bengal and Assam up to that time reckoned at 40,000,000 
 was ascertained in 1872 to amount to 67,750,000 of souls. 
 
 A uniform system of spelling of Indian proper names had long 
 been discussed, and was one of the essential preliminaries of the 
 " Imperial Gazetteer." In the old gazetteers the same word appeared 
 under many forms, one town being spelt in eleven different ways, not 
 one of which was correct, and in order to be sure of finding a place, 
 a student had to look it up under every possible disguise. A know- 
 ledge of the vernacular languages of India and of Sanskrit is neces- 
 sary to enable one to spell the native names correctly in the native 
 alphabets, and a scientific system of transliteration into the English 
 characters was a further essential.* 
 
 * There is a strong plea for the correct and uniform orthography of proper names in 
 Ml'. S. E. Peal's " Npte on the Origin and Orthography of Elver Names in Further 
 India" (see Proceedings of the Eoyal Geographical Society, p. 90 of 1889). Major 
 Eavertv too is a doughty champion in the same cause, see his ■' Notes on Afghanistan," 
 passim. Dr. Burgess has recently contributed a suggestive article on the same 
 subject to the Eoyal Scottish Geographical Society's Magazine. See also " Eeport on 
 Uniform System for spelling Foreign Greographical Names" (Navy Department), 
 Washington, 1891. 
 
318 STATISTICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
 
 Round this question there had raged a battle for over a hundred 
 years. Sir William Jones, the first scientific investigator of the 
 subject, showed that there were practically two systems of exhibiting 
 Asiatic words in English, the " scientific " and that subsequently 
 called " phonetic," the first being based on " scrupulously rendering, 
 " letter for letter, without any particular care to preserve the 
 " pronunciation," while the second proposed "to regard chiefly the 
 " pronunciation of the words intended to be expressed." 
 
 In the early years of British rule, the Indian proper names were 
 written down simply by ear, without any attempt at correctness, and 
 Mr. Markham, in his chapter on the orthography of Indian names, 
 in the " Memoir," gives some amxusing instances of this, such as 
 " Sir Roger Dowler " for Siraju'd-daulah ; Crotchy for Karachi 
 (Kurrachee), and "Isle of bats" for Allahabacl. But when the 
 British officers came to study the eastern tongues a reform was soon 
 initiated. Major Davy, a Persian scholar, was a strong supporter of 
 a phonetic system, and his plan was adopted in the " Institutes of 
 " Timur," which was published in 1784. Major Davy's contempo- 
 rary, Mr. Halhed, on the other hand, advocated and adopted a 
 scientific system in his code of Hindu law, compiled under the 
 orders of Warren Hastings in 1775. 
 
 Sir William Jones, not satisfied with Mr. Halhed's system, devised 
 the alphabet which bears his name. He provided for all the sounds 
 used in Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian, by the adoption of the Roman 
 or Italian sounds of vowels. Sir William's modification of the 
 scientific method was called, after himself, the Jonesian system. 
 Other champions arose ; Dr. John G-ilchrist and Mr. Henry T. 
 Prinsep maintaining the superiority of the phonetic system, while 
 Sir Charles Trevelyan and numerous missionaries upheld the scientific 
 or Jonesian system. The contest was transferred, in 1858, to the 
 columns of the " Times " and other journals, and Mr. Monier Williams, 
 Professor Garratt, Mr. Eastwick, Mr. Marshman, Colonel Meadows 
 Taylor, and the Rev. J. Barton, supported one view or the other, 
 but with no decisive result. 
 
 In 1868 a proposal was made by Mr. Burgess through the Bombay 
 Geographical Society for the preparation of a vernacular and English 
 index of Indian geographical names.* Sir William Hunter was 
 instructed to prepare a system with a view to uniformity in the 
 
 * English indexes of all villages in the Bombay and Bengal postal circles have since 
 been carried out at the instigation and largely under the direction of H. E. M. James 
 Bo.C.S. 
 
STATISTICAL SURVEY Of INDIA. 319 
 
 spelling of these names, and his plan was eventually adopted for 
 the gazetteer and for general use. No practicable scheme could also 
 combine absolute precision. The Roman alphabet has, for instance, 
 but one letter for the consonant n ; the Sanscrit has four letters for 
 it in its various modifications as a dental, lingual, palatal, and guttural. 
 Again, the Indian alphabet has two separate letters for d, 
 two for t, and three for s and sh. Indian names could, therefore, be 
 represented only in an approximate manner in our tongue without 
 the manufacture of a new Roman alphabet, with additional letters, 
 by means of accents over the vowels, dots under the consonants, 
 italics, or the like. In the system laid down by Sir "William Hunter 
 and adopted by the Government of India, dotted consonants are 
 rejected, as few accents as possible over the vowels are used, and, 
 generally speaking, everything is avoided which would give the 
 alphabet an un-English look. Moreover, names of important 
 places which had attained a historical or literary fixity of spelling 
 were retained in their popular form, such as Calcutta, Madras, 
 and Bombay. The method did not attempt to reproduce such 
 fine distinctions as the four Sanscrit n's or such consonants as the 
 dental and lingual t aiad d. But a uniform value was assigned to 
 each vowel, namely, a and u as in rural ; e as in grey, mechant ; and 
 i and o as in police. The accented a, i, and u represented the long 
 forms of the same vowels in Sanscrit, or the sounds in the English 
 far, pier, and lure. 
 
 The process of adoption of the uniform spelling of the geographical 
 names in all Indian Government publications has necessarily been of 
 slow growth. But the existence of a standard work of reference like 
 Sir William Hunter's "Imperial Gazetteer" has been a great 
 step towards uniformity of spelling, and all new maps issued by the 
 Surveyor-General's department follow the prescribed spelling, so in 
 process of time we may not despair of seeing absolute uniformity 
 attained wherever India is mentioned. 
 
 The second edition of the " Imperial Gazetteer," produced in 1885, 
 took as its starting point the census of 1881, which was also the 
 first complete and fairly synchronous census of India. Its adminis- 
 trative statistics refer chiefly to the years 1882-84, but in certain of 
 the larger questions dealt with the facts were brought down to 
 1885. 
 
320 
 
 XV. 
 
 INDIAN AECHiEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 The archseological remains of India, apart from their artistic 
 interest, are invaluable to the student of history, but it is onlj'' 
 within comparatively recent years that their conservation has been 
 undertaken by Government. This is regrettable, for, as has been 
 truly remarked, delay in sucli matters is irreparable. " Paintings 
 fade from walls, sculptured edifices are destroyed by the vigorous 
 growth of trees and by ruthless modern builders in want of 
 material, coins and inscriptions are mislaid or efi'aced, and all the 
 works of man suffer more or less under the hand of time."* The 
 earlier notices of Indian antiquities were those of passing travellers, 
 in whose time the knowledge of the languages, literature, and 
 history of the country was too scanty and undeveloped to enable 
 them to appreciate the true significance of the monuments and ruins 
 which they beheld. It was not till the foundation of the Asiatic 
 Society at Calcutta in 1784, under the auspices of Sir William 
 Jones, that any real attempt was made to critically examine Indian 
 archaeological remains. Since then the proceedings and journal of 
 that body and of kindred societies at Bombay and Madras have 
 
 * Mai-kham's Memoir on the Indian Surveys, p. 236. I must remark, however, tliat 
 the practice of carting away and utilizing the fragments of old temples of high antiquiirian 
 interest for ordinary modern building purposes has by no means been confined to native 
 builders. So far back as 1784 Mr. Charles Grant, a resident at Malda, wrote as follows : — 
 " I imagine a number of stones sufficient for the pavement of the New Church, may be 
 " collected from the ruins of Gour ... all the remains of Gour are unquestionably 
 " the property of Government, which we may dispose of at pleasure as was the custom of 
 " the Soubahdars." (Historical and Ecclesiastical Sketches of Bengal. Calcutta, 1831, 
 p. 188.) Fergusson in liis " Indian Architecture " makes mention of an inscribed Asoka 
 pillar converted by some utilitarian officer into a roller for the station roads at Alla- 
 habad. {See page 53.) Again, in 1885, a French archseologist drew attention in the 
 columns of the " Temps" to a gross act of vandalism, whereby no fewer than 40,000 
 cubic feet of stone, the ruins of decayed temples and palaces forming the ancient city 
 of Chandravati, the early capital of Gujrat, were carted away by railway contractors. 
 This is corroborated in Mr; H. Cousens' progress reports on his tour in 1889-90 in 
 North Gujrat. The general subject was brought to the notice of the Government of 
 India, Home Department (June 10, 1886), and a Circular (No. 4, P.W. of September 8, 
 1886) was issued for the better protection of remains from destruction by railway 
 contractors, &c. &c. 
 
INDIAN ARCHiEOLOGTCAL SURVEYS. 321 
 
 become the repository of a mass of information on the subject. The 
 first archaeologists were scholars of the type of Sir "William Jones, 
 Charles "Wilkins, I^enry Colebrooke, Francis Grladwin, William 
 Chambers, and Colin Mackenzie*, followed by F. Buchanan-Hamilton 
 and Horace Wilson ; and the detailed investigations of these accom- 
 plished savants are admirably told in the pages of Mr. Markham's 
 " Memoir." Their labours were preceded and supplemented by a 
 most meritorious collection in six large folio volumes of aqua-tint 
 drawings (1795-1807) by the artists, Thomas and "William Daniell 
 and James Wales, of the principal monuments and edifices of 
 Hindostan. 
 
 The next conspicuous name in the history of Indian archseological 
 research is that of James Prinsep, who became Secretary of the Bengal 
 Asiatic Society in 1832, and to whose industry and genius we owe 
 the decipherment of the edicts of the great Buddhist King Asoka. 
 Prinsep was also one of the first to discover positive dates in early 
 Indian history. His labours were seconded by Mill, Masson, 
 B. H. Hodgson, Burt, Kittoe, Postans, and others of minor fame, 
 while his zeal and scholarship have been emulated by his contem- 
 poraries and successors, the more distinguished of whom have 
 been Cunningham and Maisey in Upper India ; Meadows Taylor, and 
 Wilson, in Bombay ; Dr. B. Gr. Babington and Sir Walter Elliot in 
 Madras ; and Dr. Burgess for Western and Southern India. But it 
 is to James Fergusson that the elucidation of Indian architecture 
 and art is mainly due, a task for which his genius and taste 
 as well as his extensive journeys and researches over the whole 
 expanse of India had admirably qualified him. Apart from a number 
 of papers in the transactions of learned societies, he was the 
 author of an important work, entitled " History of Architecture," 
 in which Indian architecture is classified and expounded. The 
 following are the principal heads ; — 1. Prehistoric Eemains, such 
 as cairns, cromlechs, and other cognate remains of unknown 
 age, constructed by an unknown people, and scattered widely in 
 different parts of India. 2, BvddMst Remains. — A wide interval 
 separates the cairns and cromlechs from the Buddhist remains, for 
 the Aryans who composed the Yedic literature built nothing that 
 
 * Dr. Burgess, in a learned paper on " Archajological Research in India," read by 
 him before the Oriental Congress at Stockholm, in 1889, says that Mackenzie visited 
 nearly every place of interest south of the Krishna river, and prepared over 2,000 
 measured drawings of antiquities, carefully laid down to scale, besides facsimiles of 
 100 inscriptions, with copies of about 8,000 others in 77 volumes. Of the drawings, the 
 only portions published are those from Amravati, and in " Tree and Serpent Worship," 
 I Y 20321. X 
 
322 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL S0RVEYS. 
 
 has endured to our time. For five centuries from 250 B.C. nearly 
 all monuments in India are Buddhist and Jaina, consisting of rock 
 inscriptions, lafs or pillars with inscriptions, topes or stupas, rock- 
 heAvn temples, and viharas or monasteries, the most important being 
 the Sanchi tope in Bhopal in Cpntral India, described by Cunningham 
 and Fergusson, and the Amravati tope near the mouth of the 
 Kistna, also described in the " Tree and Serpent "Worship," and 
 by Dr. Burgess. 3. Dravidian Architecture. — This style extends 
 over all India south of the River Krishna, and the temples are of 
 vast extent and magnificent design. They are recognisable by their 
 pyramidal form, distinction of storeys, and separation into com- 
 partments by pilasters. 4. Bengali Architecture. — These temples, on 
 the other hand, have no trace of division into storeys, no pilasters, 
 and a curvilinear outline with a polygonal base. The style first 
 appears in the sixth or seventh century, and the best examples are 
 found at Bhavaneswar, in Orissa, and round the temple of Jagannath, 
 and thence across India s.s far as Dharwar. 5. The Ghalu/cya style of 
 Architecture prevails in Gujarat, Kanara, Mysore, and Bajputana. 
 The Hallabid temple, one of its finest examples, was built at the 
 same time as Lincoln and Salisbury cathedrals, and is considered by 
 Mr. Fergusson to be among the most marvellous exhibitions of 
 patient human labour the world has ever produced.* 6. The Jaina 
 temples are numerous and elaborate, and have been described by 
 Mr. Burgess. The most noticeable examples are at Satrunjaya, 
 G-irnar, Mount Abu, and Sadri, and they are found along the 
 western Deccan as far as Belgaum, as well as in Bengal and the 
 Central Provinces. 7. Lastly, the Muhammadan or Saracenic Archi- 
 tecture, in the form of beautiful mosques and tombs, is scattered 
 over nearly all parts of India except the extreme south. They range 
 over distant periods, and combine the general features of Muham- 
 madan v/ith the impress in details of local native art. Striking and 
 beautiful examples are to be seen at Jaunpur, A.hmadabad, Bijapur, 
 Delhi, and many other spots. The tomb of Akbar and the Taj 
 Mahal, which represent the Mogul architecture, are even more widely 
 known, and have been thoroughly examined. 
 
 In connexion with this subject, it may be useful to mention that 
 Mr. Burgess classifies the buildings of Western India as follows : — 
 
 1. Buddhist remains. 
 
 2. Brahmanical and Jaina Cave Temples 
 
 Srr History of Arcliitettuif, II., p. 609. 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 323 
 
 3. Rude and Sculptured monuments, &c. 
 
 4. Temples, &c. in the Dravidian or Southern style. 
 
 5. Temples imthe Chalukya, Eajput or Northern style. 
 
 6. Mediaeval remains. 
 
 7. Modern Hindu remains. 
 
 8. Musalman remains. 
 
 The following extract from his notes on the peculiarities of the 
 various eras and styles, though somewhat lengthy, is interesting, 
 and will serve to illustrate the above classification. 
 
 " The earliHst architectunil i-emains are those of the Buddhists, ranging from about 
 250 B.C. to the seventh or eighth century A.D. chiefly in the form of rock cut 
 tcmpifS and monasteries. The dahgoba — large cylindrical structures with a domed 
 top surmounted by a capital — and the arched roofs of the Chaitya or temple-caves arc 
 characteristic marks of Buddhist caves, so also is the preialcnce of the Chaitya window 
 or horse-shoe-shaped arch as an ornament ; though in a modified form, this is also 
 found in early Brahmanical buildings and caves. Tlie viharas or monasteries have 
 usually cells round them often with stone benches or beds inside. 
 
 " The style and subjects of sculpture, where there is any, will also generally indicate 
 whether a cave is Buddhist or Brahmanical, and it should be so described. In Sindh 
 there are, at least, two Buddhist topes, huge dahgobas, usually of brick ; and there are 
 possibly a few ruined temples in the northern zillahs of the Presidency that may have 
 been Buddhist ; all such remains should be carefully inquired for and reported on. 
 
 " Caves. — Jaiua caves are sometimes so like the later Buddhist caves at Ajanta that 
 they are difficult to distinguish by those not versed iii their peculiarities. Those at 
 Dbarasinva are of this character ; generally the nudity of the images, their snakes, and 
 ringlets at once mark them. 
 
 "Brahmanical caves are not so numerous as the Buddhist ones, but they are quite as 
 interestino-, and search might bring more of thcni to light. They range probably from 
 Ihe 5tli to the 8th century A.D. Instances of S'aiva caves are to be seen at Elephanta 
 and Jo'^es'wari near Bombay, at Elura, and at Aihole and Badami in Kaladgi, and two 
 fine Vaishnava ones at the last-named place. Brahmanical caves, so far a-> yet known, 
 consist of halls with a siiiglf) cell or shrine, and occasion allj', as at Elephanta, with one 
 or two small cells for utausils, &c., but without rooms for monks along their sides, 
 The sect to which a cave belonged is determined by the sculptures ; the Linga, Ganapati, 
 S'iva Bhairava, Arddhanari, Ravana, Bhringi, Parvati, Mahisaisuri, etc., figuring 
 prominently in S'aiva, and Vishnu, Varaha, JsTrisiiiha, Virabhadra, Garuda, &c., iu 
 •Yaishnava caves. 
 
 '' Montiinents. — In Belgauni, Kaladgi, and elsewhere there are scattered groups of 
 dolmens formed of large rough slabs set on edge with a huge capstone laid over them ; 
 there are, perliaps, al-o to bo found barrows or mounds, as in Shorapur, marking 
 ancient places of sepulture. So little is known of them from competent investigators, 
 that it is desirable to know more about their numbers and distribution over the 
 country ; of the local traditions respecting their origin ; of the different names, such as 
 Kodi Kols, Ac, by which they are knovrn ; and that those that have escaped destruc- 
 tion at the hands of vulgar curiosity, or the hammers of Wadaris, should be carefully 
 protected. Similar remains should be looked for in all districts. One dolmen was 
 recently discovered in Northern Gujarat. 
 
 X 2 
 
324 INDIAN ARCH^OLOOICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 " TJpnght monumental stones or menhirs are less common than the table-stone or 
 dolmen, but instances of their existence should be noted. 
 
 " Paliyas and sati stones in Gujarat and Kachli and the padukas or footprints of 
 Sadhus are too numerous to register ; but there are many varieties of each, and 
 instances of the oldest and finest in each class should be noted. On the older paliyas, 
 too, are sculptured the style of dress and warlike accoutrements of olden times — chain 
 armour, horses in mail, bows and arrows, swords of various sorls, shields, javelins, &c., 
 and not unfrequently the names of reigning princes, &c., with dates. Copies of some 
 of these would be very useful. For example, if the paliya of Lakha Phulani exists at 
 Adkot and can be read, the date and era on it would settle an important point in the 
 chronology of Kachh and Gujarat. Such as are likely to be of interest should be 
 noted. 
 
 " Styles. — The Dravidian style of Hindu architecture prevails chiefly in the southern 
 districts of the Presidency and of the Haidarabad territory, and is characterized by its 
 massiveness in walls, pillars, &c. ; the principal architectural lines in the roofs and 
 spires are horizontal, making the latter resemble storeyed pyramids ; and the vertical 
 breaks in the wall line are of but slight projection, sometimes set off with slender 
 pilasters with or without sculptures between. In the earlier remains of this style the 
 pillars are generally very thick and square or octagon, with heavy bracket capitals ; in 
 the latter they are sometimes round, and generally remarkable for the number of 
 horizontal members on the shafts and bases ; the capitals (except the abaci) are 
 circular with bracket sur-capitals. The remains in this style belono- to the period 
 between the 5th and early part of the 13th century. As examples of it may be 
 mentioned the Kailas temple at Elura, the Seven Pagodas near Madras, and all the 
 temples in the first report of the ArchcBological Survey of Western India — only one 
 at Pattadkal, represented in Plate XLVI., has a spire in the Chalnkya style. 
 
 " The Chalukya style ranges from the 9th to the middle of the 14th century, 
 and is chiiracterized generally by more elaborateness of ornament, by balconies and 
 roofings supported by richly-carved brackets, by the outer faces of the walls of shrines 
 being broken up into a series of projecting corners with equal faces, and by pillars 
 square in section with a projecting face on each side, or like a square pillar with a 
 slightly narrower but very thin pilaster added to each side. These latter, however, 
 while the typical section ivas retained, were liable to great modification from the great 
 amount of sculpture often lavished on them. The spires are proportionately loftier 
 than tho.se of the southern style, with a couple or more of successive projections on 
 each side : the faces and lines of projection are vertical at first, but higher up they fall 
 inwards with a gentle curve towards the summit, which is crowned by a kolas or finial 
 varying in form and size with the locality and age of the building. The walls are 
 often elaborately carved with belts of figures, and the stones are carefully fitted and 
 clamped inside, but without mortar. Some of the finest examples of this style are to 
 be found in the gates at Jhinjuwada, the gates and Hira Temple at Dabhoi, the temple 
 at Mudhera, and Rudra Mala at Siddhpur in Gujarat, and in the Jaina Temples at 
 Mount Abu, in the small temple at Amaranath near Kalyan, and in some shrines at 
 Pattadkal and Aihole in Kaladgi. 
 
 " To these two seems to have succeeded what may be called the medieval style 
 combining some of the features of each, and covering the period from about 1150 to 
 1600 A.D. To it belong most of the Jain temples and the later Hindu temples in 
 Gujarat, and those temples usually described as 'Hemadpanti' in Khandesh Berar, 
 and the Haidarabad territory, dating from about the 12th to the middle of the 11th 
 
INDIAN ARCI-LEOLOGICAL SUKVEYS. 325 
 
 century. Tlicse temples and the bauris or wells and reservoirs of the same style and 
 ago have been very imperfectly examined; and as they often present features of 
 considerable interest, all such examples, both of temples and reservoirs, should be 
 carefully noted. • 
 
 " In the modern Hindu styles from the I7th century there is considerable variety ; 
 the Muhammadan curved arch is often introduced ; forms derived from the Dravidian 
 have travelled northwards, and plaster and mortar take the place of sculpture and 
 careful jointing. In some cases, more frequently in civil than sacred edifices, however, 
 very beautiful wood-carving is introduced, such as is to be seen in many parts of 
 Gujarat : the best examples of this might be noted. 
 
 " On the styles of the Muhammadan buildings in the Presidency and neighbouring 
 States, little need be said ; the cusped arch and the dome are their common 
 characteristics, but the style of the Ahmadabad and that of the Bijapur buildings 
 present points of marked difference. A description should be given of the more 
 notable Muhammadan buildings at such places as they exist, with notes of the form, 
 size, and any special peculiarities, whether of style or ornamentation. 
 
 " Perforated stone-work occurs in old Hindu buildings ; but specimens remarkable 
 for the vnriety of beautiful design are chiefly to be found in the Muhammadan works 
 of the 15th and following centuries at Ahmadabad and Aurangabad, and, doubtless, in 
 other scattered localities where Muhammadans of wealth have at any time been 
 settled." 
 
 Siicli. are the principal epochs and styles into which Indian archi- 
 tecture has been grouped by Mr. Fergusson and Mr. Burgess, and 
 which the patient researches of individual observers have done so 
 much to illustrate. For a record of the latter we must refer our 
 readers to the pages of Mr. Markham's Memoir, where copious 
 and detailed references to the published accounts of these investiga- 
 tions up to 1875 are given.* 
 
 During the last fifteen years the work of G-eneral Alexander Cun- 
 ningham and Dr. James Burgess deserves most prominent mention. 
 The former was an old friend of James Prinsep, and inspired by a 
 like antiquarian taste and zeal he sketched out a plan (published in the 
 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, XVII., Ft. I., p. 535) for an 
 Indian Archaeological Survey as far back as 1848. Fourteen years 
 after, Lord Canning gave his sanction to a scheme, the object of 
 which was the preservation of the ancient monuments of Upper 
 India, the rendering them easy of access, the acquisition of correct 
 copies of inscriptions and pieces of sculpture, and the facilitating the 
 
 * A valuable means of reference to the archaeological and scientific labours of Indian 
 savants is furnished by the " Centenary Eeview of the Asiatic Society of Bengal " from 
 1784 to 1883. The history of the society is written by the late Dr. Rajendrala 
 Mitra CLE. ; the archseology, history, and literature by Dr. A. F. R. Hoernle ; and 
 the natural science by Babu P. N. Bose. The work was published at Calcutta 
 (Thacker, Spink, & Co.) in 1885. 
 
326 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 studies of antiquaries and historiansf . General Cunningham, was 
 placed in charge of the operations. His first investigations lay in 
 the country adjoining the course of the Ganges, and forming the 
 ancient kingdom of Magadha, the centre of Indian Buddhism 
 during its period of ascendency. During this early epoch, two 
 Chinese pilgrims, Fa Hian (A.D. 399-414) and Hwen Thsang 
 (A.D. 629-45) visited India, and the localities, cities, and monuments 
 described by them form important historical and topographic 
 landmarks, which it has been the special aim of modern students and 
 comparative geographers to identify. General Cunningham has 
 observed that as Pliny follows the route of Alexander, so an 
 inquirer into Indian archeology should tread in the footsteps of the 
 two Chinese pilgrims, Pa Hian and Hwen Thsang. Dr. Burgess, 
 too, remarks that there was no Indian Herodotus, Strabo, or 
 Pausanias, and that we learn more of the history and ancient 
 geography of India from these two Chinese travellers than from the 
 whole vast field of Sanskrit literature. 
 
 During his first season, 1861-62, General Cunningham identified 
 a number of ruins of Buddhist structures, especially at Buddha 
 Gaya, which, owing to the number and importance of its remains, 
 has since at intervals occupied the attention of himself and his 
 assistants. The following season was spent mainly at Kalsi, where 
 an impression of King Asoka's inscription, containing the names of 
 five Grecian kings was taken, and at Mathura and at Delhi. The Punjab 
 was the scene of General Cunningham's explorations in 1863-64, 
 during which he made good progress in identifying the cities and 
 peoples described in the expedition of Alexander the Great from 
 the west bank of the Indus downwards, examining every site 
 mentioned either by the Greek writers or by Hwen Thsang, and 
 giving detailed accounts of Taxila, Manikyala, and of the scene 
 of Alexander's great battle with Porus on the Jehlam. The work 
 of the following season lay among the ancient cities between the 
 
 * Lord Canning's mirute, dated 22nd .lunuary 1862, said, •' It will noh be to oiir 
 " credit, as .in enlightened ruling power, if we continue to allow such fields of 
 " investigation as the remains of the old Buddhist capital of Bihar, the vast ruins of 
 " Kanauj, the plains round Delhi, studded with ruins more thickly than even the 
 " Cumpagna of Rome, and many others, lo remain without more examination than 
 " Ihoy ha\ e hitherto received Everything that has hitherto heen done in this way 
 " has been done by private persons, imperfectly, an 1 without system. It is impossible 
 •' not to feel that there are European Grovernments, which, if they had held our rule 
 " in India, would not have allowed this to be said." 
 
INDIAN AKCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 327 
 
 Jumna and Narmada, and an interesting account of the Dhamnar 
 caves was drawn up. General Cunningliam had now examined and 
 described the ruins a»d. inscriptions in nine of the ancient kingdoms 
 of Hindostan.* But in 1866 the appointment of archaeological 
 surveyor was abolished by Lord Lawrence, and for a time General 
 Cunningham's useful investigations were suspended, while he him- 
 self returned to England. The interval was, however, profitably 
 employed by the General in the preparation of an important and 
 learned work on the ancient geography of India, in which "the 
 routes of Alexander and Hwen Thsang were traced and numerous 
 historical sites identified. 
 
 / In 1867 public interest in the conservation of ancient monuments, 
 and the collecting of photographs thereof, again revived, and the 
 Government of India issued a circular to the local governments, 
 expressing their sense of the importance of taking steps in that 
 direction, and calling for lists of monumental remains and works of 
 art in the various provinces. Th© Government were prepared to 
 assist in the purchase of private photographs, and to expend a sum 
 of Rs. 52,000 a year for parties in the four largest provinces to make 
 models, plans, photographs, and descriptions of the more important 
 buildings-j . The_Science and Art Department added the weight of 
 their recommendation in the same Hirection, and even ofiered to 
 share expenses, laying stress at the same time on the expediency 
 of making casts as well as plans and photographs of the finest 
 monuments. 
 
 The local governments placed the work under the heads of the 
 Schools of Art ; and in Bengal a party was sent to Orissa and took 
 casts at Bhavaneswar temples, and, during the second season, at 
 Khandagiri caves. The superintendent of the Bombay School of 
 Art went to Amaranath, near Kalyau, in the Konkan, and took a 
 series of casts and also made a number of excellent drawings, 
 afterwards published in the " Indian Antiquary," III., 316-320. In 
 connexion with this scheme also, Oapt. H. H. Cole was sent to 
 Sanchi, and made casts of the eastern gateway there, of which 
 copies are to be seen in the South Kensington, Edinburgh, and 
 Dublin National Museums. 
 
 * General Cunniugham's four reports for the years 1862-65, were re-publisliod in 
 two volumes at Simla in 1871. 
 
 f Government of Indiii, Home Department Eesolution, No. 14-931 of 24th February 
 1868. 
 
328 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 The general interest thus shown was gratifying, but the impor- 
 tance of conducting the researches in a more systematic manner, 
 and on some definite plan became apparent. A suggestive and 
 weighty despatch was addressed by the Duke of Argyll, then 
 Secretary of State, to the Indian Government*, which led to a 
 resolution being passed to form a central establishment to collect the 
 results of former investigations, to train a school of archaeologists, 
 and to direct and systematise local and private efforts. This central 
 establishment appears, however, not to have been carried into effect. 
 The direction of the department charged with the work of surveying 
 was offered to General Cunningham, whose invaluable services were 
 thus again fortunately secured to India. 
 
 The next year (1871) saw General Cunningham with his two 
 assistants, Messrs. J. D. Beglar and A. C. Carlleyle, beginning work 
 by a survey of the two great capitals of the Mogul Empire, Delhi 
 and Agra. In 1872 Mr. Carlleyle was deputed to Eajputana, 
 Mr. Beglar to Bundelkhand, while General Cunningham visited 
 Mathura, Buddha Gaya, Gaur, and other sites. The explorations 
 at Delhi, Agra, and in the Doab are described in Yol. III. of the 
 series of reports, and the same work contains General Cunningham's 
 plan for the execution of the survey. The fourth volume consists of 
 the detailed reports on Delhi by Mr. Beglar, and on Agra by 
 Mr. Carlleyle, while the fifth deals with General Cunningham's tour 
 in the Punjab in 1872-73, during Avhich an extensive collection was 
 made of Buddhist sculptures of the Indo-Scythian period. 
 
 In 1872-73 Mr. Beglar made an examination of the old course 
 of the Son Eiver, which appears to have run parallel to the 
 Ganges for many miles, Pataliputra or Palibothra (Patna), the 
 capital of the Gangetic Provinces, being probably situated in the 
 long narrow strip between the two rivers. Mr. Beglar thinks, 
 however, that the actual site of ancient Pataliputra is now under 
 the waters of the Ganges, which, like the Son, shifted its course 
 some little time before the Muhammadan conquest. It is difficult 
 otherwise to account for the total disappearance of the fort, palaces, 
 towers, and other buildings. The modern city of Patna dates only 
 from the time of Shir Shah, 1541 A.D. A visit was also paid by 
 
 * India, Despatch No. 4 (Public), dated 11th January 1870. See also Government 
 of India Eesolution, No, 649-650 of 2nd February 1871, and Proceedings of >Sub- 
 Commiitee, Public Service Commission, Scientific Departments, pp. 27 ff. 
 
INDIAN ARGHiEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 829 
 
 Mr. Beglai- to the ancient temple of Buddha Gaya,"^' to Barakar, 
 Telkupi, and other localities of archaeological interest in the ancient 
 kingdom of Magadha^t 
 
 In 1873-74 and 1874-75 General Cunningham traversed nearly 
 the whole of the western lialf of the Central Provinces,^ his first 
 attention heing directed to the magnificent stupa of Bharhut,§ 
 half-way between Allahabad and Jabalpur. Proceeding through 
 Bilhari, a town formerly of considerable importance, as shown by 
 its ruined temples and fine tanks, and Rupnath, where lies one of the 
 short rock-cut inscriptions of Asoka (see p. 369), General Cunningham 
 made some researches at the great fortress of Singorgarh, a place 
 famous for the unprovoked attack made by the Muhammadan 
 Governor of Kara on the brave Hindu Princess Durgavati, whose 
 gi'eat wealth had excited the cupidity of her neighbours, and for the 
 great battle which ensued (1563 A.D.), resulting in the death and 
 defeat of Durgavati. General Cunningham also inspected the 
 curious Buddhist caves at Bhandak, near the "Warda River, and 
 the fine group of temples at Markandi on the Wain Ganga Eiver. 
 He also treats in his report of the country of the Gonds, called 
 Gondwana by the Muhammadans, which occupies the southern part 
 of the region traversed during the two seasons. The true Gond 
 country, however, is of larger extent, and consists of the long table- 
 land which gives rise to the Tapti, the Wardha, the Wain Ganga, 
 and the Narmada. In ancient times the region would appear to 
 have been called Gauda or Gaur, and General Cunningham identifies 
 the people with the Phyllitse (leaf-clad) Gondali of Ptolemy. 
 The tenth volume of the Archaeological Survey of India Reports, 
 issued in 1880, treats of two tours by General Cunningham in 
 Bundelkhand and Malwa in 1874-75 and 1876-77, the chief points 
 of interest in which were the discovery of several monolith capitals 
 
 * A complete monogi-aph on Buddha Gaya by the late Dr. Rajendrala Mitra, C.I.E., 
 was published in 1878. This work -was i-e\'ie\ved by Dr. Bliagwanlal Indraji and the 
 editor, in the Indian Antiquary for 1880, pp. 113 f. and 142 f., and in Fergusson's 
 ArchoBology in India (1884), pp. 84, &c. There are short accounts of Dr. Mitra's 
 antiquarian labours in the " Times " of July 30th and " Athenreum " of August 1st, 
 1891. 
 
 f Mr. Beglar's Report, with a prefooe by General Cunningham, and illustrated by 
 plans and illustrations, forms Vol. VIII. of the ArcliEeological Survey of India 
 Reports. 
 
 f Vol. IX. of the Archaeological Survey of India Reports. 
 
 § Described by General Cunningham in a separate work published by order of the 
 Secretary of State for India in 1S79. 
 
330 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 and other remains of the time of Asoka and his successors, 
 and of numerous specimens of the architecture of the Gupta 
 period. The General also visited Khajuraho, in the small native 
 State of Chatarpur, for the purpose of examining the Ghantai 
 temple which, on the occasion of his previous inspection, he had 
 considered to be a Buddhist structure, but which Mr. F. C. Black, 
 C.E., after careful examination, pronounced to be a Jaina temple.* 
 This opinion was accepted by General Cunningham on his re- exami- 
 nation of the building and its surroundings. Fresh visits were also 
 paid to the great Buddhist stupa at Sanchi, and a good number of 
 pillars which formerly supported the circular colonnade were dug 
 up, besides 21 new inscriptions. An interesting square temple 
 at Deogarh, apparently of 7th century date, with all the 
 characteristics of the style of the Gupta period, and first brought 
 lo notice by Captain Charles Strahanf in the course of his survey 
 operations, was also carefully described. 
 
 During the next year General Cunningham examined many 
 curious remains of Hindu architecture and sculpture of all ages. 
 Of the old Buddhist times there are the ancient mounds of Panch 
 Pahari, or the " Five Hills," close to Patna, from whence Akbar 
 viewed the city when he was besieging Daud Shah, the last king of 
 Bengal. Of the same age are the old temples and stupas of 
 Sravasti and Tandwa. Of the Indo-Scythian period there is a very 
 curious group of sculpture from Tusaran Bihar, near Allahabad. 
 Two inscribed stone pillars at Bilsar in the Doab belong to the 
 Gupta age, while the period of Muhammadan rule was well repre- 
 E^^ented by the grand old masjids at Budaun of the time of Iltitmit^h, 
 A.D. 1202-09, by the magnificent masjids at Jaunpur, built by the 
 Sharqi kings in the 15th century A.D.,J and also by the tomb of 
 Sher Shah at Sasseram, possessing the largest dome in Northern 
 India, and picturesquely built after the Hindu fashion in the middle 
 of a sheet of water. Two identifications made by General 
 Cunningham during the tour were of great historical interest in 
 regard to the early career of Buddha. One was the famous 
 Uruvilwa forest of vilwa or bel trees, whither Sakya Sinha 
 
 * See Mr. Black's paper in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XLVJII., 
 Part I., 1879. 
 
 I Report on the Topographical Surveys of India. 1870-71, Appendix A., Gwalior 
 and Central India. 
 
 J Subsequently visited and described by Dr.Fiihrev and Mr. Ed. Smith («ee page 339). 
 
INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 331 
 
 retired for contemplation, and where he finally attained to Buddha- 
 hood. The place, is now represented by the small hamlet of 
 Urel, which is a simgje contraction of the Pali name Uruwel, the 
 bel forest, and the whole neighbourhood abounds with bel trees. 
 The other identification is that of Nawal, near Bangarmau, as the 
 Nava-deva-kula of Hwen Thsang. Another visit was also paid by 
 the General to Buddha Gaya for the purpose of examining the 
 surrounding country and making a survey of the ancient sites, and 
 to the vicinity of Patna for the purpose of identifying various 
 references to Pataliputra made by Fa Hian, Hwen Thsang, Arrian, 
 and other old authorities. 
 
 The twelfth volume of the series presents us with the results of 
 tours in 1874-75 and 1875-76 in the Central Doab and Gorakhpur by 
 Mr. A. C. L. Carlleyle, First Assistant, Archgeological Survey. In 
 the Doab he examined the great mound of Indor Khera, eight miles 
 to the S.S.W. of Anupshahr on the Ganges, where he found a copper 
 plate inscription of the great King Skandagupta, dated in the year 
 146 of the Gupta era. Be also discovered an ancient fort at 
 Sankara on the Budh Ganga and other historical places in the same 
 neighbourhood. Mr. Carlleyle claimed also to have discovered at 
 Bhuila Tal, the site of the famous town of Kapilavastu, the birthplace 
 of Sakya Buddha, for many centuries the most venerated of all 
 the holy places of Buddhism. This supposed identification was 
 accepted on a subsequent visit by General Cunningham, who 
 traced there various minor sites associated with the life of Sakya 
 Muni. The identifications were eventually, however, quite disproved 
 by Dr. Fiihrer. 
 
 During the same seasons (1874-76) Mr. Beglar was exploring 
 the little-known tracts between Chattisgarh and Cultak, as well as 
 some interesting places in Rewa and the Central Provinces on the 
 west, and in Orissa on the east. At Eanipur-jural in the State of 
 Karund, there is a very fine example of the Indian Hypoethral 
 temple, of which very few specimens exist, besides many other 
 temples of various periods. The most ancient places visited by 
 Mr. Beglar were the famous sites of Khandagiri, Udayagiri, and 
 Dhauli with their well-known rock edicts of Asoka. The groups of 
 numerous caves at Mara, about 100 miles S.B. of Rewa, are without 
 inscriptions, but are interesting from their extent, as well as from 
 their position, in the heart of a very wild and picturesque country. 
 Of much later date are the fine Brahmanical temples of Chandrehi 
 
332 INDIAN ARCII^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 and Turtui'ia, of which some views are given in Mr. Beglar's Report.'^" 
 When these temples were builfc, the arts of architecture and 
 sculpture in the Central Provinces must have been quite as 
 flourishing as in any other part of India. The temples at Markandi 
 on the "Wain-Ganga River, and of Boram Deo in the Kawarda State 
 of Chattisgarh, also bear witness to the same fact. General Cunning- 
 ham concludes, therefore, that the whole of this part of the country 
 must then have belonged to the powerful Kulachuri Rajas of Chedi, 
 and not to the aboriginal Gonds, whose power was confined to the 
 hills. 
 
 Mr. Carlleyle continued, during the seasons 1875-77, his task of 
 endeavouring to identify sites in the Gorakhpur district connected 
 with the early history of the great teacher, Buddha Sakyamuni. He 
 made a complete exploration of the ruins at Kasia, which General 
 Cunningham had already identified with the ancient city of Kusi- 
 nagara, where Buddha died.f This view is, however, questioned by 
 Professor Oldenburg and others. The ensuing seasons]; were devoted 
 by Mr. Carlleyle towards following up the further route pursued by 
 Hwen Thsang, who after terminating his visit to Kapilavastu and 
 its sacred neighbourhood, next proceeded in a south-easterly 
 direction to pay his adorations at the various spots where Buddha 
 had passed, after he had left his native place to enter upon the life 
 of an ascetic. The districts, parts of which were traversed by 
 Mr. Carlleyle during the three seasons 1877-80, were Gorakhpur, 
 Saran, and Ghazipur, and in the course of his survey he discovered 
 another inscribed pillar of Asoka at Rampurwa in the Terai, at the 
 foot of the Kepal hills. The inscription is letter for letter the same 
 as that on the two pillars near Betiya. The pillar is lying 
 prostrate, and in its fall the capital was broken, and the lower part 
 of the bell was found attached to the shaft by a massive copper 
 bolt, proving that the Hindus were probably aware of the 
 destructive properties of iron when used as a fastening for stones. 
 General Cunningham believes that the art of stone-cutting was 
 known to the Hindus before the time of Alexander. 
 
 In 1878-79 General Cunningham turned his attention to the 
 Punjab, with the object of seeing several of the rather out-of-the- 
 
 * Vol. XIII. of the Archaeological Survey of India (Cuuningham), Calcutta, 1882. 
 
 t Vol. XVIII. 
 
 J Detailed in Vol. XXII. 
 
INDIAN AECH^OLOGIOAL SURVEYS. 333 
 
 "Way places wliicli he had not previously visited, so as to complete 
 as far as possible, a general exploration of the province. The 
 temples at BaghanvaJ^, Malot, and Ketas, were visited by Mr. 
 Beglar, who then proceeded to Ali Masjid to excavate the various 
 Buddhist remains, which had been discovered on the occupation of 
 the place by the British army at the time of the Afghan Campaign. 
 General Cunningham examined all the sites to the south of Manik- 
 yala, which had been visited by General Court, and then proceeded 
 to Shahdheri, the supposed ancient Taxila, to explore some spots 
 that had been left untouched by General Ventura. Besides mis- 
 cellaneous objects, such as figures and ornaments, thousands upon 
 thousands of old Indian coins are found among the ruins of Taxila, 
 which seem to indicate that the Hindus were in possession of a real 
 coinage at the time of Alexander's expedition. After visiting 
 Kafirkot, the General inspected the site of *Rohri, where the floods of 
 the Indus had cut away part of the bank, and revealed the remains 
 of an old stupa with numerous Buddhist figures and heads in 
 stucco. The fort of Amb, within the Salt Range, which was visited, 
 still possesses some Hindu temples. The great mound at Jehlam 
 had been described by both Generals Court and Abbott ; recent 
 diggings for the railway had brought to light relics dating from the 
 time of the Greeks, and also from the most flourishing period of 
 Kashmirian rule. Passing through Lahore, the General visited the 
 lofty mound of China, 11 miles from Amritsar, which he identifies 
 Avith the Chinapati of Hwen Thsang, and crossing the Beas River, 
 explored various old sites in the ' Jalandhar Doab and east of the 
 Sutlej. South-east of Ambala, General Cunningham discovered 
 the village of Topra or Tobra, from which Firoz Shah removed 
 the great monolith of Asoka ; and his tour was brought to a conclu- 
 sion with the examination of the old battle fields famous in Hindu 
 history which are grouped round Thanes war.* 
 
 The following season was devoted by General Cunningham to a 
 tour in Behar and Bengal from Patna to Sunargaon. He first 
 visited Buddha Gaya where he had the good fortune to pick up two 
 dated inscriptions, one fixing the accession of Dharmapala, the 
 second Prince of the Pala dynasty of Bengal in 831 A.D. At 
 Jahngria, the rock sculptures and rock-cut temple of Kahalgaon are 
 
 * Vol. XIY., Archa;ological Sui-\ey of India. — Report of a tour in the Punjab in 
 1878-79. By Alex. Cunningham, Miijor-General, C.S.I., CLE. Calcutta, 1882. 
 
334 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 very irxteresting, the Ja.tter more especially on account of its peculiar 
 style, which diflfers widely from the highly decorated shrines 
 of the mediaeval period. The Muhammadan buildings at Gaur and 
 Hazrat Pandua, the two western capitals of Bengal, were carefully 
 studied.* 
 
 Gaur lies about 150 miles north of Calcutta. In former days 
 when the Ganges flowed past the city, Gaur was the great 
 mart where all the sugar of the northern districts was collected 
 for exportation. But since the city was deserted by the Ganges, 
 the sugar is brought to Eahanpur. Gaur was the capital of Balal 
 Sen and his descendants and their successors, the Muhammadan 
 governors and kings of Bengal. General Cunningham thinks that 
 the old Hindu city must have been about 4 miles in length, with a 
 mean breadth of about 1-|^ miles, while the ruins of the Muham- 
 madan city extend for a length of 11 miles along the Bhagirathi 
 river. "When this river dwindled to a mere rivulet, and the refuse 
 of the city was no longer swept away, a deadly pestilence broke out 
 in 1575, and carried off" fourteen of Akbar's principal ofiScers and 
 the governor of the province. Since then, Gaur became gradually 
 deserted, and at the end of the last century had become an uninhabited 
 "waste, covered with great forest trees and thick jungle, swarming with 
 tigers, leopards, and wild boars, and full of swamps teeming with 
 mosquitoes and crocodiles. But about 15 years ago Government 
 offered the lands almost rent free, and the offer being eagerly taken 
 up by the people, much of the jungle was cleared away. The ruins 
 are very extensive, and are found scattered about the citadel, the 
 city, and the suburbs. They include massive gateways, ramparts, 
 mosques, and other structures illustrative of the prosperous period 
 of the Muhammadan occupation. General Cunningham claimed also 
 to have discovered the site of the ancient capital called Paundra 
 Varddhana by Hwen Thsang in Mahasthan on the Karatoya river.f 
 
 * Gaur lias been descritcd by the late !Mr. J. H. Ravenshaw in a cosily volume, 
 excellentlv illustrated by forly-four of his own photographs, and Iwcnty-five plalos of 
 inscriptions. The untimely death of the author in 1874 delayed the publication of the 
 book until 1878. 
 
 t Mr. E. V. Westmacott, B.C.S., in Janunry 1874 had identified Paundra 
 Varddhana with Panjaia-Borddhonkuti, or Ponrowa and Borddhonkuti (Indian 
 Antiquary, Vol. III., p. 62, and Deal's Hwen Tsiang, Vol. II., p. 194). General 
 Cunningham'^ tour in Beli.-ir and Bengal in 1 879-80, is described in Vol. XV. of the fSerics 
 of Reports of the Archaeological Survey of India. The Report contains also some 
 interesting notes on the history of Bengal from the earliest known times down to the 
 16th Century. 
 
INDIAN AHCII^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. t335 
 
 The season of 1880-81 was devoted by General Cunningham to a 
 tour in North and South Behar.* Part of the season was spent in 
 clearing the Buddha Gaya temple, in the course of which the 
 sites of many of the holy places described by the Chinese pilgrims 
 and some traces of the original temple of Asoka were identified. 
 The raised promenade or cloistered walk along which Buddha took 
 exercise was identified, as well as the vajrdsan, or famous " diamond 
 throne," on which Buddha was said to have sat under the Bodhi tree. 
 The result of the researches at Buddha Gaya, made in November 
 1880, and again in February 1881, were fully described in a special 
 joint work by General Cunningham and Mr. Beglar. The following 
 season (1881-82) found General Cunningham in the Central 
 Provinces, exploring the old cities of Eajim, Arang, and Sirpur, the 
 last of which he believos to have been the ancient capital of the 
 country of Maha-Kosala, or Chattisgarh, as it now called, and 
 obtaining copies of their ancient inscriptions. The remains of these 
 three ancient sites difi^er from other temples in Northern India, not 
 only in their plans, but in their decorations. They present no grand 
 entrance to the front, which is quite open to the full breadth of the 
 nave or hall, the only access being by small flights of steps from 
 the sides. Their spires also are not so lofty as those of the mediaeval 
 temples, and their external ornamentation bears a strong resemblance 
 to that of the great Buddhist temple at Buddha Gaya. But the 
 sculptures on the pilasters are all of Brahmanical subjects. From the 
 inscriptions from these old cities General Cunningham was enabled to 
 frame an outline of the history of Maha-Kosala, from the 3rd or 4th 
 Century of the Christain era down to the conquest of the country by 
 the Marathas. He also paid a visit to the great temple of Boram 
 Deo, which is one of the finest buildings in the Central Provinces, 
 both in size and in richness of ornament, but which turned out to 
 be much more recent than previously supposed. The tour finished 
 at Mathura, where General Cunningham was fortunate enough to 
 find a half life-size alto-relievo statue of Herakles strangling the 
 Nemasan lion. It appears to have been copied from some Greek 
 original, and has apparently formed one side of an altar.f The 
 group is now safe in the Calcutta Museum, after having been used 
 as a cattle trough for years. 
 
 * Volume XVI., Archasological Survey of India. 
 
 ■f Vol. XVII. of Genenil Cunninghnm's Eeports, dealing with the above tour is 
 accompanied by a note on the aboriginal race of the Sauras or Savaras, and another 
 note on Demon worship, which is intimately connected with the liistory of the same 
 race. 
 
336 INDIAN ARCIIiEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 During tlie cold season of 1881-82 Mr. Garrick made a tour 
 for the purpose of - jjhoto gr apliing and exploring the old temples 
 at Markandi. He also examined the remains of an old Buddhist 
 monastery at Barmayan, which Gleneral Cunningham is inclined to 
 identify with the monastery built by the Maharaja Sri Gupta 
 for the use of the Chinese pilgrims who visited India. After 
 visiting the ruins of the ancient city of Gurgi, in Rewa territory, 
 Mr. Garrick was deputed to inspect the excavations being made 
 by a company of sappers in the Yusufzai district. Charsada, 
 the ancient Peukalaotis, about two marches north-east of Peshawar, 
 forms a central point of historical interest, well meriting further 
 research.^' 
 
 The season of 1882-83 was taken up with the exploration of 
 Eastern Rajputana.t In Alwar, General Cunningham visited the 
 old capitals of Tejara, Rajgarh, and Paranagar, with various border 
 forts, famous for centuries in the history of the Meos of Mewat, 
 who, until their conversion to Muhamniadanism, so successfully 
 resisted the arms of the Muhammadan kings of Delhi. The 
 principal remains of the Meo rulers, consist of mosques and tombs. 
 A visit was paid to the great fort of Tahangarh, in the Karauli 
 territory, which had previously been unnoticed, although it was 
 formerly one of the great forts of Upper India. It is now quite 
 deserted, and is filled with thick jungle, and infested by tigers. While 
 in this neighbourhood, General Cunningham visited the battle field 
 of Khanwa, where Baber defeated the great Hindu prince Sangram, 
 and his ally Hasan Khan. He also found the Baoli well, built by 
 Baber on the spot v/here he poured out all the wine in his camp, in 
 fulfilment of a long neglected vow. In the Gwalior territory the 
 chief place visited was the great Jaina temple of Dubkund. It lies 
 in the very heart of deep jungles, and has 35 small chapels round 
 the main building. The whole season's tour was very fruitful in 
 Muhammadan inscriptions. 
 
 General Cunningham's last two tours in Bundelkhand and Rewa 
 during the cold seasons of 1883-84 and 1884-85 are recorded in 
 Vol. XXI. of the Archaeological Survey of India. In the course of 
 these he visited many places which had not been reported upon by 
 the officers of the Department, The most notable of these 
 
 * Vol. XIX., Archfeological Survey of India. — Report of a tour through Behar, 
 Central India, Peshawar, and Yusufzai, 1881-82. Calcutta, 1885, 
 j- Described in Vol. XX. 
 
INDIAN AECH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 337 
 
 places were the great forts of Kalanjara and Ajaygarh, the strong- 
 holds of the Chandels of Mahoba and their religious capital of 
 Khajuraho. which jj^ssesses the most famous collection of 
 magnificent temples in Upper India. Two important inscriptions 
 were also found, one at Lakhima, dating from shortly after the 
 death of Skandagupta, and the other, still older, found on the 
 Grinja hill, about 40 miles to the S.W. of Mlahabad, and dating 
 apparently from the Seleukidan era, A.D. 140.* 
 
 In 1885 General Cunningham resigned his post as Director- 
 General of the Arch^ological Survey. He had served no fewer 
 than 54 years under Government, having been appointed Lieutenant 
 in the Bengal Engineers on the 9th June 1831. f He was present 
 at the battle of Punniar in 1843, and at the battles of Chilianwala 
 and Gujrat in 1848-9. Cunningham was twice employed in Ladak, 
 and his valuable work on that country is still a standard authority 
 on the subject. In 18G1 he was appointed Archaeological Surveyor 
 by Lord Canning, as mentioned above {see page 326), and, with a 
 bi-ief interval of four years (1866 — 1870), he was continuously 
 engaged on these important duties up to his retirement. General 
 Cunningham thus summarized his own labours : — 
 
 " I have identified the sites of mimy of the cliief cities and most famous places of 
 ancient India, such as tlie Rock of Aoruos, the city of Taxila, and tlie fortress of 
 Sangala, all connected with the history of Alexander the Great. In India J have 
 found the sites of the celebrated cities of Sankisa, Sravasti, and Kausambi, all 
 intimately connected with the history of Buddha. Amongst other discoveries I may 
 mention the Great Stupa of Bharhut, on which most of the principal events of Buddha's 
 life were sculptured and inscribed. I have fouud three dated inscriptions of King 
 Asoka, and my assistants have brought to light a new pillar of Asoka, and a new test 
 of his Eock edicts in Baktrian characters, in which the whole of the 12lh edict, which 
 is wanting in the Sbahbazgarhi textj is complete. 
 
 " I have traced the Gupta style of architecture in the temples of the Gupta kings 
 at Tigowa, Bilsar, Bhitargaon, Kuthera, and Deogarh, and I have discovered new 
 inscriptions of this powerful dynasty at Eran, Udayagiri, and other places. 
 
 " In illustration of my explorations and discoveries, I have published the following 
 
 works : — 
 
 " 1 . The Temples of Kashmir. 
 
 " 2. The Bhilsa Topes or Buddhist Monuments of Central India. 
 
 " 3. Ladak, Physical, Statistical, and Historical. 
 
 " 4. Geography of Ancienl India. 
 
 « 5. Coins of Alexander's Successors in the East. 
 
 * Vol. XXI., Parts I. and II. Archseological Survey of India. 
 f He was son of Allan Cunningham, the well-known poet and man of letters. 
 t The twelfth edict has since been discovered at Sbahbazgarhi, and published iu the 
 " Epigraphia Indica." 
 
 Y 
 
 I Y 20321. 
 
338 INDIAN AKCHvEOLOGICxVL SURVEYS. 
 
 " 6. Corpus Insciiptionum Indicariim, Vol. I., Inscriptions of AsoI<a. 
 
 " 7. Stupa of Bhai-hut. 
 
 " 8. Eooli of Indian Eras, with Tables for the Calculation of Dates." 
 
 These works, it may be observed, were, in addition to the series 
 of 23 volumes of the Archgeological Survey Keports, written by 
 General Cunningham and his assistants, and reviewed in the present 
 chapter. 
 
 In accepting General Cunningham's resignation, the Governor- 
 General in Council " had much pleasure in tendering to that officer 
 " the thanks of the Government of India for the distinguished 
 " service rendered by him during an unusually long career." 
 General Cunningham was created a K.C.I.B. soon after, and in 
 1887 a special pension of Rs. 2,000 per annum, in addition to his 
 military pension, was rendered to him for his distinguished services 
 as Director-General of the Archgeological Survey. 
 
 On the retirement of General Cunningham the Department was 
 re-organised on a plan proposed by him. The Northern Provinces 
 were divided into three charges or circles, each being entrusted to a 
 suiweyor, with a suitable establishment. In the Madras and Bombay 
 Presidencies, the existing arrangements were left undisturbed under 
 Dr. Burgess, but that officer was constituted the head of the entire 
 Survey Department, and the channel for the submissioji of the annual 
 reports of each survey party to the Government of India. The 
 surveyors, in addition to the strictly archseological portion of their 
 work, were placed on the footing of professional advisers to the local 
 governments in regard to the repair and restoration of buildings of 
 antiquity. These arrangements were sanctioned for a period of five 
 years from the 1st October 1885, but were modified early in 
 1886 by the appointment of Dr. Burgess as Director- General for all 
 India. Eflforts were now made by Dr. Burgess to utilise some of 
 the material already collected. Provincial surveys had been con- 
 ducted at a good deal of expense, both in the Punjab and North- 
 western Provinces by officers of the Public "Works Departmeut for 
 several years previously ; and much attention had been devoted 
 to the great monuments of Agra, Jaunpur, Delhi, Lahore, &c. 
 On examination of the drawings, however. Dr. Burgess found 
 that the details on which so much of the real character and 
 style of architectural art is dependent had not been drawn 
 with sufficient care. Many of the smaller measurements were 
 in error, and the proportions of ornamental work, mouldings, &c. 
 overlooked. In the case of Jaunpur it was found that the whole 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SDlWJilYS. 339 
 
 had to be re-measured and re-drawn. This work was entrusted to 
 the architectural assistant of the North-West Provinces survey, Mr. E. 
 W. Smith, who conducted a very careful survey in 1886 and 1887. 
 
 The report on " The Sharqi Architecture of Jaunpur, with notes 
 on Zafarabad, Sahet-Mahet, and other places in the North- 
 Western Provinces and Oudh," appeared in 1889.* The bulk of 
 the letter-press was by Dr. Fiihrer, and the architectural descriptions 
 were by Mr. Smith, while Dr. Burgess acted as controlling Editor. 
 To the manuscript of his report Dr. Fiihrer added a bulky appendix 
 of 46 Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit inscriptions collected during 
 his tour. Many of these were unknown before, and some were of 
 great historical importance, especially in settling the question of the 
 time of the first appropriation of the ancient Buddhist and Hindu 
 temples by the Muhammadans. 
 
 Jaunpur possesses much historical interest, as along the banks of 
 the Barna are the sites of large cities, destroyed by fire. On the 
 Grumti stood vast temples which perished on the first inroad of 
 the Musalmans ; but what founders and what antiquity these cities 
 and temples boasted none can now say. The chief attractions of 
 Jaunpur are its masjids, which are unique in style and grandeur, 
 their general features being exemplified by those of the AtalaMasjid, 
 which consists of a courtyard, on the western side of which is 
 situated a range of buildings, the central one covered by a dome, 
 in front of which stands a gate-pyramid or propylon of almost 
 Egyptian character and outline. The three sides of the courtyard 
 were surrounded by colonnades, and on each side was a handsome 
 gateway. " These Jaunpur examples are well worthy of illustration, 
 " and in themselves possess a simplicity and grandeur not often met 
 " with in this style. "f 
 
 Dr. Fiihrer remarks of this town : — 
 
 " If in a visit to Jaunpur there be melanclioly, yet is that melancholy free from pain. 
 You stand amid ruins, but ruins defiled by no painful memories. Not here does each 
 buildinc recall centuries of blood, and lust, and crime. From the pinnacles of the Jarai 
 masjid you look down on the ghost of a noijle city : trees growing where once stood 
 the palaces of princes. From the mound of the Fort, now so desolate, you look down 
 on the fair valley, bright with the meanderings of the Gumti, adorned with trees and 
 the thickly set tombs of men, many, doubtless, heroic men, though their deeds be 
 forgotten, ouia carent vote sacro. As you look down from the upper chambers into 
 the central hall of the Jami masjid, when, as the evening dr/iws on, the deepening gloom 
 
 * With 74 plates; printed and published by the Superintendent of Government 
 Printing, India. Calcutta (Thacker); London (Triibner and Allen), 1889. 
 
 i Fei-o-usson : — History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, pp. 522-624. 
 
 Y 2 
 
340 IXDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 and the dimmer distauco makes you feel as standing in a noble sliriue of a more familiar 
 faith, the voice of some worshipper below, echoing through the vaults, carries you back 
 to a time when, through the same lattice, some queen looked down on king and nobles 
 gleaming in the light of pendant lamps, with the gold and jewels of an Eastern court, 
 as they listened to the words of some saintly philosopher seated on that very pulpit." 
 
 Other places visited and described in the same volume by 
 Dr. Fiilirer are Zafarabad, Ayodhya, Bhuila Tal, and Sahet Mahet. 
 But tlie plans, elevations, and other lithograplis all treat of the 
 Jaunpur masjids, which form the most interesting feature of the 
 work. Dr. Fiihrer has since made tours in Bundelkhand, Jhansi, 
 Eohilkhand, and Allahabad districts, and has completed the exca- 
 vation of the Kankali mound at Mathura, begun by Dr. Burgess 
 in 1S87, discovering many very ancient and important Jain 
 inscriptions and sculptures. Mr. Smith, the architectural assistant in 
 this circle, also made careful drawings, in 1886-87, at numerous sites 
 in Bundelkhand ; in 1888, at Budaun ; in 1888-89, at Kalpi, Irich, 
 Urchha, and Lalitpur ; and in the following two seasons, a most im- 
 portant series of the richly decorate darchitecture of Fathepur Sikri. 
 
 In 1885-86, Mr. J. D. Beglar, General Cunningham's former 
 assistant, made a tour in Bengal, but his report was not altogether 
 satisfactory. Mr. H. W. B. Grarrick was engaged during this and 
 the following season at Sasseram and Eohtas, making architectural 
 .drawings of the monuments at these places ; in 1888-89, he made 
 a tour through northern Bengal, and obtained good facsimile 
 impressions of two sets of the Pillar Edicts of Asoka, and of 
 so much of that on the Rampurwa Pillar as was practicable, 
 the pillar lying on its face. In 1887-88, Mr. Beglar was principally 
 employed at Graur and Pandua, and made a considerable number of 
 drawings. 
 
 Mr. Kodgers joined the Survey of the Punjab in January 1886, 
 and during that season and the following two, he made surveys 
 at Nurpur, in the Kangra valley, and in the Jalaudhar, Ambala, 
 and Hissar districts, making a very considerably number of 
 drawings and impressions of inscriptions, which it is intended to 
 publish. He also made a large collection of ancient coins. In 
 1888-89, he made a tour in Karnal, Ambala, and Ludhiana districts, 
 during which his staff prepared a large number of drawings. 
 
 Archgeology has suffered greatly in India, as elsewhere, from the 
 appropriation by private persons of such antiquities as come to light 
 from time to time. Sculptures, rings, coins, engraved seals, gems, 
 
INDIAN ARCII^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 341 
 
 and other relics have been occasionally carried off by officers of Govern- 
 ment, both civil and military,* for their friends and to present to dis- 
 tinguished visitors and tourists, or to adorn their houses and gardens 
 at home, at Simla and elsewhere. The demand and prices offered 
 for such objects have become so great that natives are induced to 
 search for them everywhere, both in British territory and in Swat, and 
 neighbouring sites, where ancient Buddhist buildings of high interest 
 exist, and owing to the random fashion in which the excavations 
 are made, sculptures get mixed up, and their history and meaning 
 are lost. Dr. Burgess mentions a case of three interesting, but 
 practically unknown, statues of royal personages, which were trans- 
 ferred to the mess house at Mardan. Two of them were doing duty 
 as jambs to the fireplace, and had been coated with Day and Martin's 
 blacking to make them shine properly. Dr. Burgess advised an amend- 
 ment of the Treasure Trove Act VI. of 1878, which would make it 
 illegal, as in Grroece, Italy, and Denmark, to export antiquities without 
 an official permit. But the Government, on consideration of the ques- 
 tion (see Eesolution and Circular ^ Arch. Proceedings, R. and A., 
 dated 28th March 1889), did not see their way to adopt so drastic a 
 course, and decided to call the attention of the local governments to 
 the provisions of the Treasure Trove Act, which permits the govern- 
 ment to claim possession of treasure exceeding ten rupees in value. 
 With regard to antiquities of interest which could not be brought 
 under the definition of " treasure " in the Act, they advised negotia- 
 tion with the finder with a view to purchase. 
 
 An important appeal had been made to the Secretary of State in 
 July 1873 in the shape of a memorial, signed by many of the most 
 eminent statesmen and men of letters of the day, and urging the 
 necessity of adopting systematic measures for the preservation 
 of historical monuments in India. A few months before, the 
 Government of India had pointed out, in a circular to the Local 
 Governments, that it was the duty of ail executive engineers 
 to report upon the best measures for protecting from decay any 
 public monument or building of interest, whether public or private. 
 With a view to obtaining complete information regarding the 
 architectural and historical monuments of the Bombay Presidency, 
 Mr. Burgess was requested to frame provisional lists for the different 
 collectorates of the Bombay Presidency and for Kathiawar, Gujrat, 
 
 * See Memoranda of Dr. Burges.s and Major Keith in the Proceedings of the 
 Government of India (R. and A. Department), No. 3 (Archgeology), April 1089, 
 
342 INDIAN AKCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 the Central Provinces, and Berai' ; and a revised batcli of those 
 provisional lists'^' was published in 1875 as one of the fasciculi 
 memoranda of the Archaeological Survey of "Western India.f 
 
 A list of the remains in Khandesh was prepared by Mr. Propert, 
 the collector, and issued in 1877J as No. 7 of the fasciculi of the 
 "Western India Survey, and the same year saw the publication 
 of some " Notes " by Mr. W. F. Sinclair, Bo. O.S., assistant collector, 
 Ahmadnagar, on the antiquities of the Talukas of Parner, San- 
 gamner, Ankole, and Kopargaum, together with revised lists of 
 remains in the Ahmadnagar, Nasik, Poena, Thana, and Kaladgi 
 Zillas. These were issued as No. 6 of the same series of fascicidi. 
 The latter was accompanied by a useful memorandum by Mr. Burgess, 
 giving practical suggestions for identifying and correctly describing 
 the local antiquities. The complete lists appeared in No. 11. 
 
 Among the other fasciculi of this series. No. 9 (1879) contains 
 notes on the Bauddha Rock-temples of Ajanta, their paintings and 
 sculptures ; and on the paintings in the Bagh caves in Central 
 India ; illustrations of modern Bauddha mythology ; and the San- 
 skrit inscription now at Cintra, with 31 plates. This contains a 
 full description of the famous frescoes of the Ajanta caves. No. 10 
 (1881) contains inscriptions from the cave temples of 'Western 
 India with descriptive notes, a Silahara copperplate grant, and 
 three Sanskrit inscriptions now in possession of the American 
 Oriental Society. This is illustrated with 52 plates chiefly 
 fac-similes of inscriptions, and was compiled jointly by Dr. Burgess 
 and the late Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji, Ph. D. The last addition 
 to the series is No. 12 (1891) on the newly discovered Budd- 
 hist caves at Nadsur and Karsambla (with seven plates) by 
 Mr. H. Cousens. 
 
 / In April 1880 the Government of India placed Captain 
 H. H. Cole, R.E., on special duty for the purpose of examining the 
 
 * Tlie first edition of this List, with a Memorandum on the Survey of Architectural 
 and otlier remains had been submitted to the Government of Bombay in August 1870, 
 and was reprinted in the Minutes of the Government of India in Mnrch 1871. 
 
 t No. 4. Provisional Lists of architectural and other archasological remains in 
 Western India including the Bombay Presidency, Sindh, Berar, Central Provinces, 
 and Llaidarabad. By Jas. Burgess, Bombay. Government Central Press, 1875. 
 
 \ Architectural and archiEological remains in Khandesh in 1877. Bombay Govern- 
 ment Central Press. No. 8 of the same series of Memoranda contains a descriptive 
 list of Archfeological Remains in Sindh, with plans of Tombs, compiled from returns 
 by the District Officers, 1879. For No. II, see p. 3-lC. 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OIiOGICAL SURVEYS. 343 
 
 condition of tb.e monuments of Lahore, Delhi,* and Agra. Captain 
 Cole instructed draughtsmen to measure and draw the structures, 
 and submitted a report. In the following year, Captain Cole was 
 gazetted Curator of Ancient Monuments in India, and received 
 instructions to inspect the principal monuments throughout India, 
 a duty which occupied him up to the 7th April 1882. His first 
 reportf contained a brief history of some of the chief measures 
 taken during the century to preserve the monuments of India, lists 
 of remains, and of works of reference, and some rather interesting 
 detailed notes on structures and antiquities in the various provinces 
 visited by him during the year. 
 
 The second report appeared in 1883. J It furnished a list of the 
 drawings, sections, elevations, and plans made by Major Cole's 
 officers, and an account of his own rounds of inspection, besides 
 archffiological reports from several of the Local Governments. In 
 more than one of the provinces some useful steps had been taken. 
 Mr. Grant Duff, Governor of Madras, had been touring through the 
 Southern Presidency, and his visit had given an impetus to archseo- 
 logical conservation and research. A special officer was appointed 
 to undertake the repairs of the Madras monuments, the appointment 
 being offered to, and accepted by, Mr. F. C. Black, C.E.,§ who forth- 
 with proceeded to Hampe or Bijayanagar, and the Seven Pagodas. 
 <At Bijayanagar the work of conservation was vigorously taken in 
 hand, and 110 buildings cleared of jungle ; and at the Alaiva or 
 Shore Temple at Seven Pagodas,' the sand was cleared away from 
 the walls of the outer enclosure.^' For Central India, Major Keith 
 was appointed Assistant Curator, and was despatched to Sanchi to 
 eflfect clearances, to re-erect the fallen gateways of the Great Tope,- 
 and carry out other repairs. This work was put in hand, and by 
 
 * A work on " The Archasology and Monumental Remains of Delhi " (284 pp. 8vo.j, 
 was produced by Mr. Carr Stephen, in 1876 (Ludhiana). It contains a description 
 and history of every object of antiquarian interest in the place, beginning with the 
 site of the Hemi-mythical India-prastha, the capital of Yudishthira, which is supposed 
 to date back to 1450 B.C., and concluding with the tomb of the Emperor Akbar II., 
 who died in 1837 A.D. 
 
 f Published at the Government Central Press, Simla, 188^. 
 
 t Second Report of the Curator of Ancient Monuments in India for the year 
 1882-3. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, 1883. 
 
 § Mr. F. C. Black contributed several papers on archseologieal subjects to the 
 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. He died in 1889. A brief record of his 
 public services will be found in tlie Minutes of Proceedings of the Institute of Civil 
 Engineers, Vol. XCVIII., p. 402. 
 
344 INDIAN AllCILEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 
 
 the end of the year quite a transformation had been effected. In 
 the Punjab a grant of Rs. 38,000 was allotted out of the Govern- 
 ment of India grant, and Lieutenant Abbott, R.E., was placed in 
 charge of the operations, which consisted of the restoration of 
 various important monuments and buildings at Lahore, Delhi, and 
 in the Jalandhar district. Excavations were also carried out in the 
 Yusufzai district, north-east of Peshawar, and several new 
 sculptures, illustrative of the Grseco-Baktrian style of art were 
 brought to light. Illustrations of some of these are appended 
 to Major Cole's report. In the North-West Provinces, the opera- 
 tions were mainly entrusted to Mr. Heath, who made many 
 useful restorations in the Fort of Agra, at Akbar's tomb at 
 Sikandra, at Fathepur-Sikri, Mathura,, and Brindaban;* and in the 
 Nizam's dominions a report was obtained from the Sadr Talukdar 
 promising to take steps to effect several works of restoration at 
 Kalburga and other places. 
 
 Major Cole's third Reportf was the last of the Series, for in 1883 
 the Government of India decided to entrust the work of preserving 
 buildings and monuments of importance to the Local Governments, 
 who were also desired by the Government of IndiaJ to take 
 up the preparation of the lists of ancient monuments, dividing them 
 into three categories : — 
 
 I. Those monuments which form their present condition and 
 
 historical or arch^ological value ought to be maintained in 
 permanent good repair. 
 
 II. Those monuments which it is now only possible or desirable 
 
 to save from further decay by such minor measures as the 
 eradication of vegetation, the exclusion of water from the 
 walls, and the like. 
 
 * Mathura and Brindaban have been treated in ?oholarlj- detail in " Mathura : a 
 District Memoir," liy F. S. Growse, B.CS., M.A., Oxon., C.I.E., second edition 
 (X. W. Provs. and Oudh Government Press, 1880). 
 
 t Published at Calcutta in 1885. Major Cole also engaged in survey work, and 
 obtained sanction for a grant of "Rs. 5,000 towards reproducing some of the drawings 
 made. But great expense was incurred by the French firm entrusted wiih the work, 
 and after 42,000 francs had been spent on 61 heliogravure photographs and 42 
 lithographs, further expenditure was stopped by order of Government. The drawings 
 were distributed in 10 I'olio parts, without title page. 
 
 |. Resolution of Home Department (ArchfBology) No, 3 — 168- — 8.3, dated Calcutta, 
 26th November, 1883. 
 
INDIAN ARCII/EOLOaiCAL SURVEY. 345 
 
 III. Those monuments which, from their advanced stage of decay 
 or comparative unimportance it is impossible or unnecessary 
 to preserve. • 
 
 The monuments in Classes I. and II. were to be further sub- 
 divided, thus — 
 
 I. (a) and II. (a). Monuments in the possession or charge of 
 (xovernment, or in respect of which Government must under- 
 take the cost of all measures of conservation. 
 
 I. (b) and II. (6). Monuments in the possession or charge of 
 private bodies or individuals. 
 
 Due provision was to be made for the proper custody and keeping 
 up of the monuments in Classes I. and II., the detailed arrange- 
 ments being left to the discretion of the Local Governments, and 
 the cost being charged to the Public Works Allotment of each 
 province. In very special cases the Government of India promised 
 to consider whether any further assistance should be granted from. 
 Imperial funds. 
 
 But when all these lists eventually came to be submitted, they 
 were found to be drawn up on such very dissimilar plans, that a 
 satisfactory amalgamation was hopeless. A prescribed form, con- 
 taining blank spaces for insertion of all necessary particulars 
 respecting the district, locality, name of object, any local history 
 or ti-adition regarding it, custody or present use, present state of 
 preservation, whether restoration is desirable and possible, whether 
 photographs, plans, or drawings of the buildings exist, and miscel- 
 laneous remarks, was sketched out and the old lists were returned 
 to the various provincial administrations to be revised in consultation 
 with the ArcliBeological Department. Those for Madras, Bombay, 
 and the Haidarabad assigned districts were drawn up and edited 
 by Dr. Burgess. 
 
 The Bengal list had been printed in 1879, and a revised list 
 was issued from the Bengal Secretariat Press in 1887. In 
 1885 the lists of antiquarian remains in Bombay, Sindh, and 
 Berar were published. They had been compiled by Dr. Burgess 
 from materials supplied by the Kevenue, Educational, and other 
 ofl&cers, and the task had proved anything but easy, owing to 
 the unsatisfactory character of the data frequently furnished. 
 A very favourite description was " This temple consists of 
 stones placed one upon another," an account which failed to 
 
346 IXDIAX ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEY. 
 
 convey any very precise idea of the structure, while the measure- 
 ments, numbers of columns, &c. given by diflferent officials respecting 
 one and the same building were too often wildly at variance. 
 j^evertheless the lists were a most important step towards a 
 thorough knowledge and systematic preservation of the antiquarian 
 remains of "Western India, and they also served to show how 
 wealthy the Bombay Presidency is in such antiquities. The various 
 lists united, formed a volume of 340 pages.* The latest addition to 
 these lists vras issued in June 1891, containing a complete resume 
 of the antiquarian remains and inscriptions in the North-West 
 Provinces and Oudh, compiled by Dr. Fiihrer.f In this large 
 volume Dr. Fiihrer has given a very full account of the remains 
 at each place with references to all sources of information, the 
 whole being carefully classified with complete indices. Dr. Fiihrer 
 is known to have also made extensive collections in 1886-89 for 
 a similar list for Central India. 
 
 Western India. — In 1871 proposals were made by the Secretary 
 of State for India for the preparation of a complete work on 
 the rock-cut temples of Western India, in consequence of which a 
 scheme was submitted by the Bombay Government in 1873, and 
 Mr. J. BurgessJ placed in charge of the operations, the area of 
 investigation being the Bombay Presidency and surrounding 
 native states. Mr. Burgess's first season's work lay in the Belgaum 
 and Kaladgi districts in the Southern Maratha country. At 
 Belgaum he took photographs and made plans of the Jaina temples 
 as well as estampages of the inscriptions. A visit was also paid to 
 
 * Lists of tlie antiquarian remains in the Bombay Presidency. Compiled by James 
 Burgess, LL.D., CLE., Bombay (Government Central Press, 1885). An Appendix 
 to the work contains a large number of inscriptions, viz. : — Persian, Arabic, and 
 Sanskrit inscriptions from Gujarat, Persian and Arabic inscriptions from Cambay, 
 Sojali near Mehmudabad, Dholka, and Bharoch, and Sanskrit inscriptions from 
 Girnar. This is Xo. 11 of the Memoranda noticed above on p. 342. 
 
 t " The Monumental Antiquities and In.scriptions in the North- Western Provinces 
 and Oudh, described and arranged by A. Fiihrer. Ph.D." (Allahabad, Superintendent, 
 Government Press, North-West Provinces .and Oudh, 1891). Super royal 4to. 426 
 pages. 
 
 J Mr. Burgess had already published a large portfolio of photographs with letter- 
 press description of the Satrunjaya Temples near Palitana; another on Somnath, Juna- 
 gadh, Girnar, &c. ; and a third of Architecture and Scenery in Gujarat ami 
 Kajputana ; a monograph on Elephanta, illustrated (1871); papers on Elura and 
 Ajanta Cave Temples, and Notes of a Visit to Gujarat, and had started and was 
 then editing the Indian Antiquary. 
 
INDIAN AECHiEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 347 
 
 the large Jaina temple of Panclialinga at Hull. All round Hull 
 there are enougli carved stones to illustrate a mythology, and 
 Mr. Burgess remarks that if there were a provincial museum at 
 Belgaum, abundant "materials to furnish it would be found at Hull. 
 At Badami there are some fine specimens of cave temples, three of 
 them being Brahmanical, and the fourth Jaina, and all probably 
 belonging to the sixth century. The third cave is the finest of the 
 series, and, in some respects, one of the most remarkable Brahmanical 
 works in India. Though it cannot compare with Elephanta or the 
 Dumar Lena in size, yet it is a large cave filled with a variety of 
 sculptured brackets, statues, carved pilasters, and the like. In 
 this he found an inscription dating from 579 A.D. which has afforded 
 an invaluable fixed point for the chronology of the Brahmanical 
 caves. The great Saiva and other Dravidian Temples at Pattadkal 
 were also surveyed and delineated.* 
 
 Mr. Burgess's second report dealt with Kathiawar and Cutch. 
 Cutch had up to that time been a terra incognita to the antiquarian, 
 and, though not very rich in remains, it deserved a careful examina- 
 tion, Kathiawar was more famous as the Holy Land of Western 
 India. It was known to the Greeks and Eomans under the name of 
 SaypacTpyi'vT], the Muhammadans called it by the Prakritised name 
 of Sorath, and the Marathas extended the name of Kathiawar from 
 a central district inhabited by the Kathi tribe, to the whole 
 province ; but by Brahmans and natives it is still spoken of as 
 Surashtra. It was doubtless at a very early period brought under 
 the infl.uence of Brahmanical civilisation, and from its position was 
 most accessible to influences from the "West. As early as the 
 reign of the great Asoka of Magadha (B.C. 265-229) we find him 
 inscribing his famous edicts upon a huge granite boulder at the 
 entrance of the pass leading from Junagadh to Girnar. Surashtra 
 was also probably included in the conquests of the ludo-Scythian 
 kings in the second century before Christ.f Its shores were well 
 known to the Alexandrian merchants a few centuries later, but 
 there is much difiiculty in identifying the places. 
 
 One of the most important of Mr. Burgess's researches consisted in 
 the discovery of some interesting specimens of the coins of the local 
 Kshatrapa kings of Surashtra and their imperial Gupta successors. 
 
 * See Fergusson's Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 439 fP. Mr. Burgess's first 
 season's report was published in 1874- by Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co., and was 
 accompanied by numerous photographs, lithographed plans, details, &c. 
 
 f Strabo, lib. xi. cap. xi, 1. 
 
348 IXDIAX ARCILEOLCGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 The domination of this race liad previously formed an important but 
 undefined epoch among the dynastic revohitions of India, and the 
 late Mr. Edward Thomas, the well-known numismatist undertook 
 the arrangement and classification of the coins.* Some of these 
 coins bear legends in imperfect Greek, the Greek language having 
 followed the conquering progress of the Baktro-Hellenic kings as 
 far as Mathura, Oudh, and Patna, and having been reserved more 
 exclusively for the ruling classes during their brief sway, while the 
 Greek alphabet in a degraded form was preserved still longer. It is 
 singular that there is no trace of any solitary inscription in the 
 Greek language in India, but in its numismatic form it remained 
 the leading vehicle of official record for more than two centuries, 
 under Greek and Scythian auspices. 
 
 The conquest of iSind by the Arabs in A.D. 712 was a marked 
 epoch in the annals of the country, associated with some instructive 
 coincidences, such as its inception, the ready domestication of the 
 conquerors on an alien soil, their final ethnic absorption into the 
 Indian native element, and their abrupt disappearance into com- 
 parative obscurity. Several coins discovered by Mr. Burgess are 
 ascribed by Mr. Thomas to this period. 
 
 At Junagadh, one of the most ancient cities of India, there is 
 probably a rich mine of buried antiquities, and the rock inscription 
 about a mile west of the city is the most interesting arch^ological 
 relic in the province.f It is approached by a noble avenue of 
 mango and jarmm trees, terminating in a substantial causeway and 
 bridge over the Sonarekha. The memorial itself is a huge hemi- 
 spherical mass of grey granite covered with 14 tablets or edicts of 
 Asoka,J besides a Kshatrapa and a Gupta inscription. This rock-cut 
 lettering extends over considerably more than a hundred square feet, 
 The edicts are in the Pali dialect and character, and contain a variety 
 of injunctions as to moral behaviour, public orders, the sparing of 
 animal life, religious tolerance, and the like. Professor Kern 
 
 * Mr. Edward Thomas was the author of the third chapter of Mr. Burge.ss's Report, 
 dealing with the Sah and Gupta coins. 
 
 f It was visited and described by Major Jamei Tod (Travels in "Western India, 
 p. 369). 
 
 J The other edicts are at iJhauli, in Cuttak, at Kaisi, on the banks of the Jamuna 
 at Jaugada Naugaru, in the Ganjam district, near the coast of the Bay of Bengal 
 (tliese tlnee beinjr, like that near Junagadh. in the Pali character), at Shah-baz-garhi, 
 about .36 miles N.E. of Peshawar, -^nd at Mansahra in the Hazara di.?trict (both 
 n the Baktrian character). 
 
INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 349 
 
 remarks that these edicts give an idea of what the king did for his 
 subjects in his wide empire which extended from Behar to Gandhara, 
 and from the Hieialayas to the Kalinga coast. Asoka the 
 Humane went over to Buddhism in the eleventh year of his reign 
 and became a zealous religionist, but he was a good prince, and 
 tolerant towards the other faiths, as is exemplified in his edicts. 
 
 The Buddhist caves of Junagadh, Talaja, Sana, &c. form another 
 feature of interest in Kathiawar. Hwen-Thsang, the Chinese 
 pilgrim of the seventh century states that there were in his time 
 about 50 convents here with about 3,000 recluses. Of these 
 Buddhist convents remains still exist, though four centuries of 
 Moslem dominion and strife have obliterated nearly every trace 
 of most of them. The rock-cut caves at Junagadh were probably 
 excavavated for the Jainas by the Sah or Kshatrapa kings of 
 Surashtra about the end of the second century A.D. Mount Girnar 
 was doubtless a place of pilgrimage, even before the days of 
 Asoka, and in his time it probably became a Bauddha sacred 
 place where monasteries were early formed and cells cut in its 
 granitic scarps for the devotees. The Jaina temples here form a 
 sort of fort, perched on the ledge at the top of the great cliff; they 
 are 16 in number, and some present a majestic appearance with 
 their boldly carved granite pillars. There is a striking example of 
 modern indigenous art at Junagadh in, the tomb of Maiji Sahiba, 
 the mother of the late Nawab of Junagadh. From a low platform 
 rise 20 rich and elegant columns supporting the colonnade or 
 verandah surrounding the tomb. The carving is most elaborate and 
 florid, though Mr. Fergusson considers the details inappropriate for 
 stonework and the style not in accordance with the true principles of 
 constructive design. The town of Jamnagar is of recent origin, and 
 there is not much of antiquarian interest in it, but the fagade of 
 the palace and the Delhi gateway, two capital photographs of which 
 were taken by Dr. Burgess, are good specimens of modem Hindu 
 architecture. 
 
 The history of Outch is involved in great obscurity. But perhaps 
 the most important, as it certainly was the most disastrous, event 
 connected with the architectural remains of the province was one of 
 comparatively recent date, i.e., the great earthquake of the 16th June 
 1819, which extended from Nepal in the north to Pondicherri in the 
 south, and from Makran in the west to Calcutta in the east, but 
 the force of which most violently affected Outch and the region 
 
350 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 immediately norfch. of it. This convulsion totally ruined many of the 
 oldest buildings in Cutch, the effect being particularly disastrous 
 at Anjar and Bhuj, where thousands of houses were ruined or 
 rendered uninhabitable. Dr. Burgess had only time to examine the 
 eastern part of the province, which is not very rich in antiquarian 
 remains, though there are some noticeable Jaina shrines and temples 
 at Bhadresvar, Keda, and Kotai. But the return journey through 
 Gujrat proved more fruitful, and the photographs of the gates at 
 Dabhoi and Jhinjuwada, sister fortresses of very similar construction, 
 convey a good notion of the massive and elaborate structural and 
 decorative character imparted to it by the Hindu architects of the 
 twelfth century. 
 
 The general results of the season's operations from the 26th 
 October 1874 to the 24th April 1875 are set forth in a report of 
 242 pages,* accompanied by a map and numerous photographic and 
 other illustrations. 
 
 The third report of the Archaeological Survey of "Western India 
 describes the principal remains examined during the annual tour 
 made in the cold season of 1875-76, through the western districts 
 of the territories of His Highness the Nizam. The tracts had been 
 previously quite unknown to the antiquary, but though near to 
 Kalyana, an ancient capital of the great Western Chalukya 
 dynasty, the survey did not yield either coins or inscriptions, the 
 wholesale destructions effected by the Muhammadan arms being 
 doubtless one cause of this. The latter part of the season was 
 mostly spent at Aurangabad, when a thorough survey was made 
 of some interesting, but little known groups of Buddhist caves in 
 the neighbourhood. The Chalukya race is the oldest of which 
 satisfactory mention is made in the records of the Deccan, and they 
 seem to have belonged to the great nationality which under the 
 name of Rajputs exercised dominion over the whole of Northern 
 and Central India. The rule of the Chalukyas extended from the 
 Narmada on the north to the Tungabhadra to the south, and from 
 the Arabian Sea on the west, to the Godavari and the Eastern 
 Ghats on the north-east and south-east. After a visit to Bidar, a 
 city which stiU contains, after nearly three centuries of desertion 
 and neglect, many remains of the grandeur of the Bahmani and 
 Berid dynasties, Mr. Burgess proceeded to Paithan, the HalSava. 
 
 * Archaeological Survey of Western India Eeport on the antiquities of Kathiawar 
 
 and Kachh. By James Burgess, F.E.G.S., M.K.A.S. (Allen & Co.), 1876. 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 351 
 
 of the Greek writers, and one of the capitals of the Andhras, whose 
 rule extended over the Telugu country and the northern Deccan, 
 including Nasik. Sheir monarchs were of great in power the early 
 centuries of the Christian era, for Pliny states that their king 
 possessed 30 walled towns, and could bring into the field 100,000 
 foot, 10,000 horse, and 2,000 elephants. The author of the 
 Periflus of the Mrythrean Sea speaks of Paithana as a most notable 
 trading place, and famous for onyxes, which are still found in 
 abundance there. The place abounds in local legends, but its 
 architectural magnificence has long since disappeared, though 
 many rich and beautiful patterns of wood-carving on the doors 
 balconies, and railings of houses, built a century ago or more, are to 
 be seen. Some elegant specimens of these are lithographed in 
 Mr, Burgess's book. Formerly the manufacture of silk shawls at 
 Paithan was famous throughout India, but it has now ceased to 
 enrich the place, a ruinous tax having been imposed, which drove 
 most of the weavers away, and destroyed the principal source of 
 trade. The Buddhist rock-cut temples at Aurangabad had received 
 no attention previously to Mr. Burgess's visit. One of the 
 most noticeable features is the remarkably ornate character of the 
 pillars, illustrations of several of which are given by Mr. Burgess. 
 A good photograph of the elegant square pyramidal tower over 
 the shrine of the Ahalyabai temple at Blura also finds place in 
 the volume, as well as facsimilia and translations of numerous 
 important inscriptions. 
 
 Mr. Burgess's fourth volume is entitled " Report on the 
 " Buddhist Cave Temples and their inscriptions, being part of the 
 " results of the fourth, fifth, and sixth season's operations of 
 " the Archaeological Survey of "Western India, 1876-79. Supple- 
 " mentary to the volume on ' The Cave Temples of India.' "* It 
 does not profess to be a complete report in itself, but to afibrd a 
 good deal of additional material for the study of Buddhist cave 
 architecture which could not be comprised within the limits of the 
 second part of the work on the Cave Temples published the previous 
 year. 
 
 The principal object of that work had been to present a 
 general survey of all known examples of Indian rock-cut archi- 
 tecture. They number over a thousand in all, and though the greater 
 
 * " The Cave Temples of India," by Messrs. Fergusson and Burgess, was printed 
 and published by order of the Secretary of State for India in 1880. 
 
352 INDIAN archjEoloqical surveys. 
 
 part are found in the Bombay Presidency and immediately 
 adjoining districts, others exist either singly or in groups both in 
 Bengal and Madras, but under forms as various as the localities are 
 distant from the typical examples of "Western India. Another 
 source of complexity arises from the caves being divided among 
 the three principal religions v^hich prevailed in India during 
 the ages in which they were excavated. The oldest and most 
 extensive series belong to the Buddhist religion, whose votaries 
 were the first, and for long perhaps the only, cave excavators. 
 They were succeeded by the Brahmanical caves, when that faith 
 in its turn replaced the once dominant religion of the " mild 
 ascetic." A smaller, but hardly less interesting series of caves 
 belongs to the Jains, who at a later age sought to rival the 
 Brahmans in the magnificence of their rock-cut architecture. 
 Their ages, too, vary greatly. The oldest of all are the simple cells 
 excavated for the Buddhist monks during the reign of Asoka 
 (B.C. 263-225) or immediately after that date, in the granite rocks 
 of Behar, and the series extends down to the most modern Buddhist 
 caves at Ajanta or Aurangabad, probably as late as 700 A.D. The 
 Brahmanical caves overlap these by a hundred or a hundred and 
 fifty years, and may extend down to the tenth century, while the 
 Jaina excavations, commencing about the same time as the 
 Brahmanical were continued in the rock at Gwalior down to 
 the middle of the fifteenth century. 
 
 Except in Mr. Fergusson's work on the rock-cut temples of 
 India, published in 1845,* no such general survey of the whole 
 subject had been previously attempted. Since then, however, new 
 series of caves have been discovered, inscriptions have been 
 deciphered, and generally such progress has been made, that a new 
 and greatly enlarged work became indispensable. The principal 
 caves described in Mr. Burgess's Vol. IV. are at Bhaja, Bedsa, 
 Kondane, TSTasik, Junnar, Kanheri, and Ajanta. The latter important 
 group of monasteries and temples had already occupied three 
 chapters, and 35 illustrations in the work on the Cave Temples, 
 but the interest attaching to their varied architecture, sculptures, 
 inscriptions, and paintings, which exhibit so much of the history 
 of Indian art for a period of so many centuries, led Mr. Burgess 
 to present numerous additional details and descriptions in his fourth 
 
 * lllusiiutions of the Rock-cut Temples of India : — 18 plates in tinted lithography 
 (folio), with an 8vo. volume of text, plans, &c. London : Weale, 1845. 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 353 
 
 volume. All the important inscriptions found in tlie caves were 
 translated, and with a general chapter on Palaeography, were added 
 to the same work. ^ 
 
 Volume V. (1883) illustrated, in the same way as its predecessor, 
 the remaining rock temples of Western India, the principal of 
 which are the well known and magnificent group at Blura, con- 
 sisting of splendid representatives of Buddhist, Brahmanical, 
 and Jaina cave temples, the Brahmanical and Jaina caves 
 at Badami, at Aihole, at Ankai-Tankai, and at Patna, and the 
 Brahmanical oaves, chiefly at Jogeswari on Salsette Island, at Elo- 
 phanta, at Lonad, and at Harischandragad. Of the Elura temples, 
 M. Baudrillart observes, " At the sight of these astounding 
 " edifices, the development of the plastic arts and of public 
 " religious luxury among the Hindus receives the most striking 
 " attestation in the magnificence of these temples in the infinite 
 " diversity of their details and the minute variety of the 
 " carvings."* The only other Indian group that can rival it, is that 
 at Ajanta. There, however, the caves all belong to the Buddhist 
 religion, and carry on its history and architecture for nearly 
 ICOO years, while those at Blura, commencing when the excavations 
 at Ajanta ceased, acquire additional interest by the introduction of 
 Hindu temples of a novel form, and subsequently by other temples 
 of the Jaina faith, which aff"ord a varied picture of the mythology 
 of India during its period of greatest vigour. The whole group 
 culminates worthily in the Kailasa, the most magnificent rock-cut 
 temple in India. 
 
 The village of Elura is in the Nizam dominions about 13 miles 
 noi'th-west of Aurangabad, and the caves are about half a 
 mile east of the village. Cave X. of the Buddhist group is the 
 great Chaitya rock temple and is conspicuous with a fine fagade 
 and large open court in front surrounded by a corridor. Here can 
 be traced an interesting architectural development. First, there was 
 in the earliest caves a great open front covered by an external 
 screen, which screen was originally of wood, as at Bhaja, and then 
 of stone, ornamented in wood, till at last it came to be constructed 
 entirely in stone, the opening shrunk in dimension till the screen 
 in front disappeared altogether, as in this instance, and the 
 characteristic external features became obscured. 
 
 * Histoiie du Luxe Prive et Publique depuis I'antiquite jusqu' a nos jours. 
 I Y 20321. Z 
 
354 INDIAN auchjEOlogigal surveys. 
 
 The Kailasa or Rang Mahal Temple No. XVII. of the series as 
 reckoned from the south, has been pretty fully described in the 
 Gave Temples of India. It was probably constructed in the reign of 
 Dantidurga, the great Eashtrakuta king (in A.D. 730-755) and is the 
 most extensive and elaborate rock-cut temple in India, as well as the 
 most magnificent of all the architectural objects with which that 
 country abounds. Long, too, after the great temple was finished, 
 works were carried on at different points in the surrounding rock, 
 shrines and images being added until probably the inroads of the 
 Muhammadans finally put a stop to them. The Brahmanical caves 
 north of Kailasa, except the Dumar Sena, are not so notable, but 
 the two principal Jaina caves are very remarkable both in extent 
 and elaboration. They are later in point of date than the caves 
 belonging to the two other sects. 
 
 Yolume V. also deals with various other caves including the 
 famous Elephanta cave in Bombay Harbour which has, of course, 
 been described by numerous authors and archaeologists such as 
 W. Erskine, Wilson, Hunter, and Dr. Burgess himself in 1871. 
 The inscriptions obtained during Dr. Burgess's archseological tours 
 have been discussed by Professor Gr. Biihler, C.I.B., of Vienna, in the 
 same report, one chapter being devoted to the famous Nanaghat 
 inscriptions, which belong to the oldest historical documents of 
 Western India, and others to the Kanheri and Dasa Avatara 
 inscriptions. 
 
 In 1880, the survey of the Ajanta caves and others in the 
 neighbouring districts was completed and the examination of the 
 Chalukyan temples was begun in the south-east of the Dharwar district 
 in 1881 , and continued in 1882 chiefly in Belgaum. In 1883-84 
 the Muhammadan architecture of Gujrat, especially at Champaner, 
 Dholka, and Ahmadabad,* was partly surveyed, and an extensive and 
 important series of drawings begun. In 1885 H.H. the Graikwar of 
 Baroda requested that the survey should take up the ancient city of 
 Dabhoi ; this was done by Mr. Cousens, and the result published at 
 
 *Iii 1886 Mr. A. W. Crawley Boevey, Bo. C.S., published " A Scheme for the 
 " Protection and Conservation of Antient Buildings in and around the City of 
 " Ahmadabad," (folio, pp. 72 and xcv.) Bombay; Education Society's Press ; which 
 contains a valuable account of the liistory of the management of the public buildings 
 about Ahmadabad, with suggestions for their better preservation. This is accompanied 
 by a very full list of the ^Muhammadan mosqiios and tombs in and around the 
 city, with notes on their conditiou, &c. Conf. .Journal Royal Institute of British 
 Architects (N.S.), VII., p. 309. 
 
INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVFA'S. 355 
 
 the expense of H.H. in a handsome volume with 22 plates, the 
 letterpress being by Dr. Burgess.* The surveys of Broach and 
 Cambay were carri^ out, and early in 1886 the work in the 
 Kanarese districts was resumed. In 1886-87 a further survey was 
 undertaken also on behalf of the Gaikwar, and Mr. Cousens with the 
 staff made a tour through a portion of Northern Guirat, visiting 
 Siddbpur, Patan, Mudhera, &c., and afterwards commencing the 
 survey of the great city of Jaina temples at Palitana. The 
 season 1887-88, and the early part of the next were spent at 
 Bijapur, a complete survey of the Muhammadan architecture 
 being made there. On this important survey Mr. Cousens pre- 
 pared a careful series of notes, printed as a selection from the 
 Eecords of the Bombay Government.f The early months of 1889 
 were again devoted to Palitana. The season 1889-90 was spent 
 almost entirely in completing the examination of the Gaikwar's 
 districts in Northern Gujarat ; the field season was completed by a 
 survey of the newly discovered caves at Nadsur and Karsambla, on 
 which Mr. Cousens has prepared a separate report.J. and last season 
 1890-91 was devoted to a survey of the Hemadpanti and other 
 remains in the Ahmadnagar and Nasik districts. 
 
 The survey drawings being only pencilled in the field, the whole of 
 the rainy seasons are occupied in inking and preparing them for photo- 
 lithography, writing up the notes, &c., and this being a slow work 
 with so small a stafi^, it has of necessity gradually fallen somewhat 
 behind. 
 
 The famous fresco paintings on the walls of the Buddhist caves 
 at Ajanta had been copied by Major R. Gill at the expense of the 
 Bast India Company. The canvasses were exhibited in the Indian 
 Court of the Sydenham Crystal Palace. There they were destroyed 
 by fire in December 1866. No reproduction of them had been 
 
 * " The Antiquities of the Town of Dabhoi in Gujarat " by Jas. Burgess, LL.D., 
 O.I.E., Direetor-Greneral of the ArchiBological Survey of India, and Henry Cousens, 
 M.E.A.S., of the Archseological Survey, Western India. Published by order of 
 H.H. Maharaja Sayajirav Gaikwar, G.C.S.I., of Baroda. (Edinburgh : G. W.nterston 
 and Sons, 1888). 
 
 f No. CCXLV. New Series : " Notes on the Buildings and other Antiquarian 
 " Remains at Bijapur, by Henry Cousens, M.E.A.S., Archieologioal Survey, Western 
 « India; with translations of the Inscriptions by E. Rehatsek, Esq., M.C.E." 
 (Bombay, Government Central Press, 1890.) 
 
 J Printed as a Memorandum (No. 12) of tiie Archseological Survey (Bombay 
 Government Central Press, 1890). Reviewed, Jour. E. I. B. Arch. YII., 436. 
 
 Z 2 
 
356 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 attempted beyond a few outline drawings on a very small scale in 
 Mrs. Speir's " Ancient India." Dr. Burgess applied to the Grovern- 
 ment of Bombay to endeavour to have what remained of these 
 frescoes copied again before they should entirely disappear under the 
 destructive agencies at work. This led to a grant of Rs. 5,000 per 
 annum being sanctioned by the Government of India for the 
 purpose, and Mr. John. Glrifl&ths of the Bombay School of Art was 
 appointed to take charge of the work in 1872. The copying went on 
 at intervals from this date till 1885, when it was brought to a 
 close. The copies were sent home to the India Office, and 
 transferred to South Kensington, where again, most unfortunately, 
 a number of these important paintings were destroyed by a fire. 
 Photographs of the copies were taken at tbe Bombay School of Art, 
 and recently steps have been taken to publish these most interesting 
 and instructive remains of ancient art. Of their artistic value, 
 Mr. Griffiths writes in his Report : — 
 
 " The condition of mind which originated and executed these paintings at Ajania, 
 must have been very similar to that which produced thi early Italian paintings of ihe 
 14ih century, as we* find much that is common to both. Little attention paid to the 
 science of art — a general crowding of figures into a subject, regard being had more to 
 the truthful rcndericg of a story rather than a beautiful rendering of it ; not that they 
 discarded beauty, but they did not make it the primary motive for rc|jresentation. 
 There is a want of aerial prospective, the parts are delicately shaded, not forced by light 
 and shade, giving the whole a look of flatness, a quality to be desired in mural decoi'a- 
 tion. 
 
 " Whoever were the authors of these paintings, they must have constantly mixed 
 with the world. Scenes of everyday life, such as preparing food, carrying water, 
 buying and selling, processions, hunting scenes, elephant fights, men and women 
 engaged in singing, dancing, and playing on musical instruments. Many are most 
 gracefully, and all are most graphically depicted upon these walls ; and they could only 
 have been done by men who were constant spectators of such scenes ; by men of keen 
 observation and retenti\ e memories. The artists certainly could not have observed one 
 of the ten commandments which Buddha imposed on his disciples, viz,, to abstain from 
 public spectacles. In every example that has come '.rnder my observation, the action 
 of the hands is admirable, and unmistakeably conveys the particular expression the 
 artist intended."* 
 
 Southern hvlia. — In consequence of representations made by the 
 President of the Oriental Congress of 1874, th.e Secretary of State 
 addressed the Madras Government on the subject of appointing an 
 
 * The frescoes are described in detail in " Xotes on the Bauddha Rock Temples of 
 Ajauta, their Paintings and Sculptures (illustrated), &c." by J. Burgess. (Hombay: 
 Government Centril I'ress, 1879) ; see also Mr. Fergusson's paper on the portrait of 
 Chosrocs If. at Ajanta, in -lour. li. As. Soc. 1879, pp. 1.56 ff. 
 
INDIAN ARCII^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 357 
 
 Archaeological Survey of Southern India. Delays, however, inter- 
 vened, and it -was not till the Grovernorship of Mr. Adam (1881) 
 that it was decided to organise a survey. The Madras Go- 
 vernment then deputed Mr. R. Sewell to prepare lists of 
 all the known monumental antiqiiities and inscriptions in the 
 Southern Presidency in order to prepare the way for a detailed 
 survey. Mr. Sewell commenced by issuing a circular asking for 
 the co-operation of a large number of officials and private gentlemen 
 both European and Native. Of these circulars 7,500 were issued. 
 Much correspondence resulted, and Mr. Sewell consulted all the 
 available literature on the subject. His object was not only to 
 produce lists of antiquities for each district for the archaeological 
 surveyor, but also to furnish general information for the guidance of 
 residents in Southern India who might care to join in the work of 
 historical research. The Madras lists were published in 1882.* They 
 were drawn up according to districts, and to each district list was 
 prefixed a short outline of the history and antiquarian interest 
 attaching thereto, the whole forming a volume of over 300 pages. 
 
 In 1875, Afr. Sewell, when stationed at Bejwada in the Kistna 
 District, had been entrusted by Government with a grant 
 of Rs. 1,000, to enable him to explore at Amaravati, Bejwada, 
 Undavilli, and other places. Bejwada is a place of considerable 
 antiquity, once the capital city of the small Kingdom of Yengi, 
 and afterwards one of the chief towns of the eastern Chalukyas. 
 The town is surrounded with granite hills honeycombed with 
 the rock-cut memorials of ancient religious fervour, and stands 
 on alluvial soil under which, whenever disturbed, appear the 
 vestiges of past greatness, statues, and walls, and sculptures 
 of old temples long since fallen, and now lying buried under 
 many feet of river silt. Opposite, across the river, is the large 
 four-storied temple of Undavilli, hewn in the solid rock, while 
 almost every village has its especial relics of the past, Buddhist or 
 Brahmanical. Here and there are the remains of the circular stupas, 
 which the followers of the great Reformer erected over relics, 
 either of himself or of his principal disciples ; and 17 miles west- 
 ward on the south bank of the river, lie the remains of the most 
 
 * ArchsEological Survey of Southern India. Lists of antiquarian remains in tlie 
 Presidency of Madras. Compiled under the order of Government by Robert Sewell. 
 Madras (E. Keys), 1882. 
 
358 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEY. 
 
 magnificent Buddhist monument in all India — the Amravati Tope.'" 
 Here Mr. Sewell set to work in 1877, and during the summer and 
 autumn of that year, unearthed a large number of marbles whicli he 
 closely described in his report.f 
 
 In 1879 Mr. Sewell went home on sick leave, and the following 
 year the Duke of Buckingham, Grovernor of Madras, paid a visit to the 
 spot and directed the district collector to complete the excavation of 
 the tope, at a cost not exceeding Rs. 1,000. But, as Lord 
 Hartington pointedly remarked in a despatch on the subject, the 
 collector's special qualifications as an archaeologist were unknown, 
 the promised services of a Public Works officer to help him 
 were not vouchsafed, and the general result was to convert the site 
 of the tope into a large pit about 75 yards in diameter, to 
 disarrange the stones and debris, and so destroy the chance of 
 getting any idea of its size or structural arrangements. J 
 Dr. Burgess is of opinion, however, that this once splendid 
 monument had been destroyed perhaps more than once before, and 
 that many of the beautiful slabs must have been used even within 
 the last 65 years to burn into lime, or to repair miserable Svami 
 temples, and similar buildings. There are indications also of a 
 great flood having first destroyed, or at least greatly injured, the 
 stupa, possibly drowned many of its priests and worshippers and 
 led to its falling into rapid decay, after which it was reconstructed 
 after some rough manner. 
 
 On Mr. Adam's sudden death, Mr. (now Sir) M. E. Grant DufF 
 became Governor, and in November 1881, the superintendence of 
 the Madras Archaeological Survey was also entrusted to Dr. Burgess. 
 His first season was devoted to the survey of the remains round 
 Bejwada, the Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta stupas, the Jaugada and 
 Dhauli inscriptions of Asoka, and a visit to the Khandagiri and 
 Udayagiri caves, taking facsimiles of all the inscriptions. 
 
 The season of 1882-83, besides the official work and direction of 
 the Bombay Survey, was largely devoted, along with Mr. A. Eea, to the 
 
 '^ Colonel Mackenzie and his assistants made careful drawings and plans in 1816 of 
 this great monument, and Sir Walter Elliot excavated a large number of sculptures, 
 now at the British Museum. Tiie Stupa and its known sculptures were described fully 
 in the second part of Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship. 
 
 f lieport on tlie Amaravati Tope, and Excavations on its Site in 1877, by Robert 
 Sewell. Printed by order of the Secretary of State for India in Council, 1880. 
 
 J Burgess's Xotes on the Amaravati Stupa. Printed by order of Q-overnraent, 
 Madras : E. Kejs. Ih82. 
 
INDIAN AROH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 359 
 
 examination of antiquities in tte Madura district, and a very com- 
 plete survey of the great temple of Ramesvaram whicli occupied the 
 ptaff till the end of the season. In 1883 Mr. Rea surveyed in detail 
 the monolithic remains, caves, and temples at Mamallapuram. 
 Early in 1884 Dr. Burgess paid a visit to the shrine of Sri Hailam, 
 on a remote hill top of the Nallamalai range, which had been only 
 seen by one or two forest officers since it was visited by Colonel 
 Colin Mackenzie just ninety years previously. This place he has 
 identified with the Po-lo-yu monastery of Fa Hian, the Po-lo-mo- 
 ki-li of Hwen Thsang, which had previously baffled all attempts at 
 identification. 
 
 In 1884 Mr. Rea was chiefly engaged on the extensive remains of 
 the old Hindu capital at Hampe or Bijyanagar; in 1885 he made 
 an extensive survey of the old Pallava temples at Kanchipuram, 
 and in the cold season 1885-86 he made a long tour from Gooty 
 through the Anantapur and Bellari districts to Harihar and back, 
 surveying numerous remains on the route. The survey at Mamal- 
 lapuram was completed next season, and the fine temple at Yellur 
 and others in the district examined. In June 1887 Mr. Rea made 
 some remarkably successful excavations at Pallavaram, of pre- 
 historic graves containing earthenware coffins, some of which he 
 removed entire to the Madras Museum.'-' During the following 
 dry season, he made a tour through Nellur and part of the 
 Kistna districts, during which he excavated several mounds and 
 discovered the remains of several Buddhist stupas ; and during 
 the season of 1888-89, he followed this up by a tour in the 
 Grodavari and in parts of the Kistna district previously unVisited, 
 discovering some very interesting remains, such as an ancient 
 structural Buddhist Chaitya at Chezarla and examining a group of 
 caves and stupas at Guntupalle in the G-odavari district.! In 
 1889-90 and 1890-91 the southern districts of the Madras Presidency 
 were under survey by Mr. Rea and his native draftsmen. During 
 these tours much valuable information and numerous carefully 
 
 * Jour. Asiat. Soc, Bengal, LVII., p. 48, and Madras G.O., 12th August 1887, 
 No. 1135. Mr. Eea has also contributed an interesting paper on "Methods of 
 Archaeoloo-ical Excavation in India," to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 
 1890, p. 183. 
 
 f Madras G.O., 30th April, No. 382 ; 29th May, No. 4.62, &c., and E. Instit. 
 Brit. Architects Journal, November 1 889, p. 58. 
 
360 INDIAN ARCHiBOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 measured plans and detail drawings have been accumulated, as 
 detailed in Mr. Rea's progress reports to the Madras Grovernment.* 
 
 Dr. Burgess's report on the Amravati and Jaggayapeta Stupas 
 appeared in 1887 .f It contained the results of the examination 
 and further excavations made by him of the remains in December 
 1881 and early part of 1882, soon after the excavation of the site 
 by orders of the Madras Government, with photographs of the 
 sculptures, taken in 1884, after their removal to Madras, Mr. Fer- 
 gusson had offered to assist Mr. Burgess in the preparation of the 
 work, but this offer was unfortunately cut short by Mr. Fergusson's 
 death, an event which was nothing less than calamitous, so far as 
 Indian archseology was concerned. 
 
 James Fergusson (1808-86) was an enthusiastic devotee of art, more 
 especially in its relation to architecture, and he had published a large 
 number of artistic and scientific works, the more conspicuous among 
 which are "Tree and Serpent Worship" (1868) and " History of Archi- 
 tecture " (1855). But besides the former of these two, he published 
 numerous other works relating to Indian archaeology, such as 
 "Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples" (1845), followed by 
 " Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindustan." 
 In 1859, he edited Captain Hart's " Illustrations of the principal 
 Muhammadan buildings of Bijapur," and in 1866 supplied 
 " Architectural Notes " to Mr. Hope's descriptions of Gujarat, in a 
 work entitled " Architecture at Ahmadabad," doing a like service 
 for Meadows Taylor's two volumes published in the same year — one 
 on Bijapur, the other on Dharwar and Mysore. The beautiful book 
 on " Tree and Serpent Worship " referred to above, appeared in 
 1868, and a second edition followed in 1873, while " Archseology in 
 India," produced in 1884, was a volume mainly elicited by strictures, 
 but which contains important elucidations of the earliest Hindu 
 
 * These reports contain a full diary of the work done and dra^ ings made, with 
 numerous notes. See, for example, Madra?, G.O., 13th April I88.3, No. 882 ; 2f)th 
 Sept., No. 2,300 ; 1.5th Oct., No. 2,440 ; 5th Dec, No. 2,830; 9th Fob. 1886, No. 
 281; 22nd^pril, No. 835; 25th Feb. 1887, No. 286; 20th April, No. 583; 11th 
 June, No. 803; 21st .Sept. No. 1,361; 4th October, No. 1415; 14th July 1888, 
 No. 703 ; 11th Sept., No. S96 ; 4th March 1889, No. 219, &c. 
 
 I Archeeological Survey of Southern India. The Buddhist Stupas of Amravati 
 and .Jaggayynpeta. . . . Surveyed in 1882 by Jas. Burpjess, LL.I»., C.l E., 
 
 Director-General of the Archajological Survey of India. With translations of the 
 Asoka inscriptions at Jaugada and Dhauli, By Georg Biihler, Ph.D., CLE. 
 London (Triibner), 1887. 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 361 
 
 forms of architecture. His occasional contributions to the trans- 
 actions of societies are too numerous to be specified individually, 
 and it is not too mucj^ to say that his labours, during a long series of 
 years, on behalf of Indian archaeology, were simply invaluable.* 
 
 Dr. Burgess retired in June 1889 from the post of Director-General 
 of the ArchjBological Survey. His keen interest in Indian archgeology 
 and early training as an architect had led to his being recommended 
 to the Secretary of State by Mr. Fergusson for the task of 
 completing a survey of the cave temples. In January 1871 
 Dr. Burgess produced his monograph on the Blephanta caves, the 
 first work published in India dealing with cave architecture on 
 comparative principles, and fixing the approximate date of the caves. 
 While making researches in monumental archgeology in Western 
 India, he did not neglect other branches, as shown in the pages 
 of the " Indian Antiquary," started in 1872 and conducted by him 
 for 13 years. To epigraphy, in particular, special attention was 
 devoted in this journal, and facsimiles, in preference to eye copies, 
 of some hundreds of inscriptions were published in its pages The 
 collotype reproductions of tlie Girnar inscriptions in his second 
 report formed the basis of M. Senart's elaborate work on the 
 " Inscriptions of Piyadasi." After carrying on the Arch^ological 
 Survey of Western India for nearly eight years, the superintendence 
 of that of Southern India was added to Dr. Burgess's charge in 
 November 1881, and early in 1886 he was appointed Director- 
 General for the whole of India. In 1885 the value of his services 
 in the Survey had been recognised by the Order of CLE. being 
 conferred upon him. He had been elected an honorary LL.D. of 
 Edinburgh University in 1881. 
 
 In May 1889, the general position of the Arch^oldgical Survey all 
 over India was re-considered. The reoorts then awaiting editing 
 
 J. o o 
 
 and publication comprised two reports by Dr. Fiihrer and Mr. E. W. 
 Smith, dealing with places in the North -Western Provinces, three 
 reports -by Mr. Rodgers on the Punjab, four by Mr. Rea on Kanchi 
 
 * A careful and sympathetic notice of the late Mr. James Fergusson from the pen 
 of Sir Frederic Goldsmid, will be found at page 113 of the "Proceedings" of the 
 Eoyal Geographical Society for 1886; and another by Mr. W. H. White, F.E.I.B.A., 
 in the Annual Report of the Eoyal Asiatic Society for 1886, pp. xxiv — xxxix. A just 
 tribute is paid to his services in the Quarterly Eeview for July 1889, in an article on 
 " Ancient India " ; see also Journal, Eoyal Institute of British Architects, August 
 1889, p. 356. 
 
362 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 or Conjiveram, Mamallapuram, Bijayanagar or Hampe, Rames- 
 vraram and Madura, various reports by Dr. Burgess on Atimadabad, 
 Broacli, Dholka, Champaner, and Meliniudabad and Sojali, and by 
 Mr. Cousens on the Chalukya architecture of Dharwar and Belgaum, 
 the Musalman Architecture of Bijapur, and (for the Graikwar) on the 
 ancient architecture of Northern Grujrat. It was estimated that 
 these materials would fill 12 volumes, and arrangements were made 
 for Dr, Burgess, on his retiring from the Service, to continue the 
 work of editing and supervising the piiblication of the volumes at 
 home. The archseological staff" was then reduced to the following : — • 
 
 Mr. H. Cousens, C.B., Superintendent of the Arch^ological 
 Survey, "Western India. 
 
 Mr. A. Rea, Architect, Superintendent of the Arohajological 
 Survey, Southern India. 
 
 Ur. E. Hultzsch, Bpigraphist, Southern India. 
 
 Dr. A. Fiihrer, for general Antiquarian and Epigraphical 
 Research in the North Western Provinces. 
 
 Mr. B. W. Smith, Architectural Assistant to Dr. Biihrer. 
 There are now three parties, one under [ Mr. Rea, another 
 under Mr. Cousens, and a third under Dr. Fiihrer and Mr. Smith, 
 each being provided with a small staff" of native draftsmen, 
 Dr. Hultzsch continuing his epigraphical researches in Madras, 
 
 Among recent literature on Indian archaeology mention may be 
 made of an excellent paper on " Ancient India," more particularly with 
 reference to its antiquarian remains, as described in the principal 
 official reports of the last 20 years, which will be found in the 
 " Quarterly Review" for July 1889, Vol. 169. A paper of a more 
 general character, entitled " The Histoiy of Archgeology in India," 
 formed the subject of an interesting lecture by Mr. James Gribbs, 
 C.S.I., C.I.B., delivered before the Society of Arts on the 2nd April 
 1886 (Journal XXXIV., p. 555). A French writer, too. Dr. Grustave 
 Le Bon, has produced an interesting volume, entitled, " Les Civilisa- 
 tions de rinde," and issued by Firmin-Didot et Cie., in Paris. 
 The book, which is profusely illustrated with lithographs and 
 chromo-lithographs, is the fruit of an arch^ological mission through 
 India, with which Dr. Le Bon was charged by the French Minister 
 of Instruction. 
 
 In the " Journal of Indian Art " (W. Griggs, Peckham) occa- 
 sion] al papers on Indian archaeology have appeared, among which 
 the following may be instanced: — In Vol. I., No. 8, p. 61, and 
 
INDIAN ARCIIvEOLOaiCAL SURVEYS. 363 
 
 No. 10, p. 76, " Decorations of the Taj Matall, Agra," by Sir G-eorge 
 Birdwood ; in Yol. II., No. 17, " Chalukyan Temples," by H. Oousens, 
 "witli five characteri^tio illustrations ; No. 19, p. 17, " Mosqne of 
 Vazir Ali ad-din Khan, at Lahore," by J. L. Kipling, C.I.B., with 
 four coloured plates; in Yol. III., No. 28, p. 23, "Ancient 
 Chalukyan Stone Carving," by H. Cousens, with two plates ; 
 No. 32, p. 49, review and analysis, by Dr. Burgess, of Colonel Jacob's 
 " Jaypur Portfolios of Architectural Details," with 15 plates ; and in 
 Yol. lY., No. '34, p. 13, " Detail Drawings," from Urchha, Fathepur 
 Sikri, and Mathura, by Ed. W. Smith, with four plates. 
 
 Colonel S. S. Jacob, C.I.B., State Engineer at Jaypur, has, in 
 1890, brought out, under the patronage of the Maharaja, a series 
 of six magnificent portfolios, containing 374 plates (each 22 inches 
 by 15) of architectural details from buildings in Upper India. 
 This promises to be only half the complete work. It is published 
 by W. Grriggs, Peckham, and Bernard Quaritch, Piccadilly. 
 
 As an application of the architectural details drawn for the 
 archaeological surveys under Dr. Burgess's direction, it may be 
 noted that the Grovernment of India has ordered the reproduction 
 of a selection of the drawings of examples of decorative details, 
 under the title of a " Technical Art Series." These plates are 
 distributed, at a low charge, to schools of art, technical workmen, 
 and others, as specimens of purely antique native art. "With the 
 first series short notss are also issued, prepared by Dr. Burgess, 
 explanatory of their origin, age, material, &c. The second series is 
 now in course of issue. 
 
 Surma. — In Burma, during the last ten years, strenuous efibrts 
 have been made by Dr. Porch hammer, an antiquarian of eminence, 
 to collect and render accessible the rich Pali and Burmese 
 literature of the province and the written records of the Talaings, 
 Shans, Kathes, and other nations and tribes inhabiting Burma 
 and the bordering countries. A beginning _ was made with the 
 formation of a library to contain all printed books and pamphlets on 
 Buddhism and Pali, the religions of India, and the languages which 
 record its sacred and secular writings, and a nucleus was secured in 
 the shape of the valuable library of the late Professor Childers. 
 Successful efibrts were also made to secure remains of the old 
 Talaing literature which had survived the wholesale destruction 
 ordered by Alompra, the Burmese conqueror of the Talaings, and 
 . which were hidden and rotting away in the caves on the Salwen 
 
364 INDIAN ABCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 and Attaraii rivers. A number of Siamese and Cambodian manu- 
 scripts were also found in the same localities, and the collection was 
 augmented in 1886-87 by a large number of splendid manuscripts 
 received fi-om Mandalay and by native gifts. These have been 
 deposited in the manuscript department of the Bernard Free 
 Library and the collection of Pali, Burmese, Talaing, Siamese, 
 Cambodian, and Sanskrit (in Burmese characters) manuscripts is 
 probably the largest of its kind in existence. During the last ten 
 years ample material for a history of Pali-Burmese and Talaing 
 literature has been gathered. 
 
 Archgeological research has been carried on jointly with the search 
 and collection of manuscripts. All parts of Lower Burma have 
 been visited, except the upper reaches of the Kaladan and Mayu 
 river, where important finds may be expected. The region south of 
 Moulmein, down to Tavoy and Mergui, and a few places at the 
 mouth of the Bassein river, and in the eastern portion of the Prome 
 district remain to be examined. In 1887, Dr. Forchhammer's 
 Burmese assistant visited Amarapura and Ava, chiefly with the 
 view to secure prints of the many inscriptions. These, especially 
 those which a century ago were moved to Ava by the Burmese king 
 Bodawpara from all parts of Burma and newly conquered territories. 
 About 500 of these lithic monuments await examination. A 
 large number of inscriptions from various localities have been 
 copied out, and a tabular list, as prescribed by the Grovernment 
 of India, has been prepared of the Arakan, Thayetmyo, Prome, 
 Henzada, Bassein, and Thongwa districts. 
 
 Unfortunately, Dr. Forchhammer fell ill, and died in April 1890, 
 before he had had time to publish all the materials he had collected. 
 The reports actually issued are the following : — 
 
 List of objects of antiquarian interest in Lower Burma. 
 
 I. Arakan. 1891. 
 Arakan I. Mahamuni Pagoda, 
 
 II. Mrohaung. 
 
 III. Launggyet, Minbya, Urittaung, Akyab, and 
 
 Sandoway. 
 Pagan. I. Kyaukku Temple. 
 
 Lists of objects of antiquarian and archgeological interest 
 in British Burma, Eangoon. 8vo. 1884. 
 
 Notes on the Shwe Dagon pagoda. Rangoon, 1883. 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 365 
 
 The Chief Commissioner of Burma has been asked to submit a 
 full programme of the avch^ological work which has yet to be 
 undertaken in Burma, together with his opinion as to the desirable- 
 ness of starting a survey there upon the lines adopted in India 
 proper. 
 
 In connexion with archaeological and literary research, mention 
 may be made of an important work on the geography of the 
 countries adjacent to North-Western India which during the last 
 fifteen years has been under compilation in England. Major H. Gr. 
 Raverty, known for his translations of Afghan and other Oriental 
 works, as well as for his historical investigation in connexion with 
 Asiatic countries has been engaged in translating, annotating and 
 amplifying with the fruit of his own personal observations a 
 voluminous Oriental manuscript of an unique character. Two 
 copies of this manuscript have come into Major Raverty's possession, 
 but the author's name will not be divulged by the Major till the last 
 chapter of his book is reached. 
 
 Major Raverty's work is entitled, ■'' N"otes on Afghanistan and 
 " part of Baluchistan, geographical, ethnographical, and historical, 
 " extracted from the writings of little known Afghan and Tajzik 
 " historians, geographers, and genealogists ; the histories of the 
 " Grhuris, the Turk Sovereigns of the Dihli Kingdom, the Mughal 
 " Sovereigns of the House of Timur and other Muhammadan 
 " chronicles, and from personal observations." 
 
 The backbone of the work, so to speak, is supplied by the 
 translation of the manuscript, which is indicated throughout by 
 inverted commas^ but the additional matter contributed by Major 
 Raverty, whether as comment or notes, is quite as voluminous as 
 the original text. Although the native author's name is not given, 
 we are told a good deal about him. He was a man of Mogul 
 descent, of good family and superior education, and possessed a great 
 taste for geographical knowledge. He says he undertook the series 
 of journeys which he narrates for the purpose of describing the 
 appearance and political condition of the countries adjacent to Delhi 
 on the north and north-west, because he found that the historians of 
 his day, even if they possessed such information, invariably omitted 
 it from their records. He was in the prime of life about the time 
 that Ahmad Shah overthrew the Marathas at the battle of Panipat 
 (1761), and subsequently, when Hindustan was in an utter state of 
 disorder, culminating in the blinding of the old king Shah Alam, the 
 
366 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 author set out on liis wanderings, -which were spread over eight or 
 nine years, and the account of which he completed in 1790 — 91. 
 The date of his death is not known apparently, but he was acquainted 
 with the names of Warren Hastings and the Marquis Wellesley, to 
 whom he was presented, if indeed he was not personally well-known 
 to them. 
 
 The manner in which this native traveller explored the various 
 routes which he describes is not exactly stated, but he appears to 
 have used a compass, as he gives bearings and distances, and where 
 these have been tested on recent occasions by our troops and surveyors 
 they have been generally found to bo very accurate. He evidently 
 lost no opportunity of accompanying the inhabitants and merchants 
 of these parts in their journeys to and fro, and of getting them to 
 aid him in his objects. He would often make a stay of some dura- 
 tion In a particular locality until he had succeeded in learning all 
 that was possible about it, not unfrequently making acquaintance 
 with the head men and priests. For instance, when his travels had 
 brought him up to the remote valley of Chitral on the extreme 
 north-west frontier of India, he was fortunate enough to fall in with 
 a kindred spirit in Shah Riza of Drush, the Badshah or chief of 
 Kashkar and Chitral, who not only gave the author every facility 
 for exploring those regions, but even personally accompanied him 
 on foot for the purpose of thoroughly examining the various passes 
 which lead over the huge mountain range of the Hindu Kush into 
 the valley of the Oxus Kiver. 
 
 The manuscript itself is in Persian, though portions here and 
 there forming, not improbably, the substance of oral information 
 given to the author, are in the Pushtu or Afghan tongue. It is 
 translated verbatim for the most part by Major Raverty, who has 
 enriched it with innumerable notes and comments, and with collateral 
 information obtained from Oriental historians and bjuropeaa trans- 
 lators and critics. 
 
 Inscriptions and Coins. 
 
 Indian inscriptions have at all times attracted the attention of 
 scholars. The Hindus in their literature have scarcely produced 
 any works of a historical character, though family legends, local 
 traditions, and Puranic or mythological tales are common enough. 
 Fortunately, this want is largely compensated for by numerous 
 contemporary records in the shape of inscriptions, forming the 
 
INDIAN ARCIIiEOLOQICAL SURVEYS. 367 
 
 title-deeds of grants and endowments made by kings and cliiefs to 
 temples and religious communities, some being on rocks, some on 
 the pillars and wal^ of temples, and others engraved on plates of 
 copper held together by rings to which is attached the seal of the 
 reigning dynasty. In these inscriptions lies the hope of filling up 
 the many lacunas in Indian history, and we find that Sir Charles 
 Wilkins, General John Carnac, Sir John Shore, and others who 
 rallied rou]id "Warren Hastings and Sir "William Jones, to form the 
 Asiatic Society of Bengal ninety years ago, fully recognised this, 
 and at once began to collect and investigate the contents of 
 inscriptions.'^' Colonel Colin Mackenzie during the first years of the 
 century did much to collect inscriptions, especially in Southern 
 India, where they are very numerous, and is said to have prepared 
 copies of no less than 8,076. Francis Buchanan (Hamilton) also 
 collected many inscriptions. During his long residence in India, 
 Sir Walter Elliot spared no pains in collecting impressions of copper 
 plate grants, and transcriptions of stone tablet inscriptions, and by 
 means of them was able to establish the chronology of the great 
 Chalukya dynasty of the Kanarese and Maratha countries, which 
 flourished from the 5th to the 12th Centuries. Others, such as 
 Tod, Prinsep, Le Grand Jacob, Bhau Daji, and Cunningham showed 
 like activity in collecting, but as Lassen truly remarksf it was the 
 zeal and thoughtfulness of individuals, rather than the care of the 
 Government, to which the knowledge and preservation of these 
 ancient monuments of the country were due. 
 
 However, in 1851 the Bombay Cave Temple Commission, 
 appointed to carry out the object of the despatches of the Court of 
 Directors, + obtained the appointment of Lieut. Brett to copy and 
 take impressions of the inscriptions ; and reduced lithographs and 
 translations were published by the Eev. Dr. Stevenson in the 
 Journal of the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
 Early in 1856, the same Commission recommended the publication 
 under Government, of fac-similes or copies with deciphei-ments and 
 
 * Pali, Sanskrit, and old Cauarese inscriptions from the Bombay Presidency, and 
 parts of the Madras Presidency and Maisur. By J. F. Fleet and Jas. Burgess, 
 London (Ep-e and Spottiswoode). 1878. 
 
 I Alterthumskunde, II., 42. 
 
 J No. 15 of 29th May 184-1, No. 1, 27th January 1847, No. 24, 29th September 
 1847, and No. 13 of 4th May 1853, and Resolution of Bombay Government of 
 31st July 1848. (No. 2805.) 
 
36S INDIAX ARCHiEOLOaiCAL SURVEYS. 
 
 translations of ancient inscriptions, the whole to form a complete 
 Corpus Inscri'ptionum. This led to the appointment of Vishnu 
 Sastri Bapat as Pandit, who in the course of five years copied and 
 translated into Marathi some 88 Pali and Sanskrit inscriptions, but 
 none of them were published, and the death of the Pandit, the 
 Mutiny, and the transfer of the G-overnment of India to the Crown 
 interrupted the work. 
 
 About 1865 the Government began to take a keener interest in 
 the matter, and a photographic collection of 149 inscriptions on 
 copper plates and stone tablets, taken in Mysore by Lieut. -Col. 
 H. Dixon, 22nd Regiment, M.N.I. , was printed by the Grovernment 
 of that State ; while Mr. (now Sir Theodore C.) Hope issued a 
 smaller collection of inscriptions in Dharwar and Mysore. A few 
 years later the Duke of Argyll, then Secretary of State for India, 
 forwarded a scheme to the Bombay Grovernment, for the collection 
 and preservation of ancient Kanarese inscriptions, but it was not till 
 the starting of the " Indian Antiquary " in 1872, and the organization 
 of the Archaeological Survey of Western India in 1874 that 
 opportunity occurred for obtaining fac-similes of these and similar 
 records. A grant was made by Grovernment to the "Indian Antiquary," 
 and this proved of great service by enabling a large number of 
 inscriptions to be photo-lithographed in Vols. HI. to XIII., those in 
 Vols. VI. to XIII. being largely selected from Sir Walter Elliot's 
 collection. 
 
 In 1878, under the sanction of the Secretary of State for India, 
 a volume was produced by Messrs. Fleet and Burgess, containing, as 
 a basis, the collections of Colonel Dixon and by Dr. Pigou (which had 
 been included in Sir T. C. Hope's " Inscriptions in Dharwar and 
 Mysore"). These were supplemented by photographs taken by, and 
 lithographs from estampages and rubbings made by the Archaeological 
 Survey of Western India, and Mr. Fleet, besides fac-similes of 
 other grants. But these were far from embracing even nearly 
 all the inscriptions from Western India and the Dekhan at present 
 available, for in the India Office Library, in the Eoyal Asiatic 
 Society, in the Bombay Asiatic Society, in the British Museum, 
 and in private hands both in India and in Europe, there are a 
 considerable number of copper-plate grants which, if published in 
 fac-simile, would fill up many lacunae, and supply important dates. 
 
 To the volume on Pali, Sanskrit, and old Canarese inscriptions 
 is prefixed an important introductory chapter on Indian inscriptions, 
 the substance of which I have reproduced in the above sketch. 
 
INDIAN AECH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 369 
 
 In 1877 General Cunningham brought out the first volume of the 
 " Corpus Inscriptionum Indicaruni," containing the inscriptions 
 of Asoka. These edjpts are the earliest Indian inscriptions yet 
 discovered, and are of two distinct classes, generally known as rock 
 inscriptions aad pillar inscriptions, to which may be added a few 
 cave inscriptions in Behar and Orissa. The six rock inscriptions 
 present six different texts of the same series of edicts, published 
 by Asoka in 253 and 251 B.C. They are found at far-distant 
 places : three being on the extreme northern, two on the eastern, 
 and one on the western borders of India, thus showing the wide 
 extent of Asoka's rule, as well as the great care which he took 
 about the promulgation of his edicts in remote parts of his dominions. 
 Asoka was the third prince of the Maury a dynasty, and the 
 grandson of Chandragupta, who was identified by Sir "William Jones 
 with Sandrakoptos, the contemporary of Seleukos Nikator. The 
 edicts themselves are fourteen in number, and were summarised by 
 James Prinsep.* Their main object, as expounded by Wilson, appears 
 to be the exaltation of moral obligations over all ceremonial practices, 
 over a religion of rites ; the enjoining, in preference to the sacrifice 
 of animals, obedience to parents, affection for children, friends, and 
 dependents, reverence for elders, Sramans, and Brahmans, universal 
 benevolence and unreserved toleration. Wilson concludes his account 
 with the following words : " The edicts may be taken as historical 
 " evidence that Buddhism was not yet fully established, and that 
 " Priyadasi or Asoka was desirous of keeping peace between it and 
 " its predecessor by inculcating social duties and universal toleration 
 " in place of either ritual or dogma." 
 
 The inscriptions of Asoka are also invaluable for the study of the 
 vernacular languages of India, as they furnish several undoubted 
 texts of the common language of the people in the 3rd Century 
 B.C. This spoken language was essentially the same in the region 
 lying between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas, from the banks 
 of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges. The written character is 
 two-fold — one called Ariano-Pali, and read from right to left, which 
 is found on the Shahbaz-garhi rocks, in the Yusufzai district, on 
 the extreme north-west, and on three large boulders at Mansahra, in 
 the Hazara district, and which is also found on the coins of the 
 Greek and Indo-Scythian princes of Ariana ; the other, Indo-Pah, 
 
 * Journal, Bengal Asiatic Society, VII., 220. 
 1 Y 20321. A a 
 
370 INDIAN ARCH^OLOGICAL SURVEYS. 
 
 read from left to right, wHch is confined to the coins of Pantaleon 
 and Agathokles, who reigned beyond the Indus, but which is the 
 common character of all the other texts of the inscriptions, as well 
 as of all the donative inscriptions of the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas. 
 The distinctive peculiarities of these two alphabets are carefully 
 discussed by General Cunningham, and the transcripts of most of 
 the edicts with the translations are given in full in his work.* 
 
 In 1883, Mr. J. F. Fleet, CLE., was appointed Epigraphist,t with 
 the primary object of preparing Volume III. of the " Corpus 
 Inscriptionum Indicarum," that was to contain the inscriptions of the 
 early Gupta kings. The Gupta volume was completed by Mr. Fleet 
 in 1887, and published the following year in Calcutta. A careful 
 study of the inscriptions enabled Mr. Fleet to fix the period of the 
 early Gupta supremacy, and also to establish a starting-point from 
 which to work back in developing the Indo-Scythian history. 
 Moreover, through fixing, for the first time, the date of Mihirakula, 
 who, as we learn from the writings of the Chinese pilgrim, Hwen 
 Thsang, played a leading part in early Indian history, Mr. Fleet has 
 furnished the means of adjusting the chronology before and after 
 him of the early history of Kashmir, and of testing the accuracy of 
 the Chinese accounts of the same early period. 
 
 The principal records in the volume are those of the early Guptas 
 themselves from A.D. 401 to 466, and next, the records of a 
 feudatory family, the Parivrajaka Maharajas, which prove that, 
 though the direct line of the early Gupta dynasty itself may have 
 become extinct, the Gupta dominion still continued, and the name 
 of the Gupta kings was still recognised as a power down to 
 A.D. 528. The person who accomplished the final extinction seems 
 to have been the great king Mihirakula, of Sakala, in the Punjab, 
 and subsequently of Kashmir, whose career in India is so graphically 
 described by Hwen Thsang. Next come the inscriptions of the 
 
 * Corpus Inscriptionum Indicaruni, Vol. I., Inscriptions of Asoka. Prepared by- 
 General Cunningham, C.S.I., Calcutla, 1877. The Mansahra inscriptions were 
 discovered subsequently, as well as the Rampurwa pillar. A valuable discussion of 
 these inscriptions has been published, in two volumes, under the title, " Lea Incriptions 
 de Piyadasi, par E. Senart, Mem.de I'lnst." (Paris, 1881-86) ; and detached papers on 
 them by Prof. G. Biihlcr, LL.D., C.I.E., have appeared in the "Zeitschrift der 
 Deutsch. Morgenland. Gesellschaft," at different dates. 
 
 t On the 17th January 1883. He held the appointment for 3^ years, until the 
 Ist June 1886. In August 1881, Dr. Burgess hiad prepared a "Memorandum on the 
 Collection and Publication of Indian Historical Inscriptions," which he submitted to 
 the Secretary of State, recommending this appointment; 
 
INDIAN ARCH^OLOQICAL SUBYKYS. Stl 
 
 kings of Vaiabiii, raliging from 426 to 766, after which, occur 
 inscriptions of various families of minor importance. The exact 
 chronological place«Df the Grupta era, a historical question which has 
 been discussed by scholars for forty years, is ascribed by Mr. Fleet, 
 after a learned and exhaustive discussion, to A.D. 319-320. 
 
 Lists of inscriptions in Southei'n India were drawn up by 
 Mr. E. Sewell, and these, together with a sketch of the dynasties 
 of Southern India^ ^¥ere published by Grovernment in 1884.* 
 
 In 1886, at the suggestion of Dr. Burgess, a circular letter was 
 issued by the Government of India to the local governments, to 
 afford all assistance to the surveyors in framing lists of existing 
 inscriptions. The same year saw the first attempt towards the 
 elucidation of the Tamil inscriptions of Southern India, -when 
 Mr. Burgess produced a work on Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions.f 
 The first batch of notes and inscriptions had been collected in the 
 Madura district in 1883. The second part contains 56 Tamil 
 inscriptions, collected at the great temple of Ramesvaram and 
 elsewhere, in the Ramnad Zamitidari, and the third part, a mis- 
 cellaneous collection of both Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions from 
 various parts of the Madras Presidency. In the same year (1886) 
 Dr. E. Hultzsch, a German scholar, verged in the Sanskrit, Pali, and 
 Dravidian languages, was appointed Bpigraphist to the Government 
 of Madras, and during that and the following year he collected 
 over 150 Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions from stone and copper- 
 plate edicts at Mamallapuram, Kanchipuram, in the North Arcot 
 district, and other parts of the Madras Presidency.! 
 
 With the object of promoting still further the study of Indian 
 inscriptions, a quarterly publication entitled " Epigraphia Indica 
 and Archaeological Survey Record " Was started under the editor- 
 ship of Dr. Burgess in October 1888. A grant of Rs. 6,000 
 (afterwards reduced to Rs. 4,000) was made to this undertaking by 
 the Government of India. Of this publication, eight parts (456 
 
 * Archseological Survey of Southern ludia, Vol. Ili-^Lists of inscriptions and 
 sketch of the dynasties of Southern India. Compiled under the orders of Government 
 by Robert Sewell. Madras : E. Keys, 1884. 
 
 f Archteological Survey of Southern India, Vol. IV. — Tamil and Sanskrit 
 inaeriptions, with some notes on village antiquiiies^ collected chiefly in the south of the 
 Madras Presidency. By James Burgess. With translations by S. M, Katesa Saetrij 
 Pandit, Madras : E. Keys, 1586. 
 
 J South Indian inscriptions, Tamil and Sanskrit) edited and translated by E. HuUzsthj 
 Ph.D., Government Epigraphist, Archseological Survey ^of Southern India. Madras 
 (Higginbotham & Co.), 1890. 
 
 A a 2 
 
372 INDIAN ABCH^OLOQICAL SUKVEYS. 
 
 pages) have been published, containing a large number of very im- 
 portant inscriptions for the early history of India, and translated 
 by such accomplished orientalists as Professors G. Biihler, LL.D., 
 C.I.B., of Vienna, F. Kielhorn, Ph.D., C.I.E., of Gottingen, Prof. 
 J. Eggeling, Ph.D., of Edinburgh, &c., whose names are a suffi- 
 cient guarantee for the authority of their versions and comments. 
 Facsimiles of the more important epigraphs are also issued m the 
 work, which, if it is continued, will form an important supplement to, 
 or rather a substitute for the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. 
 
 Among the more important inscriptions for the early history of 
 India contained in this first volume of the " Epigraphia Indica," now 
 all but complete, are — the recently discovered twelfth edict of 
 Asoka from Shahbazgarhi ; an early Prakrit copper-plate grant of 
 the Pallava king Sivaskandavarman ; an inscription from Lakkha 
 Mandal in the Himalayas, of about the sixth century, containing the 
 genealogy of the early kings of Singhapura ; two long inscriptions 
 of the beginning of the ninth century from Baijnath in Kangra ; 
 eight from Khajuraho, and other Chandella records ; the great 
 Siyadoni inscription discovered by Dr. Burgess ; a new record of 
 Toramana from the Panjab ; a large number of short but important 
 Jaina inscriptions excavated from the Kankali Tila at Mathura ; 
 and numerous others of great historic interest. 
 
 Another valuable aid in the elucidation of Indian history is 
 afforded by coins, which enable one to trace the chronology and 
 sequence of ancient dynasties. Much light has been thrown on this 
 branch of antiquarian knowledge by the researches of Sir Walter 
 Elliot, who many years ago supplied a review on the coins of Southern 
 India.* In regard to the coins of Northern India, the labours of 
 James Prinsep, Wilson, Cunningham, and Edward Thomas have 
 contributed valuable information ; and Mr. Thomas's re-issue of 
 Marsden's " Numismata Orientalia " has been the means of bringing 
 out some important papers on Indian coinage, chief among which 
 may be mentioned Part I., published by Mr. Thomas himself in 
 1874, on ancient Indian weights and the origin of a currency in 
 India : one (Vol. III., Part I.) by Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur P. 
 Phayre, G.C.M.G., on the " Coins of Arakan, ■ of Pegu, and of 
 Burma," and another (Vol. III., Part II.) by Sir Walter Elliot on the 
 " Coins of Southern India." 
 
 * Under the head of Numismatic Gleanings, in the " Madras Journal," XIX., p. 220, 
 and XX., p. 75. 
 
373 
 
 XVI. 
 THE GEOGRAPHICAL WORK OF THE INDIA OFFICE. 
 
 The foregoing chapters have dealt with the departments and 
 agencies entrusted with the conduct of the actual operations in India 
 and the collection of statistical facts on the spot. It now remains 
 to devote a few pages to the department in England charged with 
 the duty of advising the Secretary of State as to the control of these 
 operations, and to the utilization of the information acquired. 
 
 The geographical work of the India Office consists of correspon- 
 dence, reports, and general business relating to the following distinct 
 branches : — 
 
 The Great Trigonometrical Survey. 
 The Topographical Surveys. 
 The Revenue Surveys. 
 The Marine Survey. 
 The Geological Survey. 
 The Archaeological Surveys. 
 Meteorology. 
 
 Observatories and Instruments. 
 Utilisation of the Result of the Surveys. 
 The last-named head includes the organisation and arrangement of 
 the map collection, consisting of both the old and the current maps, 
 the keeping of the books of sales, loans and gifts of maps, the 
 compilation of such maps as may be required in England, the 
 preparation of catalogues and reports on the work, and the supply 
 of geographical information. The organisation of the Geographical 
 Department or Branch of the India OflBce may be said to date from 
 the 14th September 1868, when its duties were placed tentatively in 
 charge of Mr. Clements R. Markham, C.B., for the period of six 
 months. Previously to that the survey reports had been sent borne 
 without covering letters, and the absence of any permanent respon- 
 sible officer to receive, analyse, and arrange for general reference all 
 geographical documents and maps had led Colonel H. L. Thuillier, 
 the Surveyor- General, to make a representation to the Secretary of 
 State, pointing out the inconvenience of the existing state of things 
 
374 GEOGRAPHICAL WORK OF THE INDIA OFFICE. 
 
 and the necessity for a better arrangement. Colonel Thuillier's 
 views were favourably received ; the six months' preliminary charge 
 enabled Mr. Markham to get a good grip of the work, and with the 
 experienced assistance of Mr. Trelawney Saunders much progress 
 was made in sorting and arranging the maps. In July 1869 
 Mr. Saunders' appointment was made permanent as " Assistant in 
 the Geographical Department " with a salary of 4,001. per annum, 
 and shortly afterward agents for the sale of maps were appointed, 
 and a map mounter's services were secured to the Department. 
 
 The " Memoir on the Indian Surveys," the prototype of the 
 present work, was produced by Mr. Markham in 1871. It contained 
 a complete and succinct account of the operations under its various 
 heads from the earliest period down to 1869, and the author's plan 
 contemplated the publication of annual " abstracts '" in continuation 
 of the original Memoir, and arranged in the same form. During the 
 following years, the Geographical Branch was re-inforced by the 
 appointments of the present writer in 1872 and Mr, "W. Eonson in 
 1873. The Moral and Material Progress Reports for 1871-2 and 
 1872-3, arranged on a better system, and supplying a fuller retrospect 
 of past administration than previous reports, were prepared by 
 Mr. Markham and received universal commendation. Mr. Markham 
 also discovered and edited the journals and other papers of George 
 Bogle, Warren Hastings's envoy to Tibet, and Mr. Thomas Manning, 
 who travelled to Lhasa, and in the translation of the appendices 
 and in the preparation of the maps to accompany the work the staff 
 of the department gave useful aid. The Annual " Abstracts of 
 Surveys " were also regularly prepared from year to year, those 
 for 1869-70, 1870--71, 1871-2, and 1872-3 being written by 
 Mr. Markham, and those for the succeeding years up to 1880 by the 
 present writer. In 1876 a simplified catalogue of the maps on sale 
 was compiled by Mr. Ronson. The want of such a catalogue had 
 long been felt, and its handy formed alphabetical arrangement 
 found to be a distinct convenience, greatly facilitating reference. 
 During these years a general catalogue of all the original maps, 
 plans, surveys, memoirs, field books, &c. in the Department was 
 under preparation by Mr. Saunders, and was finally published in 
 1878. It was a laborious undertaking, and its successful completion 
 reflected much credit on Mr. Saunders. Mr. Markham, Captain 
 (now Colonel) H. R. Thuillier,* and Mr. F. B. Girdlestone had assisted 
 
 ' The present Surveyor- Gepeyal of India. 
 
CtEOGRAPllICAL WORK OF THE INDIA OFFICE. 375 
 
 in the earlier stages of its preparation. Its object was to supply a 
 catalogue of all the geographical documents in the India Office, and 
 with the addition df the regular quarterly lists of maps since 
 received from India this object may be still said to be secured. 
 The enormous accession of new maps during the last fifteen years 
 has, however, completely revolutionised the former condition of 
 things, and an entire re-arrangement of the geographical collection 
 of the India Office has now (1891) become necessary. The ideal 
 organisation, did space permit, would be to have presses in and 
 adjoining the map room sufficiently numerous to accommodate a 
 copy of every map, old and new, for consultation and ready reference, 
 with a reasonable margin of room in each press for future accessions. 
 This would constitute the permanent collection. Space, however, is 
 precious, and it will probably be necessary to effect some compromise 
 which will enable those maps in most frequent demand to be stored 
 within easy reach. The saleable and non-saleable stock, though also 
 crowded, are conveniently arranged under reference numbers, and 
 do not so urgently need additional accommodation. This re-arrange- 
 ment of the collection will be a fitting opportunity for the complete 
 revision of the general catalogue.* 
 
 In 1877, Mr. Markham's retirement from the public service 
 naturally affected in a very marked manner the geographical 
 business of the office. The Department or Branch was his own 
 creation ; for ten years he had watched over its growth, and his 
 geographical talents, his energy, and the personal example with 
 which he inspired the staff, had borne good fruit. A short sketch 
 of the public services of this officer is here necessary. 
 
 Mr. Markham served in the navy for eight years, during which 
 time he was employed in one of the Arctic Expeditions in search 
 of Sir John Franklin. In July 1854 he was appointed to the 
 Board of Control, and served in the Secret Department through the 
 time of the Persian War and Indian Mutiny. From 1858 to 1862 he 
 was in the Revenue Department, and it was during that period 
 that he was deputed to South America for the purpose of collecting 
 chinchona plants and seeds and introducing them into India. 
 
 * During tlie last few years, a useful series of catalogues of current maps of the difPerent 
 presidencies and provinces of India has been issued by the Surveyor-General of India. 
 The opportunity has been taken to bind these different fasciculi together and reprint 
 the work, with the addition of an index, for. the use of the India Office and English 
 readers. This catalogue, which will fulfil a much felt want, has been just published. 
 
376 GEOGEAPHICAL WORK OF THE INDIA OFFICB. 
 
 From July 1861 to August 1863 lie acted as Private Secretary to 
 Mr. Baring (now Lord Northbrook). A second visit was paid by 
 Mr. Markham to India in 1865 for the purpose of inspecting 
 and reporting upon the then existing cbinchona plantations, 
 on the best sites for new ones, and on tbe pearl fislieries. 
 He served as Geograpker to tke Abyssinian Expedition in 
 1866, and was created a C.B. in 1872. It was during kis service 
 in tke Public Works Department tkat Mr. Markkam was entrusted 
 witk tke ckarge of tke geograpkical business of tke India Office, and 
 his tenure of tkis post was marked by many important reforms and 
 services wkick ke was ckiefly or wkolly instrumental in carrying 
 out. One of kis first labours was tke preparation of tke original 
 " Memoir on tke Indian Surveys," a work wkick kad a good 
 circulation, and wkick was translated into tke Frenok and Dutok 
 languages. Mr. Markkam always strongly advised tke preparation 
 of similar " Memoirs " for all tke Departments of tke India Office. 
 Tke resumption of Marine Surveys (wkick kad been wholly 
 abandoned after tke abolition of tke Indian Navy) was strenuously 
 advocated by Mr. Markkam, and eventually sanctioned, and tke 
 creation of a central Meteorological Department for tke purpose 
 of collating and utilizing tke scattered observations was another 
 matter which he continued, and with eventual success, to press 
 upon the attention of the Grovernment. The General Catalogue of 
 all the Geographical Records of the Department was begun by 
 Mr. Markham, and continued and completed by Mr. Saunders. 
 Another task entrusted to Mr. Markham about this time was the 
 preparation of the Moral and Material Progress Statement required 
 by Act of Parliament to be laid before Parliament. Mr. Grant Duff, 
 who had obtained the introduction of the section in the Indian 
 Councils Act,* providing for the report in question, and who was 
 Under Secretary of State in 1872, was desirous that an interest 
 should be aroused in Indian affairs by tke annual presentation of a 
 tkorougkly readable document. The reports for 1871-2 and 1872-3 
 were great improvements on tkeir predecessors and gained general 
 approbation. Tke discovery of tke journals and otker papers of 
 Mr. George Bogle, wko was sent on a mission to Tibet by Warren 
 Hastings, and of Mr. Manning, tke only Engliskman wko ever 
 visited Lkasa, was due to Mr. Markkam's researck, and tke 
 Secretary of State sanctioned tkeir being printed and publisked at 
 
 * 21 & 22 Vict. cap. i06, sec. liii. 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL WOEK OF THE INDIA OFFICE, 377 
 
 the Government expense. An admirable introduction was prefixed, 
 giving an account of Tibetan geography and history, and the 
 journals were annotate! throughout by Mr. Markham. 
 
 On the retirement of Mr. Markham the geographical work was 
 transferred to the Statistics and Commerce Department under 
 Mr. H. Waterfield. For a time the correspondence and papers on 
 geographical subjects were filed separately, under the special orders 
 of the Secretary of State in Council, but on the Ist January 1879, 
 other arrangements were made and the geographical and kindred 
 papers were intermingled with those on all the other subjects, such 
 as commerce, statistics, sanitation, &o., assigned to the new depart- 
 ment. The subsequent history of the geographical work of the 
 India Office has thus been merged with that of other subjects, and 
 becomes a matter of great difficulty to trace, while the loss of 
 Mr. Markham undoubtedly put an end to a good deal of projected 
 work which the geographical staff would have helped to bring 
 to completion. In 1879, Mr. Waterfield was created Financial 
 Secretary, and Mr. W. G. Pedder, of the Bombay Civil Service, was 
 appointed to the secretaryship of the Revenue Department, with 
 which the old Statistics and Commerce Department, carrying with it 
 the geographical business of the Office, was amalgamated. The geo- 
 graphical work by a natural process of gravitation thus came under 
 the control of the Revenue Department with which it undoubtedly 
 has an increasing affinity. For now that the principal triangulation, 
 and the first rough topographical survey of India are practically com- 
 plete, siich fresh surveys as are required (apart from the trans-frontier 
 operations) are mainly for revenue purposes, a need which the gradual 
 extension of cultivation tends still further to enhance. The following 
 year saw the transfer of the author to the Home Office in the capacity 
 of Assistant Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Home 
 AfFairs, and the special care of Indian geographical matters practically 
 devolved upon Mr. Trelawney Saunders until 1885. when the return 
 of the present writer to the India Office after five years' service in the 
 Home Office led to further departmental changes, Mr. Saunders 
 retiring on a pension. Mr. Saunders had done much useful service 
 in the cause of geography, both before and after his entry into 
 the India Office. Endowed with strong geographical instincts and 
 tastes he was appointed in 1854 curator to the Royal Geographical 
 Society, and also acted for a time as Librarian to that body. In 
 1857 he joined Mr. Stanford's establishment (originally his own 
 house), and here he edited the useful series of school maps issued 
 
378 GEOGRAPHICAL WOEK OF THE INDIA OFFICE. 
 
 by the firm, as well as supervised the construction of a series of 
 Library maps of the great divisions of the globe, designed by 
 Alexander Keith Johnston. He also designed and superintended 
 the construction of the first detailed plan of London on the 
 G-inch scale, and assisted in editing the series of Biblical maps in 
 Dr. Smith's Ancient Atlas. During his service in the India 
 Office he produced a large number of maps, which have served 
 as useful models of cartography for the native draughtsmen 
 and lithographers of the Surveyor-General's Office at Calcutta. 
 Foremost among these may be mentioned the excellent maps of 
 the Haidarabad Circars in continuation of the series commenced 
 by Mr. Walker, and the elaborate and valuable sets of maps prepared 
 to illustrate the Moral and Material Progress Reports of 1871-72, 
 1872-73, and 1881-82. Mr. Saunders was also the author of 
 " A Sketch of the Mountains and River Basins of India" and of the 
 greater part of the General Catalogue of the Geographical Collection 
 of the India Office. The elaborate geographical arrangement of the 
 catalogue was entirely Mr. Saunders' creation. 
 
 In 1885 the Geographical Branch underwent a further change. 
 The appointment held by Mr. Trelawney Saunders was abolished, 
 and the present writer was placed in charge of the Geographical 
 business, under the control of the Registrar, the correspondence, &o. 
 being transacted under the general supervision of the Library 
 Committee. Thus in eight years the geographical work came under 
 the successive control of four different committees in the India 
 Office. This, however, is a change similar to that which the geo- 
 graphical departments of most countries have had to undergo. The 
 English Ordnance Survey was originally placed under the old Board 
 of Ordnance, then under the War Office, and has since been trans- 
 ferred, first to the Office of Works, and now to the Agricultural 
 Department. In India, the Survey Department has oscillated 
 in like fashion between the Home and Revenue Departments. 
 The fact is, that surveys (apart from revenue surveys), while 
 supplying the basis of statistics for all, have no special and 
 inherent connexion with any one particular department. At the 
 same time, the work, though important, is limited in quantity, so it 
 has always been necessary to place it under the wing of some larger 
 department. 
 
 There is ample scope for its future usefulness, and in the Record 
 Department there is every hope that the traditions of its short but 
 active and profitable past will be not unworthily sustained. 
 
379 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Return showing tlie Number and Value of tlie Scientific Instru- 
 ments and Appliances provided for the various Services in 
 India and examined at the India Store Dep6t, London, from 
 January 1887 to January 1890, 
 
 Description of Instrument. 
 
 Value. 
 
 Accumulators . . . . 
 
 Agates .... 
 
 Air-i)ump ...... 
 
 Altazimuth .... 
 
 Ammeters ...... 
 
 Anlljiopometric apparatus 
 
 Appiii'atus, primer and relay 
 
 Apparatus, circuit closing . - - 
 
 Anemometer . . . . . 
 
 Anemograph - . . • 
 
 Apparatus for liquefaction of gases - 
 Apparaturj for interference of sound - 
 Appai-atus for water analj'sis 
 
 Apparatus to illustrate Ayrton's practical electricity 
 Apparatus, electric light ... 
 Arithmometers - . . - 
 
 Astronomical clock . - . - 
 
 Apparatus, submarine mining, various 
 
 Balances, weighing, various 
 Balances, electrical 
 Barlow lens 
 Bars, standard - 
 Barometers, aneroid 
 Barometers, mercurial 
 Barographs, repaired 
 iiatteries, voltaic, various - 
 Bells, alarum 
 Binoculars, various 
 Boards, drawing 
 Boards, sketching 
 Bubble tester 
 
 Cabinets, chemical 
 Cables, electric, various 
 Calliper's micrometer 
 Cards for compasses, various 
 Carbon plates - 
 Cases, sketching 
 
 £ 
 
 29 
 
 39 
 
 2 
 
 40 
 
 21 
 
 11 
 
 409 
 
 478 
 
 251 
 
 85 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 46 
 
 200 
 
 2,332 
 
 75 
 
 70 
 
 562 
 
 £. d. 
 
 9 6 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 9 10 
 18 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 9 
 
 532 
 
 210 
 
 2 15 
 
 15 
 
 428 3 11 
 
 693 11 
 
 6 5 
 
 513 8 1 
 
 10 12 
 
 512 10 10 
 
 H 10 
 
 45 
 
 20 
 
 858 
 
 2,261 19 2 
 
 18 
 
 9 16 
 
 514 11 
 
 64 15 
 
380 
 
 D.seription of Instiunieiit. 
 
 Cftthetometers - 
 
 Chartometer 
 
 Chains, measuring 
 
 Chronometers 
 
 Clironomicrometera 
 
 Chronographs 
 
 Clocks ... 
 
 Collimators - - . - 
 
 Comparing apparatus for standard measures 
 
 Combination boxes - 
 
 Compasses, drawing, various 
 
 Compasses, magnetic 
 
 Compasses, prismatic 
 
 Compass, liquid 
 
 Compass, subtense 
 
 Clinometers 
 
 Core for telegraph cables - 
 
 Cross staves . . , 
 
 Curve ranger 
 
 Curves, various ... 
 
 Carbons for Jablochkoff lanipg 
 
 Dioptric lights for lighthouses and ports 
 
 Dip needles ... 
 
 Dynamo machines - 
 
 Dynamo exploders 
 
 Dynamometers . - . 
 
 Educational apparatus, Riggs' 
 
 Electric bells 
 
 Electrometers 
 
 Electro-magnetic and gulvanie machines 
 
 Engine counters 
 
 Exploders 
 
 Eye pieces for theodolites aud levels 
 
 Eault finder, telegraphic 
 Field cable, Siemens' 
 
 GalTanometers, various 
 
 Gauges, pressure and vacuum 
 
 Gauging instruments 
 
 Gauges, standard 
 
 Glass spirit bubbles 
 
 Glasses for heliotropes 
 
 Glasses, object 
 
 Glasses, tracing 
 
 Glasses, reading 
 
 Globes 
 
 Goniometers 
 
 Value. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. d. 
 
 58 
 
 2 5 
 
 414 
 
 2-24 
 
 108 
 
 122 2 6 
 
 i;i5 15 
 
 100 
 
 75 
 
 34 
 
 ■i'^d 
 
 107 14 G 
 
 376 15 f) 
 
 77-0 
 
 372 
 
 100 18 
 
 15,415 
 
 7 8 
 
 12 
 
 .■.9 
 
 3:il 18 
 
 6,115 
 
 24 15 
 
 
 
 28 10 
 
 
 
 2 15 
 
 
 
 138 13 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 19 18 
 
 
 
 4fi9 8 
 
 6 
 
 9 7 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 79 10 
 
 
 
 57 
 
 
 
 SIS 
 
 
 
 320 18 
 
 
 
 306 14 
 
 
 
 39 12 
 
 6 
 
 12 12 
 
 
 
 261 10 
 
 
 
 30 13 
 
 5 
 
 36 15 
 
 
 
 4 14 
 
 6 
 
 30 12 
 
 6 
 
 6 12 
 
 4 
 
 17 10 
 
 
 
361 
 
 Description of Instrument. 
 
 Value. 
 
 Heliographs 
 Heliostat. with block 
 Hydrometers, various 
 Hygrometers 
 Hypsometers 
 
 Indicators, Richard's steam engine 
 
 Ink writers, telegraphic 
 
 Instruments, mathematical drawing, in cases 
 
 Instruments, vibrating call signal 
 
 Instrument, telegraph, double and single current 
 
 Insulators, various - 
 
 Insulating stand - . - 
 
 Integrators 
 
 Keys, telegraphic 
 
 Keys, firing 
 
 Keys, reversing, Thomson's 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 130 4 
 
 .-) U) 
 
 762 
 
 19 
 
 24 
 
 213 10 3 
 
 9oO 
 
 1,295 
 
 10 
 
 282 
 
 15,588 12 11 
 
 11 
 
 17 
 
 7 14 6 
 
 Lactometers - 
 
 Lamps, referring, &c. 
 
 Lamps, miners' surveying 
 
 Lamps, electric incandescent 
 
 Lathes . , . . 
 
 Lenses for eye-pieces 
 
 Lens, rapid rectilinear photographic 
 
 Levels, astronomical 
 
 Levelling instruments, reversible 
 
 Levels, reflecting 
 
 Levels, spii-it block - 
 
 Levels, striding - 
 
 Machine, drilling 
 Magnets for relays 
 Magneto-inductor bridge 
 Meters, air 
 Microscopes, various 
 Mirrors for sextants 
 MiiTors for heliographs 
 Mines, submarine - 
 Miners' dial 
 Micrometers 
 
 Nickel anodes 
 
 Observing chair 
 Observatory dome^ - 
 Ophthalmic test glasses 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 
 545 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 278 
 
 
 
 
 
 118 
 
 19 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 4,416 
 
 
 
 
 
 112 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 216 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 14 
 
 6 
 
 70 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 2,227 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 250 
 
 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 4 
 
 
 
382 
 
 Description of Instrument. 
 
 Value. 
 
 Optical squares 
 Optical bench 
 Optometer, Tweedy'a 
 
 Pens, drawing • 
 
 Pentagraphs . . . 
 
 Photo-micrographic apparatus 
 
 Physical apparatus, various - 
 
 Plane-tables - . . 
 
 Planimeters 
 
 Polariscopes 
 
 Protractors, various - - . 
 
 Pyrometers, various 
 
 Pitch compound for cables, telegraph 
 
 Rain gauges 
 
 Range finders, various 
 
 Relays 
 
 Resistance coils 
 
 Rulers, parallel, various 
 
 Rules, boxwood 
 
 Rules, flat, various 
 
 Revolution indicator, Buss's 
 
 Sand glasses 
 
 Scales, various 
 
 Sectors ... 
 
 Set squares, various 
 
 Sextants, various 
 
 Slide rules, various 
 
 Slopes and batters - 
 
 Sounders, telegraph 
 
 Speedometers 
 
 Spectroscopes 
 
 Spherometer 
 
 Stadiometers 
 
 Station pointers 
 
 Standard yard measures - 
 
 Stencil plates 
 
 Storm glass 
 
 Straight edges 
 
 Stop watches 
 
 Stills 
 
 Sundials 
 
 Switches, battery 
 
 Serving tape for cables, telegraph 
 
 Tachometer - 
 
 Tapes, measuring, various 
 
 Telemeters - •• 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 6 6 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 6 7 
 
 6 
 
 29 16 
 
 
 
 292 10 
 
 
 
 35 3 
 
 
 
 1,714 10 
 
 
 
 128 
 
 
 
 372 19 
 
 6 
 
 3 5 
 
 
 
 496 4 
 
 
 
 29 16 
 
 
 
 560 13 
 
 
 
 113 13 
 
 6 
 
 519 5 
 
 
 
 275 7 
 
 
 
 53 10 
 
 
 
 615 4 
 
 6 
 
 37 13 
 
 
 
 4S8 15 
 
 4 
 
 21 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 793 2 
 
 6 
 
 3 7 
 
 
 
 93 5 
 
 7 
 
 105 10 
 
 
 
 16 11 
 
 
 
 2 5 
 
 
 
 211 1 
 
 
 
 8 12 
 
 6 
 
 62 11 
 
 
 
 8 18 
 
 6 
 
 97 7 
 
 6 
 
 67 10 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 24 7 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 176 15 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 58 9 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 2 3 
 
 
 
 3,088 10 
 
 
 
 31 10 
 
 
 
 1,550 15 
 
 3 
 
 14 17 
 
 
 
383 
 
 DesoriHfion of Instrument. 
 
 Value. 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Telephones, various 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 83 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 Tell-tale apparatus 
 
 - « 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 Telescopes, various 
 
 - - - - . 
 
 
 . 
 
 968 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 Tellurions - 
 
 - - - - - 
 
 
 . 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 ^0 
 
 Thermometers, various 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 1,116 
 
 19 
 
 9 
 
 Theodolites, various 
 
 - - - 
 
 
 _ 
 
 8,657 
 
 
 
 
 
 T squares 
 
 - - - - . 
 
 
 - 
 
 29 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 Urinometers 
 
 -* . * 
 
 
 - 
 
 228 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Water meters 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 Weights, assay 
 
 . 
 
 
 . 
 
 14 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 Weights, troy, avoirdupois 
 
 i, and tola standards 
 
 
 - 
 
 81 
 
 
 
 
 
 Zenith telescope 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 90 
 
 
 
 
 
 Zinc rods for batteries 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 - 
 d. 
 
 42 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 Miscellaneous apparatus 
 
 not included under any of f 3,245 
 - 1 2,070 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 the above headings - 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,316 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 
 inuary 1887-Jauuary 1890) 
 
 
 - 
 
 Total (Jf 
 
 94,728 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 A k (Kishen Singh), 151-157, 235. 
 
 Abbas of Ghur, 184 (note). 
 Abbott, General, 333. 
 Abors, 165. 
 
 Abu, Mount, 266, 274 ; Jaina temples at, 322, 
 324. 
 
 Ab-i-istadeh lake, 136, 146. 
 
 Ab-i-Sar-i-jaugal, 183. 
 
 Ab-i-Surkh, 190. 
 
 Abyssinia, Mr. Blauford deputed to, 259. 
 
 Abyssinian Expedition, Mr. Markham in, 376. 
 
 Acheen, 26. 
 
 Actinometric observations, 289 ; at Leh, 293, 
 295,296. 
 
 Adam, Mr., Governor of Madras, 357, 358. 
 
 Adam's bridge, 261. 
 
 Aden, 197, 205, 213. 
 
 Admiralty Hydrographer. See Hydrographer. 
 
 Admiralty publications, increase in sale of, 9. 
 
 Adraskand liver, 176, 185. 
 
 Aerial deposits in Afghanistan and Baluchistan, 
 254. 
 
 Afghan Boundary Commission, 96, 128, 172-195, 
 267, and passim in Chapter VII. 
 
 Afghanistan, triangnlation extended towards, 47 ; 
 surveys of Afghanistan during first Afghan 
 Wars, 128, 135, 139 ; survey lessons of later 
 campaign m, 131 ; connexion between triangu- 
 lation in North and South Afghanistan, 1 46, 1 67, 
 194; maps of Afghanistan, 223, 226, 235; 
 metals of Southern Afghanistan, 255 ; geologi- 
 cal specimens from Afghanistan, 271 (note) ; 
 Mr. Griesbach in Northern Afghanistan, 278. 
 
 Afghan Turkistan, 186 and passim through 
 Chapter VII. ; geology of Afghan Turkistan, 
 270. 
 
 " Afghanistan and part of Baluchistan, Notes on," 
 by Major Kaverty, 365. 
 
 African, South, tides, 200. 
 
 African types recognizable in Karnul cave fauna, 
 268. 
 
 Agathokles, coins of, 370. 
 
 Agra, 206,213; Agra observatory, 286; monu- 
 ments in, 328, 338, 343, 344. 
 
 Agricultural statistics supplied by good revenue 
 surveys, 100; collected by Survey Department 
 in N.Wi Provinces, 113. 
 
 I Y 20321. B 
 
 Ahalyabai temple at Elura, 351. 
 
 Ahmad Sayad, sub-surveyor, 166. 
 
 Ahmad Shah, 365. 
 
 Ahmadabad, 322, 325, 354, ib. (note), 362. 
 
 Ahmadnagar, 342, 355. 
 
 Ahmadnagar district survey, 123. 
 
 Ahmed Ali Khan, 96, 99, 144, 145. 
 
 Ahmed Khel, battle of, 136. 
 
 Aihole, 323, 324, 353. 
 
 Airy, Sir G., 213. 
 
 Aitchison, Dr. J. E. T., 194. 
 
 Ajanta rock, temples, and paintings, 342, 346 
 
 (note), 352,354,356. 
 Ajaygarh fort, 337. 
 
 Ajmir, 240 ; Ajmir Forest school, 298. 
 Ajmir-Merwara district boundary survey, 108. 
 Aka raid, 78, 260 ; Mr. La Touche in the Aka 
 
 hills, 264. 
 
 Akbar, Emperor, 330, 343 ; tomb of, 322, 344. 
 
 Akram Khan, 131. 
 
 Aksu, 158. 
 
 Aksu river (Pamir), 193. 
 
 Akyab, 1 ; commencement of survey of, 3 ; line of 
 soundings ruu south to latitude of, 28 ; tidal 
 station at Akyab swept away by storm, 207 ; 
 Akyab cyclone, 300 ; antiquities in Akyal(. 
 
 Alaiva temple, 343. 
 Alcock, Sir R., 165. 
 Alcock, Surgeon A., 31. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 188; route of, 326; coins 
 
 of successors of, 337. 
 Alexandria, map of, 224. 
 
 Alexandrian merchants, Surashtra known to, in 
 
 early times, 347. 
 Ali, son-in-law of Mahomed, 184, 189. 
 Alichur Pamir, 193. 
 Aligarh, district survey, 108 ; 246. 
 Ali Khel, 133. 
 Ali Musjid, 124, 130, 333. 
 
 Alipore, meteorological observations at, 293, 299, 
 306. See also Calcutta. 
 
 Allahabad, 206 ; observations at Allahabad, 285 
 293,304,306; 320 (note) ; Dr. Eiihrer in, 340. 
 AUeppi mud bank, 274, 277. 
 Alluvial plains as geological group, 236. 
 Almar plain, 181. 
 Alompra, 363. 
 
386 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Alps as compared gto'.Ofjicallv with the Himalayas, 
 
 271 (note). 
 Altimor range, 134. 
 Alwar, 336. 
 Amalgamation of the branches of Indian 
 
 Survey, 40, 100. 
 Aman ul Muik, Badshah of Chitral, 1.50. 
 Amaranath, Jaina temples at, 324, 327. 
 Amarapura, 364. 
 Amb fort, 333. 
 
 Ambala district, Mr. Rodgers in, 340. 
 Amherst, pagoda and Point, 2 ; 201, 204, 207. 
 Amravati tope, 322, 357, 358 ; Dr. Burgess on, 
 
 360. 
 Amritsar, 51. 
 
 Amsterdam Exhibition, 294. 
 Amua meridional series, 214. 
 Amya pass, 54. 
 Analysis of tidal observations, 197. 
 
 Andaman islands, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 166, 
 204; ores from the Andaman islands, 204; 
 necessity of telegraphic communication with 
 Andaman islands, 310, 311. 
 Anderson, Colonel F. C, 112. 
 Anderson, Colonel W. C, 86. 
 Andhras, The, 3.'jl. 
 Andkhui, 174, 178, 183, 180. 
 Andrew, Major D. C, 110, 123. 
 Ancmographio observations, 201, 306. 
 Angirtakshia mountains, 153, 157. 
 Auglo-Siamese Boundary Commission, 170. 
 Auhilwada, 88. 
 Anjar, 350. 
 Ankai-Taukai, 353. 
 Ankole, antiquities in, 342. 
 Antiquities, Preservation of, 341 and paxsim in 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 Ants' nests in Tinnevelly and Madura, 202. 
 Ao Barik, 180. 
 Aornos, rock of, 337. 
 Apaluk pass, 150 (note). 
 Arab, old, coins, 173. 
 Arabia and Persia, map of, 235. 
 Arabian Nefud, 262. 
 Arabian Sea, Meteorology of, 302, 306 ; cyclone 
 
 in Arabian Sea, 307 ; Arabian conquest of 
 
 Sind, 348. 
 Arabic inscrjptions, 339, 346 (note). 
 Arakan, 201 ; Arakan-Manipur geological axis, 
 
 260; antiquities in Arakan, 364. 
 Arang, 335. 
 
 Archjcan rocks (as geological group), 230. 
 Archaeological drawings. Reproduction of, 220. 
 Archaeological Survey Record, 371. 
 Archaeology, Indian, 320-372 ; paper by Dr. 
 
 Burgess on, 321 ; first scheme of survey of, 325 ; 
 
 survey suspended by Lord Lawrence, 3'27 ; 
 
 survey re-organized, 338 ; last re-organization 
 
 of, 361 ; Survey Staff, 302. 
 Architecture, Mr. Fergussou on history of, 360. 
 
 Architecture, Indian, classified, 321 et seq. 
 
 ^Vrcs, measurement of, 209. 
 
 Aret in Chugani or Kohistan country, 130. 
 
 Argandab river, 129, 136, 254. 
 
 Argaricus, Sinus, of Ptolemy, 46. 
 
 Arghastan valley, 136. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, 308. 
 
 Ariana, Princes of, S69. 
 
 Ariauo-Pali characters, 369. 
 
 Armenia, Geological collection in, 257. 
 
 Armstrong, Dr., Collection of ornithological 
 specimens by, 6. 
 
 Arnawai river, 150. 
 
 Arrian, 331. 
 
 Arrowsmith, Mr. Aaron, 229. 
 
 Art ware. Heliogravure reproductions of, 227. 
 
 Arun river, 160. 
 
 Arvali mountains, 238, 243, 250, 206, 209, 274. 
 
 Ashizar, 180 (note). 
 
 Ashwaraopet, 247. 
 
 Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded 1784, 320 ; 
 centenary review of, 325 (note) ; 367. 
 
 Asiatic Society of Bombay, 367. 
 
 Askarab, 180. 
 
 Asoka, King, his inscriptions and edicts, 320 
 (note), 321, 326, 329, 331, 332, 333, 337, 338, 
 340, 347, 348, ib. (note), 349, 352, 309. 
 
 Asphan valley, 135. 
 
 Assam, 51 ; discharges of Assam rivers, 52 ; 57 ; 
 Assam frontier surveys, 75, 78, 79 ; deputation 
 on communication with Assam, 165 ; 167 ; 
 Assam lakhirajdar survey, 126; 231; Mr. 
 LaTouche on eastern frontier of, 267. 
 
 Assyrian coins, 173. 
 
 Astarab river, 182. 
 
 Astor, 144, 145, 270. 
 
 Astronomer Royal, 213. 
 
 Astronomical observations, 210 et seq. 
 
 Ata Mahomed Khan, 150, 177, 188, 190, 191. 
 
 Atala Masjid at Jaunpur, 339. 
 
 Atkinson, Mr. W. G. E., 163. 
 
 Attaran river, 364. 
 
 Attock, 141. 
 
 Attraction, local, as affecting geodetic observa- 
 tions, 210. 
 
 Auckland, 234. 
 
 Aurunga coal-field, 244, 250. 
 
 Aurangabad, 325, 350, 351, 352, 353. 
 
 Australian Gondwaua rocks, 200. 
 
 Autotype Company, 227. 
 
 Ava, 364. 
 
 Ayodhya, 340. 
 
 Ayub Khan, Revolt and defeat of, 137, 253, 
 
 Azimuths of stations, 209. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 387 
 
 B. 
 
 Eaber, Emperor, 336. 
 
 Babington, Dr. B. G., 321. • 
 
 Bactria, 193 (note). 
 
 Badakshan, 186, 191, 193 (note), 194; M 
 
 S in, 143 ; 270. 
 
 Badami, 323, 347, 353. 
 
 Badghiz, 177, 178, 195. 
 
 Badgley, Colonel, 75, 89. 
 
 Bagh caves. Paintings in, 342. 
 
 Baghanvala, Temples at, 333. 
 
 Baghao, 92. 
 
 Baghdad observatory, 300. 
 
 Baghmati river, 162. 
 
 Bahmani dynasty, 350. 
 
 Baird, Major A. W., R.E., 25, 196, 204, 207, 
 224. 
 
 Bakarganj district survey, 120; Bakarganj cy- 
 clone, 287. 
 
 Baktro-Hellenic kings, 348. 
 
 Bala Hissar (Balkh), 188. 
 
 Bala Murghab, 180, 195. 
 
 Balaghat, 274. 
 
 Balal Sen, 334. 
 
 Balasore, 207 ; survey of roadstead, 19 ; cyclone 
 at, 303. 
 
 Balipur, 78. 
 
 Balkh, 174, 182, 183, 187, 188. 
 
 Balkh Ao, 181, 186, 189, 190. 
 
 Ball, Dr., 238, 243, 277. 
 
 Ballia district survey, 109. 
 
 Balmir, 238. 
 
 Baltistan, 270. 
 
 Baluchistan, survey of, 47, 92, 93, 98, 99; 
 triangulation in S.W., 147 ; 270 ; geodetic 
 determinations in, 215 ; map of, 22C ; coal, 
 oil, and iron in, 275, 277; westerly wind 
 from, 286. 
 
 Bam valley, 91. 
 
 Bamburath, 150. 
 
 Bamian, 174, 182, 183, 190. 
 
 Bandalkhand, 328 ; General Cunningham in, 
 329, 336 ; Dr. Eiihrer, 340. 
 
 Band-i-Amir (see also Balkh Ao), 189. 
 
 Band-i-Turkestan mountains, 177, 178, 179, 
 181, 186. 
 
 Bandar, 179. 
 
 Bandar Abbas, 176. 
 
 Bangalore, 60, 84,211, 212, 215. 
 
 Bangkok, 54, 64,210. 
 
 Bankote, Survey by Lieutenant Petley of, 9, 10. 
 
 Bankote river. Dangerous state of mouth of, 7. 
 
 Bankura, 245. 
 
 Bannu, 104, 146, 149. 
 
 Banpur mals survey, 115. 
 
 Baoli well, 336. 
 
 Bar Marai valley, 148. 
 
 B 
 
 Bar Panjah, 193. 
 Baragan, 180. 
 Baragua mud flat, 36. 
 
 Barakar, 248, 329 ; Barakar iron works, 274. 
 
 Baran, 149. 
 
 Baranga islands, coal from, 246. 
 
 Barbour, Mr. D., 12. 
 
 Barghana route to Kandahar, 136. 
 
 Barmayan, Buddhist monastery at, 336. 
 
 Baroda city survey, 89. 
 
 Baroda, Gaikwar of, 354, 355, and (note). 
 
 Baroda State survey, 87, 88, 89. 
 
 Baroghil pass, 143. 
 
 Barren islands, 26. 
 
 Barron, Colonel W., 110. 
 
 Barrow, Captain, 162. 
 
 Barrows in Shorapur, 323. 
 
 Bartang river, 143. 
 
 Barton, Eev. J., 318. 
 
 Basalt in Khandesh, 71. 
 
 Base line at Mergui, 56 ; other base lines, 61. 
 
 Basevi's, Captain, pendulum observations, 213. 
 
 Bashkar, 142. 
 
 Bassein, 1 ; hindrances to free navigation of liver, 
 3 ; examination of, 33 ; soundings required 
 in entrance to, 36; cadastral survey of, 116; 
 364. 
 
 Basti district survey, 110, 111. 
 
 Batanis, 149. 
 
 Bathang, 155. 
 
 JBauris or wells, 325. 
 
 Bay of Bengal, " Investigator " takes soundings 
 across, 20, 23, 28; temperature of, 28, 31; 
 sounded and result of soundings, 32, 33 ; 
 weather chart of, 292, 300; meteorology of, 
 297, 302, 306 ; storm warnings from, 310, 311. 
 
 Bazar valley. Captain Leach's survey of, 130. 
 
 Beauchamp Tower, Mr., 199. 
 
 Beavan, Major, 92, 93, 94, 104; route survey 
 from Kandahar to Girishk, 129 ; iu Southern 
 Afghanistan, 135. 
 
 Bedsa, 352. 
 
 Beglar, Mr. J. D., pass™' in Chapter XV. 
 
 Behar, cadastral survey, 118; General Cunning- 
 ham in Behar, 333, 335, 336 (note) ; cave 
 inscriptions in, 369. 
 
 Bejwada, 357, 358. 
 
 Belgaum survey, 126 ; Belgaum observatory, 
 285 ; 323, 346, 347, 354, 362. 
 
 Bell, Major-General, 86. 
 
 Bellary, 212; Mr. Foote in Bellary, 266, 268; 
 Bellary observatory, 385. 
 
 Benares district survey, 109 ; Benares rainfall, 
 288. 
 
 Bengal, Bay of. See Bay. 
 
 Bengal Coal Company, 244; Sub-metamorphic 
 rocks of Bengal, 245 ; Bengal storms in 1876, 
 288 ; storm warnings, 292 j Bengal, General 
 Cunningham in, 333 ; history of, 334 (note) ; 
 list of monuments in, 345. 
 
 Bengali architecture, 322. 
 b 2 
 
388 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tier Singh, 152. 
 
 Berars, 231 ; mouunicnt.s in, 342, .'J45. 
 
 Berid dynasty, 350. 
 
 Betiya, 332. 
 
 Betul district, coal in, 269. 
 
 Beverley, Air., 53; his death, 55. 
 
 Beypur, 4, 5, 9, 27, 31, 197, 206. 
 
 Beyt harbour (Bavoda State), 20. 
 
 Bhadresi-ar, 350. 
 
 Bhagirathi valley, 51, 334. 
 
 Bliaja, 352. 
 
 Bhamo, 25, 166, 168, 169, 170, 299. 
 
 Bhandak, Buddhist caves at, 329. 
 
 Bharhut, stupa of, 329 and (note), 337 j General 
 Cunningham on, 338 ; 370. 
 
 Bhaunagar, 24, 26, 34, 201, 206, 256 ; Bhaunagar 
 
 observatory, 307. 
 Bhau Daji, 367. 
 
 Bhavaiieswar temples in Orissa, 327. 
 Bhil tribes, 69, 71, 256. 
 Bhiisa topes. General Cunningham on, 337. 
 Bhitargaon, 337. 
 
 Bhopal and Malwa survey, 72, 87. 
 Bhore Ghat, 200. 
 Bhoteas, 49. 
 BhuilaTal, 33], 340. 
 Bhuj, 350. 
 
 Bhutan, 151, 162; Bhutan Duars, 265. 
 Bililiograpliy of Indian geology, 276, 280. 
 Bidar, 60, 350. 
 Biddulph, General, 129. 
 Biddulph, Major, threatened by Gilgit tribes, 144; 
 
 150. 
 Bijapur, 322, 355, ib. (note) ; Hart's illustrations 
 
 of the principal Muhaminadan buildings of, 360. 
 Bijayanagar, 343, 359, 363. 
 Bikanir, 80, 8! ; Mr. Oldham in Bikanir, 269. 
 Bilaspur district survey, 120. 
 Bilhari, 329. 
 Bilssr, 330, 337. 
 Bimlipatam. 4. 
 Birbhum, 245. 
 Birjand, 174, 177. 
 Birmal hills, 147. 
 Bizoti valley, 149. 
 Black Mountain Expedition, 150, 151. 
 
 Black, Mr. P. C, C.E., 330, ib. (note), 343, ib. 
 
 (note). 
 Blanford, Mr. H. F., F.B.S.. 12; makes tour of 
 
 meteorological inspection, 283 ; retirement of 
 
 and services, 308. 
 
 Blanford. Mr. W. T., pas.nm through Chapter 
 
 XII. His retirement and services, 259. 
 Bodawpara. King, 364. 
 Bogle, Jlr. G., 374. 
 Bogosta valley, 1 50. 
 Bohkara, 182. 
 Bolan pass, 94, 253 ; Bolan route, 98. 
 
 Bolavum, 212, 213. 
 
 Bologna Geological Congress, 255, 276. 
 
 Bolst, Mr. H. J., 69. 
 
 Bombay, Marine, 1; 4, 10, 11; becomes head- 
 quarters of marine survey, 18 ; Bombay coast 
 wants charting, 35 ; Bombay revenue survey, 
 86, 122, 123 ; Botnhay suburbs survey, 125 ; 
 Bombay forest surveys, 89, 126; 197, 200, 201 ; 
 mean sea level at, 202 ; 212, 213, 215 ; Bombay 
 Presidency (in Indian atlas), 231 ; Bombay 
 and Baroda Railway, floods on, 297 ; Bombay- 
 storm warnings, 292, 304 ; Bombay Chamber 
 of Commerce, 304 ; Bombay Geographical 
 Society, 318 ; Bombay meteorological obser- 
 vations. See Colaba ; Bomb.ay Bresidenoy, 
 monuments in, 341, 345; rock out temples in, 
 346 ; Cave Temple Commission, 367 ; Bombay 
 Asiatic Society, 368. 
 
 Boram Deo, temples at, 332, 335. 
 Borddhonkuti, 334 (note). 
 Bori valley, 97, 147. 
 
 Boring operations. Question of conduct of, 275. 
 Bose, Mr., 264, 272, 274, 325 (note). 
 Botanical investigations, Afghan Boundary Com- 
 mission, 194. 
 Boury, M. (French missionary), 155. 
 Boutflower, Mr. W. N., 311. 
 "Bozdar," The, 146, 148. 
 Brachiopoda of Salt Range, 259, 263. 
 Brahmakund, 155. 
 
 Brahmaputra river, 52. See also Sanpo. 
 Brahmaputra (Cooper's), 155. 
 Brahni mountain system, 98. 
 Brahuik range, 254. 
 Brandis, Sir D., 294. 
 Branfill, Colonel, 5, 46,47, 56, 57, 219. 
 
 Brent, li.N., Captain H. W., 12; report on 
 Marine Survey Department, 12 ; detailed 
 recommendations by, 13; his scheme approved 
 of by Government of India, 15. 
 
 Brett, Lieutenant, 367. 
 
 Brindaban, 344 and (note). 
 
 Brinjaris, The, 248. 
 
 British Association, 197, 203 (also note). 
 
 British Museum, 368. 
 
 Broach, 34, 340 (note), 355, 362. 
 
 Buchanan, Francis, 367. 
 
 Buckingham, Duke of, Governor of Madras, 358. 
 
 Budaun revenue survey, 108 ; Muhammadan 
 masjids at Budaun, 330, 340. 
 
 Buddha, sites connected with career of, 330, 331, 
 
 332, 335. 
 
 Buddha Gaya, 326, 328, 329 and (note), 331, 
 
 333, 335. 
 
 Buddhist remains in Kabul valley, 134; also 
 near junction of Logar, 134 j in Afghan 
 Turkistan, 190 ; 321, 322 ; at Ali Masjid, 333 ; 
 in Central India, 337 ; Buddhist monasteries, 
 336, 349 ; Buddhist cave temples, 352 ; remains 
 in Southern India, 359. 
 
 Budi, 161. 
 
 Buffalo, meeting of geologists at, 255. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 389 
 
 Bugti country, 95, 97, 256 
 
 Buhler, Professor G., C.I.E., 354, 372. 
 
 Bulandshahr district survey, 108. 
 
 Bunji, 142. 
 
 Bur^ress, Dr. James, C.I.E., paMm Chapter XV. 
 His retirement and services, 361. 
 
 Burma, ports of, Commander Taylor's tour of 
 inspection of, 1 ; 20; Burma coast, 36 ; triangu- 
 latlon in, 66; 165, 166; reconnaissances in 
 Upper, 167; 231; maps of, 226; coal-fields in 
 Upper Burma, 273 ; oil fields in Upper Burma, 
 276 j mineral resources of Upper Burma, 278, 
 279 ; observatories in Burma, 299, 3Ci9 ; 
 archaeological research in Burma, 363 ; Burma, 
 Chief Commissioner of, 364. 
 
 Burmans as surveyors, 116. 
 
 Burn, Messrs., & Co., 277. 
 
 Burnes, Sir A., 190. 
 
 Burraballung river, 19. 
 
 Burrard, Lieutenant S. G., 214, 215. 
 
 Burt, Lieutenant, 321. 
 
 Bushire, 208. 
 
 Bustar, 240, 256. 
 
 Butkak, 140. 
 
 Buxa Duar, 163. 
 
 Byans valley, 48, 49. 
 
 Bythell, Lieutenant, 170. 
 
 By turnee river, survey of portion of, 19. 
 
 c. 
 
 Cachar survey, 116 ; Cachar earthquake, 257. 
 
 Cadastral surveys, nature of 100, 102. 
 
 Cadell, Colonel, in the Andamans, 31. 
 
 Cairo, Map of, 224. 
 
 Calcutta, head-quarters of marine survey moved 
 from Calcutta to Bombay, 18 ; Calcutta survey, 
 121 122; 204,206,213; Calcutta Exhibition, 
 266'; Calcutta observatory (see oZiO Alipore), 
 285, 288, 289, 306 ; Calcutta weather reports, 
 298'; Calcutta, Cutch earthquake felt up to, 349. 
 
 Calicut, 4, 5, 16,31,274. 
 
 Calingapatam, 4, 21. 
 
 Callian Junction, 200. 
 
 Cambay, Gulf of, wrecks in and lighting of, 7 ; 
 surveys in, 27, 34. 
 
 Cambay, Inscriptions from, 346 (note) ; 355. 
 
 Camels, Wild, 154. 
 
 Campbell, Colonel W. M., 129, 211, 213, 219. 
 
 Canadian tides, 200. 
 
 Canara. See Kanara. 
 
 Caunanur, 4, 31, 32. 
 
 Canning, Earl, 62, 237, 325, 337 ; minute on an 
 archseological survey, 326 (note). 
 
 Cape Kegrais, 36, 53. 
 
 Carew, I.N., Captain G. O'li., 8. 
 
 Carey, Mr. A. 1)., 157. 
 
 Carlleyle, Mr. A. C, passim Chapter XV. 
 
 Carnac, General J., 367. 
 
 Carnatio, the, 46 ; drought in, 300. 
 
 Carpenter, Commander Alfred, B.N'., assumes di- 
 rection of marine survey in place of Commander 
 Dawson, 22 ; experience ou board H.M.S. 
 " Challenger," 23 ; Irawadi survey party formed 
 under, 24 ; pilots flotilla up to Bhamo, 25 ; 
 paper ou mean temperature of Bay of Bengal 
 by, 28 ; 30, 33 ; list of marine survey require- 
 ments drawn up by, 34. 
 
 Carrington, Mr. R. C, 5, 6, 1 1 ; retirement of, 13. 
 
 Carter, Captain T. T., Madras coast triangulation 
 series under direction of, 46 ; his triangulation 
 around Indus vallej', 141. 
 
 Carter, Dr., I.N., 237. 
 
 Cautley, Sir P., 236. 
 
 Cauvery (Kaveri) river, 46 ; Colonel BranfiU on 
 physiography of delta of, 46. 
 
 Cavagnari, Death of Sir L., 132. 
 
 Caves, Buddhist, ,Iaina and Brahmanical, 323 
 and passim in Chapter XV. 
 
 Cave temples of India," " The, 351, 352. 
 
 " Celerity," Indian marine steamer, ."56. 
 
 Census of 1872, 317. 
 
 Central Asia formerly supposed to originate 
 Indian summer monsoon, 290. 
 
 Central establishment for archseological sur- 
 veyors, 328. 
 
 Central India, electro-telegraphic observations in, 
 215; meteorology of, 319; General Cunning- 
 ham in, 336 (note) ; Major Keith appointed 
 Assistant Curator of Monuments for, 343 ; Dr. 
 Fiihrer's list of monuments in, 346. 
 
 Central Provinces Survey, 74; Central Provinces, 
 Rainfall in, 302 ; General Cunningham in, 329, 
 335 ; monuments in, 342 ; statistical inquiries 
 in, 314. 
 
 Ceylon, triangulation connected with Indian, 45 ; 
 204, 229, 261. 
 
 Chagsum, 165. 
 
 Chahar Aimak, 178, 179, 18;i. 
 
 Chahar-burjak, 173. 
 
 Chahardar, 180, 184. 
 
 Chaharsada, 179, 180. 
 
 Chaharshamba, 180. 
 
 Chahil Abdal, 184. 
 
 Chailya or Buddhist temple caves, 323. 
 
 Chakcharan, 179, 180. 
 
 Chakmani territory, 271 (note). 
 
 Chalapdalan, 184. 
 
 Chalukya architecture, 322, 324, 362, 363. 
 
 Chalukya dynasty, 350, 357. 
 
 Chamalang, 94. 
 
 Chamba, 295. 
 
 Chambel. See L c. 
 
 Chamberlain, Sir N., 146. 
 
 Chambers, Mr. F.,on winds of Karachi, 292 ; 304, 
 306, 307, 
 
390 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 CharubeTS, William, 321. 
 
 Chamkar monasti.Ty, 165. 
 
 Champaner, 89, 35+, 362. 
 
 Chanda fields, 247. 
 
 Chandbally, Survey of Byturiiee river up to, 10. 
 
 Cliandels of Mahoba, 337. 
 
 Chandragupta, 369. 
 
 Chandravati, ruins of, 320 (note). 
 
 Chandrehi, Brahman temples at, 331. 
 
 Chankau pass, 79. 
 
 Channer, Lieutenant A., K.N., 19, 23, 26. 
 
 Chapman, Mr. Morris, late I.N., 4, 5 ; on 
 
 Paumben channel, 6, 7, 8 ; his death, 8. 
 Chardeh plain, 135. 
 Charikar, 191,270. 
 Charsada, 336. 
 Charts, Marine, passim through Marine Survey 
 
 Chapter. 
 
 Charts of daily -weather. See Weather charts. 
 Chashma Sahz, 177. 
 Chatang La pats, 158. 
 Chattisgarh, 239, 256, 269, 273, 331, 335. 
 Chaul, 8. 
 Chazumtuka, 165. 
 Chedi, Kajas of, 332. 
 Cheduba, 20, 21, 36. 
 
 Chelonia, Kocene, from the Salt Ifenge, 273. 
 Chenab river, 239. 
 Chennell, Mr. A. W., death of, 78. 
 Cherkh graphite, 278. 
 Chesnaye, Dr. G. E., 311. 
 Chetar-g, 151, 156, 160, 165. 
 Chew, Mr. R., 83. 
 
 Chezarla, Buddhist cliaitya discovered at, 359. 
 Chiamdo Chu (Upper Mekong), 155. 
 Chiamo Golok robbers, 153, 157. 
 Chiggateri, 276. 
 Chikalwohol, 200. 
 Chilas, 144, 145. 
 Childers, Professor, 363. 
 Chiling Shahi Mardan hill, 184. 
 Chilianwala, battle of, 251, 337. 
 Chin country, 169. 
 Chiu-Lu.shai Expedition, 277. 
 China Bakir river, 21. 
 China, Mound at, 333. 
 Chinapati, 333. 
 Chindwara district, 269, 274. 
 Chindwin valley, 167, 168, 957, 258. 
 Chinese coins, 173. 
 Chingurak range, 178. 
 Chingiz Khan, 186, 187. 
 Chiugmis, 163, 164. 
 Chiras, 180. 
 Chitlac island, 29. 
 
 ChittagoDg (Karnaphuli river), 3, 19 ; laud survey 
 of, 121, 206 ; Chittagong observatory, 285. 
 
 Chitral, 150, 194, 231, 270, 366. 
 
 Chloromelanite, 271 (note). 
 
 Chobash, 187. 
 
 Choi in Afghan Turki.stan, 177. 
 
 Chota Nagpur, Western, coal-fields, 274 ; gcild 
 
 iu Chota Nagpur, 277 ; meteorology of Chota 
 
 Nagpur, 309. 
 Chotiali, 92, 129. 
 Christmas island, 27. 
 Chrysolite from Kandahar, 255. 
 Chugani valley, 130. 
 Chumbi valley, 151, 153, 160, 163. 
 Cintra (Portugal), Sanskrit inscription at, 342. 
 " Civilisations de I'lnde, Les," Dr. Le Bon on, 
 
 362. 
 Clarke, Colonel, R.B., C.B., 44, 63. 
 Clarke, Mr. L. H., 234. 
 Classification of observatories, 296, 304. 
 Claudius, Mr., 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 135, 148. 
 "Clyde," I.G.S.S., 1. 
 Coal, 236 ani passim through Geological chapter. 
 
 See under name of particular coal-field. 
 Coard, Mr. C. W., 226, 230. 
 Cochin, 4, 5, 9 ; surveyed in 1855 by Taylor, 
 
 16 ; surveyed by Dawson, 20 ; 206, 274, 
 
 Coco islands, 9, 33, 37 ; observatory at Coco 
 islands, 300. 
 
 Coconada, 10; survey of Coconada, 16; 
 206. 
 
 19, 
 
 Coddington, Iiieutenant-Colonel P., 105. 
 Coinage among ancient Hindus, 333. 
 
 Coins of Arakan, Pegu, and B.urma, Lieutenant- 
 General Sir A. P. Phayre on, 372 ; coins of 
 Southern India, Sir W. Elliot on, 372 (note). 
 
 Colaba observatory, 312; and passim through 
 
 Meteorological chapter. 
 Colachel, 4. 
 Cole, Major H. H., P.E., 327, 342, 343, 344; 
 
 illustrations of ancient monuments by, ib. 
 
 (note). 
 Colebrooke, II., Mr., 321. 
 
 Coleroon, Triangulation carried into valley of, 46. 
 Collotype process, 226. 
 Colombo, 19, 206, 207. 
 Comedarum, Vallis, 193 (note). 
 Committee on Marine Survey Department, 12 ; 
 
 on equipment of field survey party, 137. 
 
 Comorin, Cape, 35, 45, 47, 60, 202. 
 
 Congress, Geographical, at Venice, 88, 201 ; 
 do. at Paris, 238 ; Geological Congresses at 
 Buffalo, Paris, and Bologna, 255, 276. See also 
 Paris and Venice. 
 
 Conjiveram archa;ological survey, 
 362. 
 
 report on. 
 
 Couolly, Arthur, 1 79. 
 
 Conservation of monuments, 320 (note), 327 
 344. ' 
 
 Contour map of Simla, 80 ; of India, 225. 
 Cuoke, Mr. G. H., 110. 
 Cooke, Messrs., and Sons, 211. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 391 
 
 Coombs, Lieutenant W. H., commences survey of 
 Rangoon, 1 1 ; surveying work done by boat 
 party in charj^e of, 19 ; surveys entrance to 
 Chittagong river, 20 ; surveys Akyab, 20, 27. 
 
 Copping, Mr. G. E., 96. ^ 
 
 Corkery, Mr., 93, 94. 
 
 " Coronation," gunboat, 2. 
 
 Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, 338, 369, 370 
 (,note). 
 
 Cost of Revenue Surveys, 103. 
 
 Cotta point surveyed, 27. 
 
 Court, General, 333. 
 
 Cousens, Mr. H., 320 (note), 342, 354, 355, 362. 
 
 Cowan, Major S. H., 110, 115, 121. 
 
 Coxen, Mr., 93, 94. 
 
 Crawley Boevey, Mr., Bo. C.S., 354. 
 
 Cretaceous, Upper, fauna of Western India, 270. 
 
 Crops, map showing Indian, 226. 
 
 Cruz Milagre, 5. 
 
 Cuddalore, 249. 
 
 Cuddapah district, 248. 
 
 Cumbum valley, 85. 
 
 Cunningham, General Sir A., K.C.I.E., passim 
 Chapter XV. ; his services, 337. 
 
 Curator of Ancient Monuments in India, Captain 
 Cole appointed, 343. 
 
 Gushing, Mr. Thos., F.K.A.S., 216. 
 
 Cutch.gulf of, 30, 34; 8.5, 197, 200, 231,263,347, 
 349. 
 
 Cutch Mandvi, 7. 
 
 Cuttack conference, 115; Cuttack cadiistral sur- 
 vey, 116; 256, 285,331. 
 
 Cyclones, 201, 206 ; formation of cyclones, 287 ; 
 Mr. J. Eliot on cyclones, 290, 294, 2!i9 ; cj clone 
 at Gujrat, 296 ; cyclone at False point, 299 ; 
 cyclone at Balasore, 303 ; cyclone memoirs, 
 303, 306 ; cyclones in Bay of Bengal, 306, 
 310. 
 
 Cyrus, 184. 
 
 D. 
 
 D'Arrest, Professor, 312. 
 
 Daba Jong, 152. 
 
 Dabhoi, 324, 350, 354. 
 
 Dabhol (Anjanwil) river, 8. 
 
 Dacoits in Deecan, 124. 
 
 DahanaDoab, 183. 
 
 Dahana Iskar coal-field, 278. 
 
 Dahgoba in Buddhist architecture, 323. 
 
 Daily weather charts, 288, 298, 303, 304. 
 
 Balgleish, Mr., 157. 
 
 Baling hills, 160. 
 
 Dallas, Mr. "W. L., 292, 295, 297, 300, 302, 307, 
 
 311. 
 Daltonganj coal-field, 244. 
 Damaun, 200. 
 
 Damerchela, 248. 
 
 Dangs Forest survey, 87, 88, 89. 
 
 Daniel, T. and AV., 321. 
 
 Dantidurga, 354. 
 
 Dauu, examination required of reef near, 35. 
 
 D'Anville, 159. 
 
 Daphla hills, 78, 260, 265. 
 
 Dara Imam, 143. 
 
 Dara-i-Khargosh, 179 aud (note). 
 
 Dara-i-Nur, valley of, 134. 
 
 Dara Yusuf, 189. 
 
 Dara-i-Ziudan, 190. 
 
 Darangiri coal-field, 356. 
 
 Darchendo, 154, 156. 
 
 Dardistan, survey of, 14.). 
 
 Darej^, 142, 145. 
 
 Dargi valley, 92. 
 
 Darjeeling, survey, 126, 127; 151, 153, 15.5, 
 158, 160, 164. 
 
 Darkot valley, 143 ; Darkot pass, 1 44. 
 
 Danuarokht river, 193. 
 
 Darwaz, 143, 193. 
 
 Darwin, Professor G. H., 203, 207, 208. 
 
 Dasa Avatara inscriptions, 354. 
 
 Datum line for coast soundings, 25, 207. 
 
 Daud Shah, 330. 
 
 Daugam, 164. 
 
 Daulatyar, 180, 182, 183, 184. 
 
 Davy, Major, 318. 
 
 Dawar Dom, 146. 
 
 Dawson, Lieutenant L. S., ll.N., appoiuted to the 
 command of surveying steamer " Investigator," 
 1 1 ; succeeds Commander Taylor in the charge 
 of marine surveys, 15; former experience, IS 
 (note) ; commences sui-vey Back bay, 19 ; 
 resumes charge of " Investigator," 20. 
 
 Dearah survey in Faridpur and Bakarganj, 120. 
 
 Deb Kaja of Bhutan, 163. 
 
 Deb Singh, 162. 
 
 Deccau Company, Mr. Hughes (geologist) with 
 272. 
 
 Deecan survey, 86 ; report on Deecan, 124 ; 
 Deecan trap, 236, 241 ; Deecan meteorolocy, 
 309; 351. 
 
 Defiles in Afghanistan, 179, 181. 
 
 De Haviland, Colonel, 203. 
 
 Dehgans, 135. 
 
 Deh-i-Sabz nmge, 134. 
 
 Dehing basin, Sir. La Touche in, 260, 267. 
 
 Dehra Dun, trigonometrical branch at, 57, 226 ; 
 
 forest school in Dehra Dun, 298. 
 Delhi, 322, 326, 328, 338; Muhammadau kings 
 
 of, 336 ; monument's at, 343 ; ib. (note), 344. 
 Deogarh, 330, 337. 
 De Pree, Colonel G. C, succeeds Colonel AValker 
 
 as Surveyor-General of India, 45 ; services and 
 
 death, 45, 80. 
 Dera Ismail Khan revenue survey, 104, 105. 
 Derajat, the, 95. 
 Deronta, 134. 
 
392 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 DfSgodius, I'ather, 171. 
 
 Dev Hi.ssar, 180. 
 
 Devi river, ehartin" of mouth of, .33. 
 
 Dewaugiri, 163. 
 
 Dhamuar caves, 327. 
 
 Uhang.'i Forest survey. See Dangs. 
 
 Dharasinva, Jaina caves at, 323. 
 
 Dharraa Eaja of Bhutan, 163. 
 
 Bharma valley, 49. 
 
 Dharmapala, Prince, 333. 
 
 Dharwar, 382 ; Dharwar district, Chalukyan 
 
 temples in, 354 ; Meadows Taylor on, 360. 
 Dharwar rocks, 266, 273, 278. 
 Dhauli, 331, 348 (note); Dhauli inscriptions 
 
 of Asoka, 358. 
 Dholka, 3-16 (note), 354, 362. 
 Dhumra river, survey of entrance to, 19; 
 
 alterations found in, 22, 23. 
 Diamond field atWa.ljra Kanir, 266. 
 Diamond harbour, 201, 207. 
 Diamond island, 2, 208. 
 Dihong river, the, 52 ; survey of part of, 76. 
 Di-chu, 154 
 Dickson, Lieutenant, rough chart of harbour of 
 
 Port Blair made by, 30. 
 Differential longitudes, measurement of, 209, 210, 
 
 211. 
 
 Dihong river, the, 52, 1G4, 165. 
 Diligent straits surveyed, 33. 
 Digaru river, 76. 
 DiUrang river, 76. 
 Diphu river, 76. 
 Dir, 160. 
 
 Disa cantonment survey, 89 ; 213 ; Di.sa 
 observatory, 285. 
 
 Diu Head, 34. 
 Dividing machine, 219. 
 Dixon, M.N.I., Lieiit.-Colonel, 36«. 
 Doab, Central, 331. 
 Doab -i-Mekhyari, 278. 
 Doaba dara river, 143. 
 Dogras, invasion of Hundes by, 50. 
 Dolmens in Western India, 323. 
 Dondra head (Ceylon), 20. 
 Dongtse, 15?. 
 Donkia-La pass, 127, 15°. 
 Dora pass, 150. 
 Dori river, 136. 
 Doshakh, 195. 
 Douglas, Captain, 206. 
 Double island lighthouse, 2. 
 
 Dowdeswell island, Mr. J. P. Falle surveys 
 portion of, 11, 
 
 " Draens," 47. 
 
 Dragon lake, 193 (note). 
 
 Dras, mountains of, 246. 
 
 Dravidiaii architecture, 32.1, 324. 
 
 Droughts, periodicity of, 287, 300. 
 
 Du Halde, 159. 
 
 Dubkuod, Jain temple of, 336. 
 
 Dublat, 207. 
 
 Dumar Lena, 347. 
 
 Duncan, Professor Martin, 259, 266, 268, 270. 
 
 Durgavati, the Hindu princess, 329. 
 
 Dwarka point, 34. 
 
 B. 
 
 Earth, rigidity of, 203 ; investigation of figure of, 
 
 44, 210. 
 Earthquake at Lakpat, 86 ; earthi|uake in Bay of 
 
 Bengal, 204 ; in Cachar, 257 ; catalogue of, 
 
 258 (note), 262 ; in Bengal, 268 ; in Kashmir, 
 
 208 ; in Cutch in 1819, 349. 
 Eastern frontier triangulation series, 45, 46 ; 
 
 chains projected from, 53; extension of, 55; 
 
 two parties engaged in completion of series, 
 
 56, 57. 
 Eastern Ghats, 240. 
 Eastwick, Mr., 318. 
 Eccles, Mr., 214. 
 Echinoidea of Sind, 259, 268 ; Echinoidea of 
 
 Makran series of Baluchistan and Persian Gulf 
 
 coasts, 270. 
 Edgar, Sir. .J. W., 127. 
 
 Edicts of Asoka. See Asoka's inscriptions. 
 Eggeling, Professor J., 372. 
 Egypt, maps of, 224. 
 Eichens and Hardy, Messrs., 211. 
 Eimaks, 179 (note). 
 Electrotyping process of reproducing atlas sheets, 
 
 &c., 225, 229. 
 Elephant islands, 27. 
 Elephant point, 36 ; tide gauges at, 57, 201, 20+, 
 
 207. 
 Eltphanta, 323, 346 (note), 847, 353, 354 ; 
 
 Dr. Burgess's monograph on, 361. 
 Elias, Mr. Ney, C.T.E., 192, 193, 194. 
 Eliot, Mr. ,T., report on Vizagapatam and 
 
 Bakarganj cyclone, 287; 290,293; on storms, 
 
 297 ; his proposals f'oi more efficient working of 
 
 Meteorological Department, 303; 311. 
 Elliot, Sir Walter, 321, 358 (note), 367. 
 Ellobius fuscicapillus, 195. 
 
 " Elphinstone," Honourable East India Company's 
 ship, 15. 
 
 Elura, 323, 346 (note), 351, 353. 
 
 Emigration, Map of India showing, 226. 
 
 lllnciara rocks, 35. 
 
 Eudawgyi Lake, 169. 
 
 Engraving Branch, Surveyor-General's Office, 
 Calcutta, 222, 230. 
 
 Epigrapliiea Indica and Archaiological Survey 
 
 Kecord, 371. 
 Eiiuatoreal telescope, 216. 
 
 Equipment necessary for field survey party, 137. 
 Eran, 337. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 393 
 
 Erinpura, 250. 
 
 Errors ia triangulatiou, Process of correctiug, 42. 
 
 Ersari Turcomaus, 181, 187. 
 
 Erskine, W., 354. 
 
 Eruption at Ej-akatoa, 204, 205. 
 
 Etah district survey, 108. 
 
 Ethersey (late I.N.), Commander, survey of pass 
 
 between India and Ceylou by, 4 ; Jafrabad 
 
 surveyed by, 34. 
 Everest, Colonel, 58, 210. 
 Ewing, Mr., on Assam frontier, 79. 
 
 F. 
 
 Ealle, Mr., commences survey Ma.^ras road- 
 stead, 2 ; surveys portion Dowdeswell island, 
 11 ; surveys of Vizagapatam and Caling- 
 apatam by boat party in charge of , 2 1 ; river 
 survey party at Pagan under, 24. 
 
 Eaida Ali, sub-surveyor, 168. 
 
 Eaizabad (Badakshan), 143, 194. 
 
 Faizabad (Oudh), 213. 
 
 Falconer, Dr., 236. 
 
 False Point, 2, 3; 4, 10, 19, 201, 204, 206, 207, 
 285. 
 
 FaHian, 326, 331,359. 
 
 Famines, in Madras and Bombay, 39, ib. (note) ; 
 periodicity of, 287 ; Famine Commission, 117, 
 291. 
 
 Farah, 183, 185. 
 
 Farah End river, 175, 176. 
 
 Faridpur, 120. 
 
 Fatebpur Sikri, 340, 344, 363. 
 
 Faults in strata, 271 (note). 
 
 Fauna of British India, 259. 
 
 Fedden, Mr. F., 168, 238, 241,256,262; death 
 of, at Vizagapatam, 272. 
 
 Feistmantel, Dr., 237 ; resignation of, 268. 
 
 Fergusson, James, passim in Chapter XV. ; his 
 death and works, 360. 
 
 "Feroze," steam frigate, 16. 
 
 Ferrier, General, 180, 183, 184, 189. 
 
 Firoz Shah, 333. 
 
 Firuzkhuis, 179, 184. 
 
 Firozepur district survey, 106, 206. 
 
 Floods and flood warnings, 297. 
 
 Fleet, C.I.E., Mr. J. F., 368, 370. 
 
 " Flora Indica," 195. 
 
 Flora of Afghanistan, 194, 195. 
 
 Flower, Professor, 166 (note). 
 
 Foote, Lieutenant H. B., 263. 
 
 Foote, Mr., 240, 256, 261, 263, 272, 276. 
 
 Forchbammer, Dr., 363 ; death of, and reports 
 by, 364. 
 
 Forecast of monsoon season, 289, 296, 298, 
 
 Forests, denudation of, in Konkan, 125. 
 
 Forest observatories, 298. 
 
 Forest surveys, 84; ia Bombay Presidency, 89, 
 90. 
 
 Forrest strait, 27. 
 
 Forster, Rt. Hon. W. E., 165. 
 
 Forsyth, Sir D., 172, 193 (note). 
 
 Fort Jamrud, 131. 
 
 Fort Stedman, 168. 
 
 Fox Talbot, Mr., 227. 
 
 French maps of Egypt, 224. 
 
 Frodsham, Messrs., 211. 
 
 Frontier, Eastern. See Eastern. 
 
 Fuhrer, Dr., his report on Sharqi remains of 
 Jaunpur, 228, 330 (note), 339 ; his list of re- 
 mains and inscriptions in N.W. Provinces and 
 Oudh, 346, 362. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. M. N., 164, 165. 
 
 G. S. S. in Nepal, 160. 
 
 Galichah, 172. 
 
 Galle, 206,207. 
 
 Gandak river, 160, 161. 
 
 Gaudamak, 135, 140. 
 
 Gangaikondapurani, Siva temple of, 46. 
 
 Ganges Dearah survey, 107. 
 
 Ganges, the source of, 51; 369; action of the 
 
 river, 271 ; course of, near Patna, 328. 
 Gangri range, 163. 
 Ganjam coast, 29, 33, 45. 
 Gantur district, 240. 
 Garbia, 49. 
 
 Garhwal, 48, 50, 273, 275. 
 Garo hiUs, coal-field in, 256 ; Mr. La Touche in, 
 
 260, 265, 269. 
 Garok, 95. 
 
 Garratt, Professor, 318. 
 Garrick, Mr., 336, 340. 
 Gartok, 51, 152. 
 Gauges, tidal, 196-208. 
 Gauhati, 75. 
 
 Gaur, 328, 329, 334, 340. 
 Gauss's method of minimum squares, 43. 
 Gaya district survej-, 114. 
 Gazetteer, Imperial, latitudes and longitudes for, 
 
 223 ; 224 and passim in Chapter XIV. 
 Geodetic observations, 209-215. 
 Geographical explorations, 128-171. 
 Geography of India, ancient, Cunningham on the, 
 
 327, 337. 
 Geological survey of India, 236-282 ; medal 
 
 awarded for exhibits at Paris Congress, 238 ; 
 
 maps of, 225 ; publications of, 237 ; geological 
 
 map of India, 226, 271 (note) ; geological 
 
 nomenclature and classification, 255 ; Geological 
 
 Congress in Bologna, 255 ; in Loudon, 276 ; 
 
 geological surveys uncompleted, 281, 282. 
 
394 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gersoppa, Falls of, 83. 
 
 Gharjistau, 179, 180 and (note). 
 
 Ghats, Eastern, 350. 
 
 Ghats, Western, 6, 82, 202 ; forest surveys on, 90. 
 
 Ghaziaband range, 254. 
 
 Ghazipur district survey, 108 ; Ghazipur, 332. 
 
 Ghazkol lake, 143. 
 
 Ghazni, 133, 140, 149 ; ilr. Grieshach at, 278. 
 
 Ghorband, 190, 191, 192. 
 
 Ghori, 182. 
 
 Ghur, 184, 185. 
 
 Ghur Mushkau, 186. 
 
 Giama >fu Chu river, 155, 156. 
 
 Giangtse Jong, 151, 153. 
 
 Gibbs, Lieutenant J. E., 87. 
 
 Gibbs, Mr. J., 362. 
 
 Gibson, Mr. A. J., 104. 
 
 Gilchrist, Dr. J., 318. 
 
 Giles, Ur. G. M., deep-sea trawling, by, 23 ; 
 
 deputed to serve with Chitral and Kafiristan 
 
 Mission, 28 ; report on results of deep-sea 
 
 dredging coasts, by, 31, 270. 
 Gilgit and river, 141, 142, 144, 145, 148, 167, 194, 
 
 231, 270. 
 Gill, Captain W'., E.E., 93. 
 Gill Memorial Medal awarded to Mr. Ogle, 170. 
 Gilliland, Mr. J. H., 311. 
 Gimuchen, 165. 
 Ginja hill, 337. 
 Girdlestone, Mr. F. B., 374. 
 Girishk, 129, 136, 137, 185. 
 Girnar, 322, 346 (note), 347. 
 Girnar mountain, 250, .349. 
 Glaciation, Himalayan, 271 (note). 
 Gladwin, Prancis, 321. 
 Gneiss, Himalayan, 239, 246, 260. 
 Goa, 2 ; seaboard coasts and islands examined by 
 
 Lieutenant Petley, 10. 
 Goalpara, observations at, 285, 293. 
 Goapnath, 34. 
 God-i-Zirreh, 173, 175. 
 Godavari, 125, 239, 247, 350. 
 Godwin-Austin, Colonel, 165, 260, 265. 
 Gogha, 34. 
 Golcondii range, 247. 
 Gold near Kandahar, 254 ; in Hazarah country, 
 
 255 ; in Chota Nagpur, 277 ; in Mysore 
 
 (Mr. Eoote's report), 272, 273 ; gold tract in 
 
 Chiggateri, 276 ; in Sonapet, 277. 
 
 Goldsmid, Major-General Sir F., 172. 
 Gonds, country of, 248, 329, 332. 
 
 Gondwana deposits, the, 236, 237, 240, 245, 
 247,250; Gondwana rocks in Australia, 266; 
 Dr. Feistmantel on Gondwana flora, 268. 
 
 Gopalpur, 4, 33. 
 
 Gopurams, or temples, in Southern ludia, 47. 
 Gor, 145. 
 
 Gorakhpur district survey, 112; Gorakhpur, 331, 
 332. 
 
 Gordon, General, in Waziri country, 91, 146. 
 
 Gordon, Mr. R., 169 (note). 
 
 Gore, Major St. G. 0., 87 ; survey of the Pi.shin 
 
 valley by, 129 ; advances from Kandahar, 134 ; 
 
 in Southern Afghanistan, 136 ; accompanies 
 
 Sir D. Stewart, 136; 172, 177, 183, 235. 
 Gosalpur manganese ores, 274. 
 Goteik, 167. 
 
 Gour, ruins of, 320 (note) ; see also under Gaur. 
 Grant, Mr. Charles, 320 (note). 
 Grant Duff, lit. Hon. Sir M. E., 343, 358, 376. 
 Granville, Lord, 224. 
 Grffico-Baktriau sculptures, 344. 
 Great Arc series, 43. 
 Greek coins and ornaments in Afghan Turkistan, 
 
 188 ; in Helmand valley, 173. 
 Gre enough, Mr., 237. 
 Greek alphabet, I'emains of, in India, 348. 
 " Gridiron " system of triangulation, 59. 
 Grieshach, Mr. C. L., 178, 181, 186, 247, 253, 
 
 254, 257, 260, 264, 269, 272, 278, 280. 
 Griffiths, Dr. W., 140. 
 Griffiths, Major, prisoner in Afghan War in 1842, 
 
 131. 
 Griffiths, Mr. .7. (Bombay School of Art), 356. 
 Grodekoff, Colonel, 179 (note). 
 Growse, F. S., Mr., B.C.S., CLE., 344 (note). 
 Guedeonoff, Captain, 1 74. 
 Guhjal, Little, 144. 
 Gujrat, 86, 89, 90, 231,, 322, 360 ; Gujrat cyclone, 
 
 296 ; architecture and']scenery in, .^46 (note) ; 
 
 battle of, 337 ; Chandravati, ancient capital of, 
 
 320 (note) ; Dr. Burgess in, 350 ; Muhamma- 
 
 dan architecture in, 354 ; monuments in, 341 ; 
 
 Mr. Cousens in, 355 ; >forthern, 362. 
 GuHstan, 96. 
 Gulran, 178. 
 
 Gumal pass, 92, 98; Gumal valley, 146, 147, 
 
 149. 
 Gumti river, 339. 
 Gund river, 193. 
 
 Gunn, Lieutenant G. S., E.N., 33. 
 Gurdaspur, 106. 
 
 Gupta architecture, 330 ; Gupta dynasty, 347 ; 
 
 (jupta inscription, 348 ; Gupta coins, ib. (note) ; 
 
 Gupta kings, 370; Gupta kings, temples of, 
 
 337. 
 Gurgi, ancient city of, 336. 
 Guz river, 192. 
 Gwal valley, 97. 
 Gyala Sindong, 164, 165. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hacket, Mr., 240, 243, 256, 266, 269, 272, 273 ; 
 
 his retirement, 274. 
 Hasniatite in Sandur hills, 266, 276. 
 Haft Kotal pass, 135. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 395 
 
 Haibak, 174, 182, 189, 190. 
 
 Haidarabad assigned districts, list of monumeuts 
 
 in, 345. 
 Haidarabad Ciroars, maps of, 378 ; Haidarabad, 
 
 survey of portion of, 90,423, 124; 212,213, 
 
 231; rainfall stations in Haidarabad, 291; 
 
 Dr. Burgess's, archasological tour in, 350. 
 Haig, General C. T., 86, 87, 88, 214, 224. 
 " Hakim, The," 149. 
 Halhed, Mr., 318. 
 Hallabid temple, 322. 
 Hami, 158. 
 
 Hammond, Nav. Lieut., R.lf , 2, 3, 5. 
 Hampe, 359, 362. 
 Hamra pass, 92. 
 
 Hamuns (Lora and Helmuud), 173, 175. 
 Hangrang, 253. 
 Hanna pass, 92. 
 Hari Rud, river aud valley, 174, 176, 177, 178, 
 
 182, 183, 184, 185, 195. 
 Harischandragad, 353. 
 Harman, Lieutenant, 51, 126; survey of Sikkim 
 
 by, 126, 127 ; death of, 127 ; 164. 
 Harmonic analysis of tidal observation, 197, 198, 
 
 et seq. 
 Harnai, valley and route, 95, 96, 98 ; 279. 
 Hartingtou, Lord, 118, 358. 
 Harut-Rud river, 195. 
 Hasan Khan, 336. 
 Hassan Khels, 104. 
 Hastings, Warren, 367, 376. 
 " Havildar," The, 143. 
 Hazara (in Afghanistan) country and people. 
 
 Captain Leach's account of, 137 and Tnote) ; 
 
 178, 185. 
 Hazara (North-west frontier), 246. 
 Hazarajat, The (Afghanistan), 186. 
 Hazaribagh, 213, 245, 288. 
 Hazrat Pandua, 334. 
 
 Headquarters of Survey Department, 221-235. 
 Hearsey, Mr., 152. 
 
 Heaviside, Colonel W. J., 129, 135, 214. 
 Heights of tides, 198, 199, et seq. 
 Heights of various places in Afghanistan, 140. 
 Helby, Lieutenant E., R.N., boat party in charge 
 
 of, 23 ; completes survey of approaches to 
 
 Bhavnagar, 26 ; completes survey of Beypore 
 
 and Calicut, 31. 
 Heliogravure process, 223, 225, 226, 227. 
 Helmand river, 136, 172, 173, 175, 176, 183, 
 
 185, 195, 254. 
 Hemadpanti temples, 324, 325. 
 Hennessey, Mr. J. B. N., 57 ; his report on 
 
 A— k's journey, 156, 232. 
 Henzada district, 364. 
 Herat, 175, 176, 180, 182, 183, 185, 187. 
 Herat valley, geology of, 269. 
 Herakles, Statue of, 335. 
 Herschel, Sir J., 289. 
 Herschel, Colonel, 211, 233. 
 
 Heyshara, Mr. W., 122. 
 
 Hilly cape, 5. 
 
 Hill, K.E., Major J., triangulatiou by, 53, 54; 
 completes triangles between Tavoy and base- 
 line, 55 ; 171. 
 
 Hill etching on copper plates, 222. 
 
 Hill, Mr. S. A., 293, 301, 311. 
 
 Himachal mountains, 152. 
 
 Himalayan States Survey, 99 ; Himalaya 
 mountains, 160; (^also note), 161, 162, 
 190 ; geology of Himalaya mountains, 260 ; 
 Mr. Oldham on Himalaya mountains, 264 ; 
 glaciation in, 271 (note) ; Himalaya compared 
 geologically with the Alps, 271 ; sub-Hima- 
 layan rocks- 271 (note) ; geology of Himalayas, 
 275, 280; meteorology of N.W. Himalaya, 
 293 ; snows of Himalaya meteorologically con- 
 sidered, 293, 295, 296, 297, 303, 310. 
 
 Himalayas, Lower, 267, 273, 275, 277. 
 
 Hindu architecture, 325. 
 
 Hindu Kush, 143, 144, 1.50, 177, 182, 190, 191 : 
 geology of, 270 j 366. 
 
 Hinze basin (on Burmese coast), 26. 
 
 Hira Lai (geological sub-assistant), 253, 273, 
 274. 
 
 Hira Sing, 94, 177, 179, 180, 191. 
 
 Hisarak valley, 135. 
 
 Hissar, district survey, 105 ; Mr. liodgers in, 340. 
 
 HoangHo, 154. 
 
 Hobday, Major, 30, 68, 88, 135, 166,167, 168, 
 169, 170. 
 
 Hoboken, 234. 
 
 Hodgson, Captain, description of Nilang valley 
 by, 51. 
 
 Hodgson, Mr. B. H., 321. 
 
 Hoernle, Dr. A. E. R., 325 (note). 
 
 Hoiduthara, 153. 
 
 Holdich, Colonel, in Kohat, 91, 92, 129 ; accom- 
 panies General Bright's column to Kabul, 133 ; 
 traverses Tal-Chotiali route, 136 ; member of 
 committee on survey equipment, 137 ; in Zhob 
 valley, 1 47 ; called to join Afghan Boundary 
 Commission, 147; with Takht-i-Sulimau Ex- 
 pedition, 148; 159, 172, 177, 183, 190, 235. 
 
 Holt, Mr. J. R., 311. 
 Homotaxis, Geological, 265. 
 Hong Kong, 200. 
 Hooker, Sir J., 195. 
 Hope, Sir Theodore C, 368. 
 Horses, Wild, 153. 
 Hoshiarpur, 106. 
 Hot springs in India, 258. 
 Hourly meteorological observations, 306. 
 Hubli-Marmagao, proposed railway, 10. 
 Hue, Abbe, 156. 
 
 Hughes, Mr., 237, 272, 273, 276, 278. 
 Hugli river, 22, 25, 36, 121, 203, 207 ; meteo- 
 rological observations at mouth of, 296. 
 
 HukitoUa, 11 ; Hukitolla cyclone, 299. 
 Hukong valley, 79. 
 Hull, Antiquities at, 347. 
 
396 
 
 l^DEX. 
 
 Hull, Commaude-r T. A., R.N.. proposal to confer 
 post of superintendeut on, 12 ; writer of" The 
 Uiisurveyed World," 12 (note). 
 
 Hultzsch, Dr. E., 362, 371. 
 
 Human sacrifices bj' Nagas, 80. 
 
 Hundes, .50 ; invaded by Dogras, ib. ; exports 
 from, 51, l.')2, 253, 260. 
 
 Hunias (people of Hundes), description of, 51. 
 
 Hunter, Dr., 354. 
 
 Hunter, Sir W. W., 224, 287, 314; appointed 
 Director-General of Statistics, 317. 
 
 Huuza, 142, 148, 168. 
 
 Hurrichpoor, 29. 
 
 Hutar coal-field.s 244, 250. 
 
 Hutchinson, Colonel, 90, 117, 123. 
 
 Hutchinson, Mr. S. A., 304, 311. 
 
 Hwen Thsang, 193 (note), 326, 331, 3.32, 334, 
 349,359, 370. 
 
 Hydaspes, 251. 
 
 Hydrographer of the Admiralty, his relations ivith 
 surveyor in charge Marine Survey Depart- 
 ment, 14 ; 26, 32. 
 
 Hydrographic Notices, 3. 
 
 Hydroid zoophytes, description of by Surgeon 
 J. Armstrong, M.D., 9. 
 
 Hypoethral temple in Karund State, 331. 
 
 Ibrahimabad, 174, 175. 
 
 Ighiz Yar, 192, 194. 
 
 Igutpuri, 200. 
 
 Iltitmish, 330. 
 
 Imam Baksh, Bozdar, services of, 148. 
 
 Imam Sharif, 99, 150, 180, 181, 183 184, 185. 
 
 Imperial Gazetteer of India, 224, 316, 319. 
 
 " India, a Sketch of Mountains and lliver 
 Basins of," by Mr. T. Saunders, 378. 
 
 India, general maps of, 223, 231. 
 
 India Office, Geographical work of, 373. 
 
 India-prastha, 343 (note). 
 
 India, Retrospect of history of entire triangulation 
 of, 58. 
 
 Indian antiquary, 346 (note), 361, 368. 
 
 " Indian Art, Journal of," 362. 
 
 Indian atlas, 222, 229, 230, 231. 
 
 Indian atlas plates, steel facing of, 223. 
 
 Indian Eras, Book of, by General Cunningham, 
 338. 
 
 Indian coasts, Selection of localities for tide- 
 gauges, for determination of mean sea-level 
 along, 6. 
 
 Indian lighthouses and lightships, preparation 
 undertaken of complete hst of, 3 ; inspection 
 of, by Commander A. D. Taylor, 9,, 
 
 Indian Museum Notes, 228. 
 
 Indian Navy, Surveys of, 1. 
 
 '■ Indian Surveys, Memoir on," Mr. C. Mark- 
 ham's, 376. 
 
 Indor Khera, 331. 
 
 ludo-Scythian antiquities, 328, 330. 
 
 Indo-Soythian kings, 347. 
 
 Indraji, Pandit Bhagwanlal, 342. 
 
 Indus, Alexander's route along, 326. 
 
 Indus-Kishenganga watershed, 145. 
 
 Indus river, re-survey of mouths of, required, 
 34 ; Mullah's survey of, 141 ; 151, 206. 
 
 Indus series, Great, of triangulation, 94. 
 
 Indo-Colonial Exhibition, London, 225, 226. 
 
 Inland customs. Receipts from salt, 2-^2. 
 •Inle lake, 169. 
 
 Inscriptions and Coins, 366 ; also passim in 
 Chapter XV. 
 
 " Inscriptions in Dharwar and Mysore," Sir T. 
 Hope's, 368. 
 
 " Institutes of Timur," 319. 
 
 Instruments for geodetic observations, 211. 
 
 Instrument, Mathematical, office at Calcutta, 218. 
 
 Instruments, scientific, Supply of, 216-220. See 
 also Appendix. 
 
 " Investigator," surveying steamer, building of, 8 ; 
 launching of, 11; available for surveying 
 purposes, 18; list of survey work done during 
 year 1881-82 by officers of, 18 ; runs a line of 
 deep-sea soundings in Gulf of Manar, 19 ; 'pro- 
 ceeds to Chittagong, 19 ; reported by Lieutenant 
 Channer to be admirably adapted for work, 20 ; 
 proceeds to Sandoway roads and resounds the 
 whole of bank of soundings between Ealse point, 
 Palmyras point, and Eastern channel light 
 vessel, 22 ; boats of, a.=sist in surveying Pal- 
 myras shoals, 22 ; examination of lavine south 
 of the Sunderbuns made by, 23 ; leaves the 
 Sunderbuns, 23 ; returns from Western Torres 
 islands, and completes southern approach to 
 Mergui, 26 ; Hinze basin on Burmese coast 
 examined by, 26 ; surveys entrance to Beypore 
 river, 27 ; completes survey of shallows off 
 mouths of Meghna river, 28 ; takes soundings 
 west of Andamans and Nicobars, 32 ; leaves 
 Bombay harbour, 32; visits south Sentinel 
 island, 33 ; total distance run by during seven 
 years work, 33. 
 
 Inquiry into working of Marine Survey Depart- 
 ment, 11. 
 
 Irawadi river, Survey of, 24, 25, 36, 79, 155 
 (note), 156, 166, 168, 170, 203; geological 
 observatious in basin of N.W., 267. 
 
 Irak pass, 190. 
 
 Iron, Effect of, on stone knov^n to Hindus in 
 
 ancient times, 332. 
 Iron. See passim through geological chapter. 
 
 Will be found indexed under name of locality. 
 Ishkamau river, 143. 
 Ishkashim, 143, 193. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 397 
 
 Jabalpur, 213; Jabalpur fossil flora, 246; 
 Jabalpur Railway, 250 ; 2^ ; Jabalpur obser- 
 vatory, 285. 
 
 " Jabree." British Indian wooden barque, dis- 
 covery of part of wreckage of, 29 ; description 
 of track of, 30. 
 
 Jackson, Captain, 167, 168, 170. 
 
 .Jacob, Colonel, " Jeypur portfolios of architec- 
 tural details by," 363. 
 
 Jaoobabad, 47, 241. 
 
 Jade mines (Upper Burma), 169. 
 
 Jafrabad, charting required of, 34. 
 
 Jaggayyapeta stupa, 358, 360. 
 
 Jahngria, 333. 
 
 Jaina monuments, 322, 340, 346, 352. 
 
 •Taintia hills, 258,.277. 
 
 Jaipur, 306. 
 
 Jaisalmer, 238 ; fossiliferous limestones in, 269. 
 
 Jakao, 30. 
 
 Jalalabad, distance from Peshawar, 130, 133, 
 134 ; height of, 140. 
 
 Jalaudhar Doab, 333. 
 
 Jalaudhar, 106; Mr. Rodgers in, 340; monu- 
 ments in, 344. 
 
 Jalawan, 97. 
 
 Jalpaiguri, 121, 213. 
 
 Jam valley, 177. 
 
 James, Mr., 169. 
 
 Jami Masjid at Jaunpur, 339. 
 
 Jammu coal, 273, 275. 
 
 Jamnagar, 349. 
 
 Jamrud, Fort, 131. 
 
 Jamsetjee Dhunjeebhoy Wadia, master builder, 8. 
 
 Jamshidis, 178, 184. 
 
 Janssen, M., 290. 
 
 Jarrad, Nav. Lieutenant, R.TSf., despatched in 
 '• Clyde " to survey Amherst, 1 ; surveys 
 Madras, 2 ; connects, astronomically. Diamond 
 island, Rangoon, and Amherst pagoda, 2 ; in 
 charge of boat party surveying, 4; surveys 
 Baukote river mouth, 9 ; impaired health of, 
 9 ; placed at disposal of Admiralty, 11. 
 
 Jashk, 208. 
 
 Jaugada inscription, 358. 
 
 Jaunpur, survey, 1 14 ; 322, 338 ; Dr. Fiihrer's 
 
 report on Sharqi architecture of, 228, 339 ; 
 
 Masjid at, 330. 
 Jaunsar, 260. 
 Jehlam, mound at, 333. 
 Jehlam river, 251, 326. 
 Jelep La pass, 126, 153. 
 Jesalmer. See Jaisalmia. 
 Jesuit fathers at Tasienlu, 155. 
 Jeypur, 231; .leypur observatory, 299, 306. 
 Jhansi, district survey, 114, 340. 
 Jhinjuwada, 324, 350. 
 Jodhpur, 80, 81, 238, 250, 274. 
 Joga, 253. 
 
 Jogada Naugam, 348 (note). 
 
 Jogeswari, caves near, 323, 353. 
 
 Johnson, Mr. E. T. S., 108. 
 
 Johnstone, Major-General, CIS., 104. 
 
 Jones, Mr. E. J., 263, 267, 268, 272, 273, 274, 
 
 277. 
 Jones, Sir W., 318, 320, 367. 
 Jongu, 158. 
 
 Journal of Indian art, 226. 
 Jowain, 175, 176. 
 Jowaki Expedition, 104 ; Jowaki hills, Surveys 
 
 in, 148. 
 
 JugduUuk pass. Captain Strahan's survey of, 
 131. 
 
 Jumna, ancient cities near, 327. 
 
 Juuagadh, 346 (note), 347, 348, 349. 
 
 Junkseylon, Commander Taylor visits, 1 ; chart 
 
 of, 2 ; ib. (note) ; sailing directions for, 3. 
 Jimnar, 352. 
 Jyghur, port of, surveyed at request of Sir 
 
 R. Temple, 7. 
 
 K. 
 
 K p, 163, 164, 165. 
 
 Kabadian, 188. 
 
 Kabul valley column, 129 ; survey of valley, 
 
 1 33 ; triangulation connected with Kuram, 
 
 133; position of Kabul, 140; height of, 140; 
 
 183, 190; map of routes to, 223; Mr. Gries- 
 
 bach in Kabul valley, 278. 
 Kach Gandava, 94. 
 Kach valley, 97. 
 Kachi plain, 48, 94, 95, 96, 97. 
 Kachin hills, 166, 169. 
 Ka-cho, 171. 
 Kadis, 179, 180. 
 Kafiristan, 130; slavery in, 134, 135, 144; 
 
 Mr. McNair in, 149, 160 (note), 191. 
 KafirKot, 91, .333. 
 Kahalgaon, rock- cut temple of, 333. 
 Kaiani kings, 174. 
 Kailang, observatory at, 295. 
 Kailas temple at Elura, 324, 353, 354. 
 Kaisar river, 131, 186. 
 Kaisarghar peak, 147, 148. 
 Kaitu Kuram, 149. 
 Kajuri Kach, 98. 
 Kaka Khels, 149, 150. 
 Kala Chitta Pahar tract, 104. 
 Kala-i-Madre Padshah, 173. 
 Kala Fath, 174, 175. 
 Kalabagb, 252. 
 Kaladan river, 364. 
 Kaladgi, Antiquities in, 342, 346. 
 Kalagwe, 166. 
 
398 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kalaujara fort, 337. 
 Kalburga, 3-14. 
 
 Kali river, the, 161, 250. 
 
 Kaliana (.Thind State), 274. 
 
 Kalimpong, 279. 
 
 Kalsi, 326, 348 (note). 
 
 Kalyana, 350. 
 
 Kaman-i-Bihislit, 176, 177. 
 
 Kamawaram coal-field, 248. 
 
 Kameng branch of the Bhoroli, 78. 
 
 Kamvup boundary survey, 1H. 
 
 Kamtis, 75, 79. 
 
 Kan (Uijper Burma), 170. 
 
 Kanara, coast, 35; 322, 355, 367. 
 
 Kanara-ilysore frontier, 82, 83. 
 
 Kanauj, 326 (note). 
 
 Kauchanjauga mount., 127, 162, 225. 
 
 Kanchipuram, 359. 
 
 Kanchipuram, 371. 
 
 Kanchrapara station, East Bengal Railway, 121. 
 
 Kandahar, 64 ; route from, to Girishk, 129, 133 ; 
 battle of, 137 ; position of, 47, 139 ; height of, 
 140, 174, 185 ; gold near, 254 ; Kandahar 
 range, ib. 
 
 Kaudia, 141, 142. 
 
 Kandil river, 149. 
 
 Kaugra district survey, 99. 
 
 Kangra Lama La pass, 127, 151. 
 
 Kanheri, 352 ; K. inscriptions, 354. 
 
 Kauiguram, 146. 
 
 Kankali mound at Mathura, 340. 
 
 Kantee, 171. 
 
 Kanungos for Bengal, 118. 
 
 Kapilavastu, Mr. Carlleyle's supposed identifica- 
 tion of, 331, 332. 
 
 Karachi, 25, 197,201,206,213,214,215; Karachi 
 winds, 295!. 
 
 Karakoram pass, 158. 
 
 Karakul, Great and Little, lakes, 192. 
 
 Karashahr, 158. 
 
 Kara Tapa Kalan, 187. 
 
 Kara Tapa Khurd, 187. 
 
 Karatash, 192. 
 
 Kai"atoya river, 334. 
 
 Karenis as surveyors, 116 ; Karoni State, 169. 
 
 Karharhari coal-field, 240, 245, 273. 
 
 Karkatcha range, 134. 
 
 .Karleh, 61. 
 
 Karnali river, 152. 
 
 Karnul, cave explorations, 263, 268; 277. 
 
 Karta, 160. 
 
 Karwar, 2, 197,204, 274. 
 
 Karsambla, Buddhist caves at, 342, 355. 
 
 Karauli, 336. 
 
 Kasauli cantonments, 80. 
 
 Kashgar, 192 ; Kashgar and Yarkand meteor- 
 ology, 287. 
 
 Kashkar, 366. 
 
 Kashmir, 150, 154, 194 ; amine in Kashmir, 246 ; 
 Mr. La Touche (geologist) in liashmir, 272. 
 
 Kashmir, temples of, General Cunningham on, 
 337. 
 
 Kasia, ruins at, 332. 
 
 Kathe tribes, 363. 
 
 Kathiawar, 34, 85, 231, 245 ; Mr. Fedden (geolo- 
 gist) in Kathiawar, 250, 256, 262, 265 ; 
 meteorology of Kathiawar, 308, 309 ; Kathia- 
 war, monuments in, 341 ; Dr. Burgess's 
 Archa50logical report on, 347, 349. 
 
 Kathi tribe, 347. 
 
 Katni, 250, 256 ; Katui railway to Jabalpur, 
 264. 
 
 Kaurkouda-Papakenda range, 247. 
 
 Kausambi, 337. 
 
 Keda, 350. 
 
 Kegudo, 154. 
 
 Kennedy, General, 146. 
 
 Ketas, temples at, 333. 
 
 Keyes, General, in Jowaki country, 104. 
 
 Khaf, 177. 
 
 Khairgura, 240. 
 
 Khairpur meteorite, 271 (note). 
 
 Khaisar valley, 146. 
 
 Khajnraho, 330, 337. 
 
 Khakrez, The lower, valley, 254. 
 
 Khamba Jong, 158. 
 
 Khamiab, 174, 187. 
 
 Khan Bahadur, Title of, bestowed on the 
 "Bozdar," 148. 
 
 Khanabad, 138, 194. 
 
 Khaudagiri caves, 327, 331, 358. 
 
 Khandesh Survey, 70, 71 ; monumental remains 
 
 in 342. 
 Khauti (of Wilcox), 171. 
 Khanwa, Battle field of, 336. 
 Kharajangai pass, 180. 
 Kharan, 95, 97, 98. 
 Khari, 81. 
 
 Kharwar (Afghanistan), 278. 
 Khasia, Garo, and ITaga hills survey , 75 ; 277. 
 Khatan, 275. 
 Khatmandu valley, 162. 
 Khawak, 191. 
 Khelat, 64, 93, 94, 97. 
 Khetran country, 94, 97. 
 Khiderzai clan, 148. 
 Khirthar range, 241, 254. 
 Khojah Ali, 173. 
 Khojak range, 254. 
 
 Khojas, fugitive, in Badakashan, 193 (note). 
 Khorasan, 176, 195, 267 ; geology of eastern 
 
 Khorasan, 269. 
 Khost (Punjab frontier), 130, 146 ; Khost (Sind 
 
 Pishin Railway), 92, 275, 277. 
 Khotan, 157. 
 
 Khulm and river, 186, 188, 189, 190. 
 Khurasan (Baluchistan province), 97. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 Khurd Kabul, 140, 278. 
 
 Khurclah estate (Pooree), large scale surveys in, 
 103, 114. 
 
 Khushk-i-rud valley, 133. 
 
 Khusrah -vrritlng assigned to sur»y staff, 109. 
 
 Khwaja-Amran range, 96, 97. 
 
 Khwaja Salor, 187. 
 
 Kielhorn, Professor F., 372. 
 
 Kidderpore, 201, 207. 
 
 Kila Bar Panjah, 143. 
 
 Kila Wamar, 193. 
 
 Kilif, 182, 187, 188. 
 
 ICindat, 299. 
 
 King, Dr., 238, 245, 256, 266 ; appointed Super- 
 intendent of the Geological Survey, 272, 273. 
 
 Kinney, Mr., 51. 
 
 Kirghiz, 192. 
 
 Kiria, 157. 
 
 Kirman, 177. 
 
 Kirthar range, 253. 
 
 Kishen Singh. See A — -— k. 
 
 Kishen Singh (geological apprentice), 253. 
 
 Kishenganga valley, 145. 
 
 Kisseraing, 204. 
 
 Kistna river, 125, 247. 
 
 Kitchen, Mr., 150 (note). 
 
 Kittoe, Captain M., 321. 
 
 Kli9, Herr, 227. 
 
 Kodi Kols, 323. 
 
 Kohat, district survey, 90, 91 ; Kohat town, 92 ; 
 Kohat pass, 104 ; 250. 
 
 Koh Daman, 133, 134 
 
 Koh-i-Baha mountains, 182, 190. 
 
 Koh-i-Saf, 181. See also Safed Koh. 
 
 Kohistan, 134, 191. 
 
 Kohitezek pass, 193. ' 
 
 Kokcha river, 194. 
 
 Kolab, 143. 
 
 Kolam, 142. 
 
 Kolar gold mines, 273. 
 
 Kols, The, 248. 
 
 Kondane, 352. 
 
 Kong-lachen pass, 158. 
 
 Konkan survey, 124 ; description of Konkan, 
 125. 
 
 Konni, 169. 
 
 Kopah, 1. 
 
 Kopargaum, antiquities in, 342. 
 
 Korba, 273. 
 
 Korokh valley, 177, 179. 
 
 Kostenko, Captain, 192. 
 
 Kotai, 350. 
 
 Kotanni pass, 149. 
 
 Kotkai, 150. 
 
 Krakatoa, 204, 205. 
 
 Krik (French missionary), 155. 
 
 Krishna shoal lighthouse, 53. 
 
 Krol group, 260. 
 
 Kshatrapa inscription at Junagadli, 348. 
 Kshatrapa kings of Surashtra, 347, 349. 
 Kuchar (East Turkistau), 158 ; (A.fghanistan), 
 
 179. 
 Kudara, 193. 
 
 ICuen Lun mountains, 153, 154, 157. 
 Kuhaks, 97. 
 Kuhsan, 174, 17(!, 182. 
 Kulachuri Rajas of Chedi, 332. 
 Kuldar, 188. 
 Kulha range, 163. 
 
 Kumaun, 48, 50, IGl, 250, 253, 273, 275. 
 Kunar valley, 130, 135, 150. 
 Kund, peak of, 134. 
 
 Kuuduz, 186, 194 ; Kunduz river, 188, 189, 190. 
 Kuru river, 1 63. 
 Kuram valley, 91, 129, 130, 133; triangulation 
 
 connected with that of Kabul, ib. ; Mr. 'Wynne 
 
 in, 250. 
 Kushk river, 177. 
 Kushk Bud river, 176. 
 Kussilong, 258. 
 Kusinagara, 332. 
 Kuthera, 337. 
 Kwandar valley, 147. 
 Kyaukku temple, 364. 
 Kyauk-pyu, 23. 
 Ky a- why at, 276. 
 Kyendwen river, 79. 
 Kyonkse, 166. 
 
 L , explorer in Tibet, 151. 
 
 L c (Chambel), 152, 157. 
 
 Laccadive islands, 29, 35. 
 
 Ladak, 157, 253, 275. 
 
 Ladak, Cunningham's, 337. 
 
 Lahore, 338 ; monuments at, 343, 344. 
 
 Lahore observatory, 284, 298, 304. 
 
 Lahori pass, 150. 
 
 Lakanpur coal-field, 269, 274. 
 
 Lake, Mr. P., 272, 274, 277. 
 
 Lakhima, inscription at, 337. 
 
 Laki range, 241. 
 
 Lakpat, 86. 
 
 Lala Hem Eaj, 311. 
 
 Lalla Euchi Earn Sahni, B.A., 296. 
 
 Lama, The. -Sec U.G. 
 
 Lamaing, 166. 
 
 Lambeth (India Store Dep6t) observatory, 216. 
 
 Lambton, Colonel, 38, 44, 47 ; commences the 
 
 trigonometrical survey of India, 58, 212. 
 Lambton and Everest's Great Arc, 58. 
 Lamech, shrine of, in Lughman, 134. 
 
400 
 
 INBEX. 
 
 " Lamp Kock," The, 192 and (note). 
 
 Lamuti, 141. 
 
 Land settlement, map of India showing, 226. 
 
 Lane, Mr. W., 116. 
 
 Laugdao, 79. 
 
 LaramKotal, 150. 
 
 Large scale cadastral surveys, 102. 
 
 Lash Jowain, 173, 175. 
 
 Lataband pass, 135. 
 
 LaTouche, Mr. J. D., 112. 
 
 La Touche, Mr. (geologist), 256 ; in the Dehing 
 
 basin, 260, 264, 265 ; in Garo hills, 269, 272 ; 
 
 in Kashmir, 273, 275 ; 277. 
 Laterite, 249. 
 Latitudes and longitudes of Indian localities, 209, 
 
 318. 
 Launggyet, 364. 
 
 Leach, Lieut.-Colonel E. I'., on Simla survey, 80, 
 88 ; in North Afghanistan, 130; wounded and 
 gains V.C., ib. ; in Argandab and Khakrez 
 valleys, 137 ; description of Hazara country 
 by, ^6. 
 
 Le Bon, Dr. G., 320 (note), 362. 
 
 Lege & Co., Messrs., 1.99, 217. 
 
 Leh, 157 ; aotinometric observations at, 295, 296 ; 
 barometrical observations at Leh, 293. 
 
 L/em Chang P'ra (Siam), 5. 
 
 Leopards found in N.W. Afghanistan, 195. 
 
 Leo Porgyal, 50. See also Porgyal. 
 
 Level, " Reversible," 217. 
 
 Levelling operations in connexion with tidal 
 obseiTations, 200. 
 
 Lhakhang-Jong, 160. 
 
 Lhasa, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 160, 376. 
 
 " Lhasa, Narrative of journey to " (by S.C.]).), 
 158. 
 
 Lhobrak Chu, the, 163. 
 
 Lhobra Sanpo, 160. 
 
 Lho Jong, 156. 
 
 LhSk'haptra, 164 (note). 
 
 Lighthouses and ligiit vessels, inspection of, 9 ; 
 annual return of, 13. 
 
 Lignite from Baranga, 246. 
 
 Limestone fossils in Upper Burma, 280. 
 
 Lingala, 248. 
 
 Lipu Lek pass, 161. 
 
 Lithang, 155. 
 
 Lithographic Office, Calcutta, 221. 
 
 Lithological nomenclature, 271 (note). 
 
 Little, Dr. C, 311. 
 
 Little, Mr. C, 311. 
 
 Lo river, 164. 
 
 Lob Nor, 153, 157. 
 
 Lockhart, Sir W., 167. 
 
 Lockyer, Professor N., 289. 
 
 Loess soil in Badghiz, 178. 
 
 Loftus, Captain A. J., additions to hydrography 
 of Siam coast, received from, 5. 
 
 Logar valley, 133, 134, 135, 278. 
 
 Logs, meteorological observations in ship?, 289, 
 
 292. See also Marioe meteorology. 
 Lohardaga, 245. 
 Lohit river, 156 (note). 
 Lonad, 353. 
 
 London Geological Congress, 276. 
 Long, Captain F. B., E.E., 97, 137. 
 Longitude observations, passim in Chapter IX. 
 Longitudes and latitudes of Indian stations and 
 
 localities, 209, 223, 317. 
 Longrin coal-iield, 265. 
 Lora river, 136, l73. 
 Lower Provinces, mapping of, 231. 
 Lueknow observatory, 285. 
 Ludhe, 150. 
 
 Ludhiana district survey, 106. 
 Lughman valley, 98, 131, 133. 
 Luni Pathan, 97. 
 Lu river, 155 and (note). See also Giama Nil 
 
 Chu. 
 Lungleh, 308. 
 
 Lushai expedition, 170, 277. 
 Lut-dih, 150 (note). 
 Lydekker, Mr., 238, 246 ; on the N.W. 
 
 Himalayas, 260 ; retirement and services of 
 
 263; 268. 
 
 M. 
 
 M S in Badakshan, 1 42 ; presented with 
 
 medal, 144. 
 
 Macdonald, Colonel J., 86, 104, 123, 125. 
 
 Macgregor, Major C. E., 79. 
 
 Mach coal seams, 256. 
 
 Machine for calculating tidal heights, 199. 
 
 Ma-ehu rivers, 153, 154. 
 
 Mackenzie, Colonel Colin, 32 1 ; his survey of the 
 Amravati Tope, 358 (note), 359, 367. 
 
 Mackenzie, Lieutenant, R.E., 99. 
 
 Madhapur, 256. 
 
 Madras Presidency topograph^', arrangements for 
 completing, 84 ; in Indian atlas, 231. 
 
 Madras, survey of roadstead, 2, 4, 5, 19, 28 ; 
 Madras coast series, 45, 46 ; Madras longitu- 
 dinal series, 46 ; Madras revenue survey, 84 ; 
 197, 201 ; mean sea level at Madras, 202, 203, 
 204 ; 21 1, 214, 215 ; longitude of Madras, 210, 
 213 ; Madras observatory, 285, 312; Madras 
 rainfall, 288; Madras cyclone of 1875, 290; 
 Madras monuments, conservation and restora- 
 tion of, 343, 345. 
 
 Madura district survey, 84, 85 ; Mr. Foote in 
 Madura, 256, 260 ; Madura, antiquities in, 359. 
 
 Madya, 276. 
 
 Magadha, Ancient kingdom of, 326, 329, 347. 
 
 Maha-Kosala, Ancient capital of, or Chattisgarh, 
 335. 
 
 Mahaaadi, 36, 231, 239 ; Upper Mahanadi, 264. 
 
 Mahamuni pagoda, 364. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 401 
 
 o(\ 
 
 Mahasthan, 334. 
 
 Mahi river, 297. 
 
 Mahoba, 337. 
 
 Mahomed Jan, 133. 
 
 Mahsud Waziris, 91. • 
 
 Mahu-wa or Mowa, 21. 
 
 Maigna, 171. 
 
 Maiji Sabiba, tomb of, at Junagadh, 349. 
 
 Maimana, 178, 180, 181. 
 
 Mainlon, 166. 
 
 Maisey, Colonel, 321. 
 
 Maitland, Captain, 191. 
 
 Mai wand. Battle of, 137. 
 
 Mak, 179. 
 
 Makran, surveys in, 99 ; Makran geology, S43, 
 
 270, 349. 
 Makrana (Arvali Mountains), marble quarried at, 
 
 243. 
 Makura, 276. 
 
 Malabar, Soutli, I'art of, geologically examined, 
 
 276. 
 Malay peninsula, 231. 
 Malegaon, 200. 
 
 Maleeka or M'Li-kba river, 79, 170. 
 Mallet, Mr., 238, 243, 262, 272, 276, 277. 
 Malnad, 82, 83. 
 Malot, temples at, 333. 
 Malwa and Bhopal survey, 87. 
 MaUva, General Cunningham in, 329. 
 Malwan surveyed, 18. 
 Mamallapuram, archaeological reports on, 359, 
 
 362, 371. 
 Manar, gulf of, 19. 
 Manasarowar lakes, 50. 
 Manas river, 160, 163 and (note). 
 Mandai, 94. 
 
 Mandalay, 24, 166, 167, 168, 169, 299, 364. 
 Manapand shoals (off Tinnevelly), 35. 
 Manbhum, 244. 
 Mandwa bay surveyed, 27. 
 Manegaon, 241. 
 Mangal country, 130. 
 Mangalore, 4, 60, 211,212, 215. 
 Manganese ores in Gosalpur, 274 ; in Sandur 
 
 hills, 276. 
 Manikyala, 326, 333. 
 Manipur, inhabitants of, 76, 168 ; Manipur-Burmti 
 
 Boundary Commission, 257 ; 258, 262. 
 Manning, Mr. T., 374. 
 Mauora point, 19. 
 Mansahra, 348, 369. 
 Manual for meteorologists, 286. 
 Manual of Geology of India, 243, 271. 
 Manuscripts, collections of Burmese, Siamese, 
 
 and Cambodian, 364. 
 
 Mara, caves at, 331. 
 
 Marble in Arvali region, 243. 
 
 Maratha country, 90, 125, 249, 250, 346, 367. 
 
 Y 20321. C 
 
 Marathas, 335, 347. 
 
 Marco Polo, 154. 
 
 Mavdan, 341. 
 
 Margherita (Assam), 79. 
 
 Marine meteorological observations, 289, 292, 
 295, 297, 300, 302, 305. 
 
 Marine surveys of India, early history, 1 ; new 
 department under Commander Taylor, 1 ; 
 committee for inquiry into working of, 11 ; 
 report by Captain Brent on the department 
 12,13,14,15; re-organisation of 15; Com- 
 mander Dawson succeeds Coiiin.ander Taylor 
 in charge of, 15 ; total cost of department, 
 16; list of the publications of, 16, 17 ; results 
 of, 17; second period of, 18; total work 
 remaining for, 34-36. 
 
 Markandi temples, 329, 332, 336. 
 
 Markham, Mr. C. E., on Indian agrioultura, 120 
 (note) ; on Lake Palti, 159 ; 373 ; his work and 
 public services, 375. 
 
 Marmagao, 2, 10, 25, 206. 
 
 Marri country, 93, 96, 97, 133, 254. 
 
 Marshall, I.N., Mr., rough chart of of harbour of 
 Port Blair made by, 30. 
 
 Marshman, Mr., 318. 
 Martaban, Gulf of, 2, 26, 36. 
 Martin, Captain Gerald, in Kuram valley, 129; 
 in Kohistan, 134 ; in Waziri, 146. 
 
 Maruchak, 194. 
 
 Marwar State, 80, 90. 
 
 Mashhad, 174, 176, 182, 191, .309. 
 
 Masson, Mr., 321. 
 
 Mastuj, 141, 144, 150. 
 
 Masulipatam, 4. 
 
 Mathematical Instrument Office, Calcutta, 218 ; 
 
 department' transferred to new building, 220, 
 
 221. 
 
 Matheran survej', 125. 
 
 Mathura, 112, 326, 328, 335, 344, 348, 363. 
 
 Mauritius observatory, 310. 
 
 Mayo, Earl, 314. 
 
 Mayo salt mines, 251. 
 
 Mayu river, 364. 
 
 Mazagon, 10. 
 
 Mazar-i-Sharif, 182, 188, 189. 
 
 Mazuve, Monseigneur de, 155 (note). 
 
 McCarthy, Mr., triangulation by, 54 ; accom- 
 panies Siamese telegraphic expedition, 64 ; 
 returns to Moulmein, 55. 
 
 McCullagh, Major, 83, 84. 
 
 McGill, Mr., 81. 
 
 McMahon, Colonel, 239, 246, 260. 
 
 McNair, Mr. W. W., 91, 98 ; liis death and 
 services, ib., 135, 149, 160. 
 
 Measurement of meridional arcs, 209. 
 
 Meohi river, 160. 
 
 Mediaeval style of Indian architecture, 323, 324. 
 
 Medlicott, Mr., 238, 253 ; retirement and services 
 of, 270 ; his geological writings, 271 ; 273, 27C, 
 283 (cote). 
 
 Meerul district survey, 108; 
 c 
 
402 
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 Me^hna river, reconnaissance of, 19; survey of 
 Meghna flats, ■>:, 28. 
 
 ilehka, 171. 
 
 llehmudabad, 362. 
 
 Meins, Mr. C, 234, 290. 
 
 Mekong river, l.'j.^. 
 
 Mekran. See Makran. 
 
 Mektar valley, 147. 
 
 " ilemoirs by the Medical Officers of the Army 
 in India," 228. 
 
 Men tribes, 164. 
 
 Mena, 147. 
 
 Menaknath, Cave temple of, 89. 
 
 Menda La pass, 1.59. 
 
 Menhirs, 324. 
 
 Ml-os of Mewat, the, 336. 
 
 Meridional arcs, measurement of, 2ij9, 
 
 ilerk, Mr., 173, I7.J. 
 
 Merriman, Colonel, 86. 
 
 Mergui, 1 ; selected as <ite for measurement of a 
 base-line, 5i; description of, ih., 56, JT : 58; 
 tin in Morgui, 278 ; 364. 
 
 Mergui archipelago, 3; survey of, 25, 26; re- 
 plotting of beaten track in, 26 ; 37. 
 
 Merv, 187. 
 
 Merwara, forest surveys, '^O. 
 
 ^Meteorites, 271 (uote). 
 
 ileteorology, 2^3 ei' SC7. ; meteorology of Indian 
 seas, 289 and passim in chapter; report on 
 Indian meteorolog)', critically compared with 
 that of Russia, 290. 
 
 Meudon observatory, 290. 
 
 Mewar, 90 ; Mr. Hacket in Mewar, 266. 
 
 Mewat, ileos of, 336. 
 
 Mians, 149. 
 
 Michnifort, 130, 131. 
 
 Middlemiss, Mr. C. S., 263, 268, 269, 272, 273, 
 27.5. 
 
 Middle Moscos, Triangulation station on, 53. 
 
 Midnapur, district survey, 116; 245. 
 
 Mihirakula, 370. 
 
 Milam, 49, 151 ; Milam pa-ss, 253. 
 
 Military route surveys, C^onduct of, 132. 
 
 Mill, Mr., .321. 
 
 Minar, Buddhist, in Kabul valley, 134. 
 
 Minbii, 168, 169. 
 
 Minbya, 364. 
 
 Mineralogy of India, 273, 280, 282. 
 
 Mineral* of South Afghanistan, 255. 
 
 Minieoy, 208. 
 
 Mining and boring operations m Imlia, 274. 
 
 Jlint!- at Calcutta and Bombay, 217. 
 
 Mir Izzut OUah, 190 (uote). 
 
 Miranzai valley, 91, 2Su. 
 
 Miri Hills, 52. ; 
 
 Miri I'adam, 164. 
 
 Mirkhwaili, 92. 
 
 ^lirya, survey of bay of, 4. 
 
 Mirzapur district survey, 109, 112. 
 
 MIshml country, 156. 
 
 Mithankot, 206. 
 
 ilitra. Dr. R., C.I.E., 325 (note). 
 
 Mitri, 93. 
 
 M'Li-kha river, 79. See also Maleeka river. 
 
 Model map of India, 225. 
 
 Mogaung, 169. 
 
 Mogbuls, descendants living in Afghanistan, 186 ; 
 190 (note). 
 
 Mogok, 167. 
 
 Mo-goung-poon, 171. 
 
 Mogulkot, 279. 
 
 Mokoshat mountain, 79. 
 
 Monghyr, 206. 
 
 Mongolia, A k in, 151, 153 ; 192. 
 
 Mong States in Eastern Burma, 170. 
 
 Monsoon forecasts, 289 et seq. 
 
 Montreal, Geological Section of British Associa- 
 tion, 265. 
 
 ilontriou. Commander, 15. 
 
 Monuments, preservation of ancient, 320, 341, 
 .344, 345. 
 
 Moorcroft, Mr. W., 152. 
 
 Moradabad revenue survey, 108. 
 
 Moscos islands, 26, 53. 
 
 Moshabar pass, 141. 
 
 '■ Mosque of Vazir Ali Ad-din Khan, at Lahore." 
 Mr. J. L. Kiphng on, 363. 
 
 Moulmein, 2, 3, .j7, 201, 204, 207, 214, 364. 
 
 Mounds in Shoiapur, 323. 
 
 Mowa, survey of, 21. 
 
 Mrohaung, 364. 
 
 Mud bank at Alleppi, 274, 277. 
 
 Mudhera, 324, 355. 
 
 Mugzisolma, 157. 
 
 Muhammadan buildings, rare, in Konkan, 125 ; 
 Muhammadan or Saracenic architecture, 322 ; 
 Muhammadan buildings in Bombay Presi- 
 j o„r Muhammadan ravages in Deccan, 
 
 dency, 325 ; 
 350. 
 
 Muhammad i'usuf Sharif, 147, 148 
 Yusuf 
 
 •See also 
 
 ilukur, 140. 
 
 Muleli, old diamond workings in, 247. 
 
 "Mullah," Explorations of the, 141. 
 
 Multan, 13G. 
 
 " Munshi," the, 135. 
 
 Munjan, 150. 
 
 Mundra, Port of, 34. 
 
 Murchison grant awarded to Mr. McXair, 150. 
 
 Murghabi river (Pamir), 143, 193. 
 
 Murghab river (X.W. Afghanistan), 178, 179 
 180, 181. /> . , 
 
 Murphy, It. X., Sir., on Bombay and its popula- 
 tion in mediaeval times, 6. 
 
 Murree, water .-upply of, 275. 
 
 Musadarra, 148. 
 
 Mnsa Khel cuuntrj-, 147, 148. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 403 
 
 Mussoorie, 296 ; Mussoorie observatory, 304. 
 
 Mustiigh Ata, 192. 
 
 Muzaffargarb, 104, 105. 
 
 Muzaffarnagar district survey, 107, 108. 
 
 Mnzaffarpur district survey, 117, 118, 119. 
 
 Muzawar surveys, 102. 
 
 Muztagh range, Point of convergence of, with 
 
 Hindu Kush, 143. 
 Jlyanong, 53. 
 Myingyan, 169. 
 Myittha valley, 170. 
 Mysore survey, 81 ; survey of Mysore town, 84 ; 
 
 area of Mysore state, 84 ; Mr. Foote surveys 
 
 auriferous deposits in Mysore, 272 ; 322 ; 
 
 Meadows Taylor on, 360. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nadsur, Buddhist caves at, 342, 355. 
 
 Naga hills, coal-fields in, 238 ; 257 ; petroleum 
 in, 276. 
 
 Naga tribes, 75, 80. 
 
 Nagarkoil, 215. 
 
 Nagar (Mysore), 82. 
 
 Nagpur observatory, 285. 
 
 Naichi valley, 153, 157. 
 
 Nainshe, 158. 
 
 Nain Singh, Pundit, birthplace of, 49 (note), 151, 
 158, 165. 
 
 Nalai valley, 147. 
 
 Nammaw, 167. 
 
 Nanaghat inscriptions, 354. 
 
 Nandidrug, 82, 84. 
 
 Nangaparbat mountain. Description of, 145. 
 
 Narakel, 4. 
 
 Naratu, 179. 
 
 Narayanganj, 19. 
 
 Narbada and Siwalikh Equida), 259. 
 
 Narbada river and Perim island, survey of chan- 
 nel between, 27 ; Mr. Bose on the Lower 
 Narbada, 265 ; Narbada valley, 271 (note) ; 
 floods on the Narbada river, 297. 
 
 Narcondam, 26. 
 
 Nari river basin, 93. 
 
 Narmada river, 327, 329, 350. 
 
 Nasik survey, 86 ; Nasik, Antiquities in, 342, 
 351, 352, 355. 
 
 Native Passenger Ships Act, 3. 
 
 Native States, Statistical information regarding, 
 317. 
 
 Natives as geologists, 264. 
 
 Natyadung pass, 54. 
 
 Naungsa lake, 171. 
 
 Nava-deva-kula, 331. 
 
 Navibandar, 31, 32. 
 
 Nawal, 331. 
 
 Neching Gangra range, 156. 
 
 Cc 
 
 Needham, Mr. J. 1i\, 79, 156 (note), 165. 
 
 Nefud, Red sands of Arabian, 262. 
 
 Negapatam, 4, 21, 47, 201, 205, 207. 
 
 Nellore district, 240. 
 
 Nemsean lion, statue of Herakles and, 335. 
 
 Nepal, 127; G. S. S. in, 160; 161, 162, 231, 
 349. 
 
 Nepal and Oudh frontier survey, 124, 160. 
 
 Newbold, Captain, 237. 
 
 Newland, Mr. J., 89. 
 
 Newman, Mr., 54. 
 
 New South "Wales, Minister for mines, 266. 
 
 Neza Tash pass, 193. 
 
 Nicobar islands, 28, 204, 205. 
 
 Nilgiri hills, 47. 
 
 Nilang valley, 5 1 . 
 
 Nili river and fort, 184, 186. 
 
 Nishapur. 187. 
 
 Niti pass, 253. 
 
 Nizam's dominions, survey of portion of, 90, 
 123, 124; map of Nizam's dominions, 224, 
 226 ; Dr. Burgess's archaeological researches in 
 western part of, 350. 
 
 NoaDihing valley, 52, 78, 79. 
 
 Noah's ark, Traditions of, in Lughman, 134. 
 
 Noetling, Dr. F., appointed palaeontologist, 272 ; 
 276, 277, 279. 
 
 Nomenclature, Lithological, 271 (note) . 
 
 Nongyong 79, 166. 
 
 Northbrook, Earl, 376. 
 
 Norman's Point, 3. 
 
 North-West frontier and adjacent regions. Ex- 
 plorations in, 140. 
 
 North-West Provinces, irrigation map of, 225 ; 
 North-West frontier mapping, 226 ; North- 
 West Provinces rainfall, 294 ; North-West 
 Provinces and Oudh, monuments in, 344, 346. 
 
 North-West quadrilateral, 59. 
 
 Notices to mariners published, 3. 
 
 Nowagarh-Kharial, 239. 
 
 Nu Chu. See Giama Nu Chu. 
 
 Nuksan pass, 150. 
 
 " Numismata Orientalia," Marsden's, 372. 
 
 Nurpur, 340. 
 
 Nushki, 94, 96, 172, 173. 
 
 0. 
 
 Obeh, 140, 183. 
 
 Observatories, Meteorological, 284 ; classification 
 of, 296, 304. 
 
 Ocean Highways, Eainfall chart in, 294. 
 
 Occupancy tenants. 111, 113. 
 
 Ogle, Mr., in Lakhimpur, 75; on Assam 
 frontier, 79 ; his account of work of No. 6 
 party on Eastern frontier, 80 ; in Kuram 
 valley and Zaimukht country, 133 ; 167, 170. 
 
404 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Oldeuburg, Professor, 332. 
 
 Oldham, Dr., 237, 257, 270. 
 
 Oldham, Mr. C. JE., 248. 
 
 Oldham, Jlr. 11. T)., appointed to geological 
 
 survey, 253, 257, 262, 264; in Bikauir, 269, 
 
 272,274,277. 
 Onlet, 164. 
 
 Orakzai. See Urakzai. 
 Oriental Congress of 1874, 356. 
 Orissa coast, examination made of, 22 ; survey 
 
 of, 33, 36 ; triangulation along, 05 ; cyclone 
 
 off, 206 ; 309. 
 Orr, Messrs., and Sons, of Madras, 266. 
 Oudh revenue surveys, 112; Oudh and Nepal 
 
 frontier survey, 124, 160; Oudh monuments 
 
 in, 346 and (note). 
 Oxus river, 143, 174, 176, 181, 186, 187, 366. 
 Oxus, Upper, valley, 192. See also Panjah. 
 
 P. 
 
 P. A. in Bhutan, 163. 
 
 Pachmarhi observatory, 285. 
 
 Padams, The, 165. 
 
 Padao, 79. 
 
 Pagan, river survey party (under Commander 
 
 P. J. Falle) at, 24. 
 Paithan, 350, 351. 
 Paiwar pass, Captain Woodthorpe at, 129 ; 
 
 Paiwar pass, 130. 
 Pakchan, 1, 27. 
 Pakokkn, 1 68. 
 Pala dynasty of Bengal, 333. 
 Palamau, 244. 
 " PalffiODtologia Indica," passim in Geological 
 
 Chapter. 
 Palanpur, 89. 
 Palesar pass, 142. 
 Palibothra, 328. 
 Palitana, 355. 
 Palk straits, survey required of, 35 ; triangulation 
 
 (connecting Ceylou with India) via, 45. 
 Pallavaram, 359. 
 I'alraer, Mr. C, E., E.N., appointed member 
 
 Marine Survey Committee, 12. 
 Palmer, Mr. G. G., 226. 
 Palmyras shoals, delineated, 22. 
 Palni Hills, the, 85. 
 Palosin, 146. 
 Palti lake, 158, 159 (and note), 104. See also 
 
 Yam-dok-tso. 
 Pamir, 192, 19.3, 270. 
 
 Panama, mean sea levels at isthmus of, 202. 
 Panchalinga, 347. 
 Panch Mabals survey-, 89. 
 ranch Pahari, 330. 
 Pandua, 340. 
 Panipat, Battle of, 365. 
 Panjah river, 193, 194. Sec also Oxus, 
 Pangong lake, 157, 
 
 Panjara-Borddhonkuti, 334 (note). 
 
 Panjgur, 95 and (note), 147. 
 
 Paujkora valley, 141. 
 
 Panjshir. 191. 
 
 Pantaleon, coins of, 370. 
 
 Paoghf.n, 182. 
 
 Paranagar, 330. 
 
 Paris Exhibition, 223 ; Geological Congress at 
 Paris, 255. 
 
 Parivrajaka Maharajas, 370. 
 
 Parner, antiquities in, 342. 
 
 Paropamisus, 177, 178, 179, 207. 
 
 Pascoe, Navigating Lieutenant, R.N., surveys 
 Madras roadstead, 2 ; visits Cochin, Beypore, 
 and Calicut, 5 ; completes examination of 
 Quilon roadstead, 7 ; completes survey Back 
 bay, 19; surveys Quilon, 21; resigns Indian 
 marine survey, 31. 
 
 Pataliputra, 328. 
 
 Patkoi range, 78, 79, 166. 
 
 Patau, 88, 355. 
 
 Patna district survey, 114; observatory, 285; 
 barometrical observations at, 293 ; Patna, 328, 
 331, 333,348, 353. 
 
 Pattadkal, temple at, 324, 347. 
 
 Patterson, Mr. W. H., 126. 
 
 Patwari Bill for Bengal, 118. 
 
 Paundra Varddhana, ancient capital of, 334. , 
 
 Paumben, 4, 8, 197, 204, 261, 309. 
 
 Pawagarh hill survey, 89. 
 
 Peacocke, Captain, 187, 191. 
 
 Pedder, Mr. W. G., 377. 
 
 Pedler, Mr. A., 311. 
 
 Pedro point, 28. 
 
 Pemakoichen, 164. 
 
 Pemberton, Captain, 163. 
 
 Peuch coal-field, 267. 
 
 Pendulum observations, 44 ; Captain Easevi's, 
 210, 212. 
 
 Peukalaotis, 330. 
 
 Pennar river. South, 40. 
 
 Perak, Mines of, 276. 
 
 Perim, 34 ; (lied Sea), 309. 
 
 l^eriodicity of drought or famines, 287, 300. 
 
 Periplus, the, 351. 
 
 Periyar project, 85. 
 
 Permanently settled districts of Bengal, Survey 
 of, 119. 
 
 Persian inscriptions, 339, 346 (note). 
 
 Persia, Yusuf Sharif in, 99 ; Eastern Persian Mis- 
 sion, 172 ; Persian gulf, 270. 
 
 Peshawar, column, 130 ; 140, 141, 336 (note). 
 
 Petley, Navigating Sub-Lieutenant E. W., 2 ; 
 takes up survey Bombay harbour, 9 ; notes by 
 on history and topography Marmagao, 10; sur- 
 veys Bombay foreshore, 10 ; descriptive sketch 
 of Goa by, 10 ; 121. 
 
 Petroleum in Baluchistan, 275, 279 ; in Naga 
 hills, 270 ; in Burma, 276. 
 
 Peyton, Mr. .J., entrusted -with topographical 
 survey of Byans valley, 48, 49. 
 
■INDEX. 
 
 '105 
 
 I'haetou shoal, llopoit by Commander A. U. 
 
 Taylor on, 9. 
 rhari, 151. 
 
 Pliayre, Lieutenant-Gcneral Sir A. V., 372. 
 Pho-mo-chang-thang-tso lake, 1%, 160, 103. 
 Photo-coUotypo process, 228. 
 Plioto-electrotyping process, 229. 
 Plioto-etcliing process, 227, 228. 
 Photoglyptic process, 227. 
 Photographic Office, Calcutta, 221. 
 Photo-heliograph, 290. 
 Phra Pratom pagoda, 54. 
 Phyllitaj Gondall, 329. 
 I'igou, Dr., 368, 
 Pilcher, Dr. J. G., 3H. 
 Pilots ridge, 22, 36. 
 Pirghal peak, 146. 
 Pir Panjal (Jammu territory), 238. 
 Pishin valley, 96, 97, 98, 129, 173 ; geology of, 
 
 2 54 ; rainfall in, 300. 
 Piyadasi, inscriptions of, Mr. Seuart on, 361. 
 Plane table, 101 ; usefulness of, for military 
 
 route surveys, 132. 
 Planets, Minor discovered at Madras, 313. 
 Platinotype process, 223. 
 Pliny, 351. 
 Pocock, Mr., 48. 
 Pogson, Miss Isis, 293, 311. 
 Pogson, Mr. N. R., 287, 312. 
 Pollen, Lieutenant W. H., 170. 
 Po-lo-mo-ki-li, 359. 
 Po-lo-yu monastery, 359. 
 Polu, 157. 
 Ponani, 47. 
 Pondicherry, port of, 35 ; measurements of 
 
 polygons between Madras and, 46, 47 ; 349. 
 
 Ponrowa, 334 (note). 
 
 Poona, tidal and levelling party at, 57 ; survey 
 conference at, 86, 89, 126 ; Poona district 
 survey, 122, 197; 200; Poona College of 
 Science, 216; Poona observatory, 285; anti- 
 quities in Poona, 342. 
 
 Population, map showing density of, 226. 
 
 Porbandar, 29 ; survey of, 31, 33. 
 
 Porgyal mountain, SO, 260. 
 
 Port Blair, rough chart made of harbour of, 80 ; 
 inspection of working of tide gauges at, 57, 
 201, 205. 
 
 Port Childers, 22. 
 
 Port funds liable for tidal gauge expenses, 196. 
 
 Porto Novo, 35. 
 
 Portralne, county Dublin, Mr. Modlicott on 
 geology of, 271 (note). 
 
 Ports, inspection of Indian peninsular, 4. 
 
 Porus, Alexander's battle with, 326. 
 
 Postans, Lieutenant, 321. 
 
 Potter, Mr., assistant surveyor, 47, 55. 
 
 Pottery works started at Jabalpur, 277. 
 
 Potwar, 241. 
 
 Powell, Coninuindor, Survey of pass between 
 India and Ceylon by, 4. 
 
 Powell, Mr. G. H., 109. 
 
 " Powuah " surveying vessel, 16. 
 
 Prauhita valley, 237, 247. 
 
 Predictions of tidal heights as compared with 
 actuals, 206, 208. 
 
 Prehistoric remains in India, 321. 
 
 Prendergast, Sir H., 99. 
 
 Preparis, 26. 
 
 Price, Mr., triangulates towards Quetta, 48. 
 
 Prince's dock, Bombay, 10, 2U7. 
 
 Prinscp, Mr. H. T., 318. 
 
 Prinsep, .Tames, 321; the first to discover positive 
 dates in Indian history, ib., 325, 369, 372. 
 
 Priyadasi, 361, 369. 
 
 Proby Cautley, Sir, 236. 
 
 Prome district, 3G4. 
 
 Prongs lighthouse, 10. 
 
 Propert, Mr., 342. 
 
 Prshevalsky, General, 154, 157. 
 
 Prun, 155. 
 
 Pudukattai State, 245. 
 
 Pughman range, 134 ; Pnghman district, 135. 
 
 Puhi creek, 19. 
 
 Pulicat, 28. 
 
 Pul-i-Khisti, 178. 
 
 Pullan, Major A., 85. 
 
 Punniar, battle of, 337. 
 
 Pmnthang river, 163. 
 
 Punjab revenue survey, 104, 112 ; 231 ; geodetic 
 operations in the, 215 ; Punjab, General Cun- 
 ningham's explorations in, 326, 332 ; Punjab, 
 Lieutenant Abbott, E.E., restores monuments 
 in, 344. 
 
 Pym-ul-win (Burma), 166. 
 
 Pyrolusite (manganese ores) in Central Pro- 
 vinces, 274; in Sandur hills, 276. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quetta, 47, 92, 93, 94, 98, 172, 173. 
 Quilon, roadstead, 7 ; survey of, 21. 
 
 R. 
 
 R N , 161, 162, 163, 164. 
 
 Rahanpur, 334, 
 
 Rabat Shah, 150. 
 
 Rainfall charts, 225, 294, 309 ; rainfall registra- 
 tion, 286, 300, 301, 302, 309; rainfall as 
 affected by forests, 298, 299 ; rainfall in 
 Northern India, 290 ; memoir on rainfall of 
 India, 299, 306. 
 
406 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 liain-uauge, Symons', 3o9. 
 
 IJuipiir meteorite, 271 (note). 
 
 Rajgarh, 336. 
 
 Kajendrala Mitra, Dr., 325 (note). 
 
 Eajim, 335. 
 
 Rajmahal hills, 244 ; Kajmahal coal-field, 274. 
 
 Eajpuri river, chart of entrance to, 23. 
 
 Eajputana, 80, 81, 90, 231, 238, 269, 298, 322, 
 328 ; General Cunningham in, 336 ; architec- 
 ture and scenery in, 346 (note). 
 
 Rajputs, 350. 
 
 Rajput temples, 323. 
 
 Rakas Tal, 152. 
 
 Raleigh shoal, 10. 
 
 Ramree roadstead, survey of, 21. 
 
 Eamkola, 250. 
 
 Rama bridge, 261. 
 
 Eamayana, Invasion of Ceylon mentioned in the, 
 261. 
 
 Eameswaram, 261, 359, 362, 371. 
 
 Eamnad Zamindari, 371. 
 
 Rampur coal-field, 266, 274. 
 
 Rampurwa, 332, 340. 
 
 Ramri island, 246. 
 
 Rang-kul lake, 192, and 193 (note). 
 
 Rangoon, 1,2; hydrographic notices published 
 containing sailing directions for, 3 ; Lieutenant 
 Coombs' surveys port of, 11 ; Commander 
 Dawson surveys entrances to, 20, 21 ; inspec- 
 tion of working of tide gauges at, 57 ; 201, 
 204 ; Rangoon observatory, 285. 
 
 Eauipur-jm'al, 331. 
 
 Rann, the Great, 85. 
 
 Rashtrakuta, king Dantidurga, 354. 
 
 Ratnagiri, survey of port of, 4 ; fauna of shores 
 near, 6. 
 
 Ravenshaw, Mr. J. H., 334 (note). 
 
 Ravtrtv, Major H. G.'s Notes on Afghanistan, 
 
 150 (note), 365. 
 Eawal Pindi revenue survey, 104, 105 ; Rawal 
 Pindi plateau, 241. 
 
 Rawbns, Lieutenant, 194. 
 
 Rawlinson, Sir II , 190 (cote), 192 and (note). 
 
 Razmak valley, 146. 
 
 Eea, Mr., 358, 359, 360, 362. 
 
 Red hills of Madras, 249. 
 
 Red Sea, 309. 
 
 Reductions in survey budget. Secretary of State 
 disapproves of, 39 ; correspondence on subject 
 of, 39 and (note). 
 
 Reduction of triangulation, 232. 
 Eeh efiBorescence, 246, 271 (note). 
 Eegistan, 96, 254. 
 Regur, or black cotton soil, 261. 
 Rebatsek, ilr. E., 355 (note). 
 Religions, Map of India, shoiving, 226. 
 Eenny-Tailyour, Lieutenant. 170. 
 Reorganisation of ilarine Survey iJepartment, 
 15. 
 
 Reports on moral and material progress of India, 
 374. 
 
 Eepsold, instrument 174. 
 
 Eer river, 250. 
 
 Eevenue survey branch, reductions in, 39 ; re- 
 organisation of department and amalgamation 
 with trigonomeirical and topographical, 40 ; list 
 of officers and surveyors in amalgamated 
 department, 40, 41 ; Revenue surveys, 100-127 ; 
 Revenue Survey Office, Calcutta, 221. 
 
 " Reversible " level, 217. 
 
 Rewa, South, basin, fossil flora of, 259 ; Eewa 
 Gondwana basin, 264 ; Rewa, General Cun- 
 ningham in, 336. 
 
 Richardson, Dr. J., 311. 
 
 Ribbentrop, Mr., 299. 
 
 Richelieu, Captain A. de, 2. 
 
 Ridgeway, Sir J. We-st, 172. 
 
 Rigidity of earth, 203. 
 
 Rima, 156 (note). 
 
 Robert, Mr., 126, 127. 
 
 Roberts, Mr. E., F.R.A.S., 197, 198, 199, 200, 
 203, 204. 
 
 Robertson, Dr., 150 (note). 
 
 Robinson, Captain D. G., R.E., 251. 
 
 Rock-cut temples of Western India, 346. 
 
 Rockingham patch surveyed, 28. 
 
 Rodgers, Mr., archEBological surveyor, 340, 361. 
 
 Rogers, Major, commences Eastern Sind series of 
 triangulation, 47 ; attached to southern army in 
 Afghanistan, 48 ; relieves Captain Hill in com- 
 pletion of Eastern frontier series, 56 ; inspects 
 working of tide-gauges, 57 ; in Southern 
 Afghanistan, 129, 135 ; 204. 
 
 Rohilkhand, Dr. Fiilirer in, 340. 
 
 Rohri, 238, 333. 
 
 Rohtak, village survey, 106. 
 
 Rohtas, 340. 
 
 Rojhi, port of, 34. 
 
 Roman caravan across Pamir, 193 (note). 
 
 Rong-chu, 159. 
 
 Ronson, Mr. W., 374. 
 
 Roshan, 143. 
 
 Ross, General, 104, 134. 
 
 Route suneys, conduct of, 132 ; in first Afghan 
 War, 139. 
 
 Rowland, Sergeant, 295, 297. 
 
 Roy, General, commencement of trigonometrical 
 survey in England by, 38. 
 
 Eoyal Geographical Society, 156, 15.8, 170. 
 
 Ruby mines, 167, 169. 
 
 Ruby tracts in Burma, 276, 279. 
 
 Eudbar, 173. 
 
 Rudra Mala, temple at Sidhpur, 88, 324. 
 Rumbur, 150. 
 
 Runn of Cutch. iSee Bann. 
 Rupnath, 329. 
 Eurki observatory, 285. 
 
 Russian meteorological report critically com- 
 pared with that of India, 290. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 Kyall, Mr. E. C, Kumaun and Garliwal survey 
 completed under, 48 ; description of triangiila- 
 tion by, 50 (see note). 
 
 Eysselberghe, Van, meteorograph, 285. 
 
 s. 
 
 S. C. D. (Sarat Chandra Das) Babu, 158, 159. 
 
 Sabarmati, 297. 
 
 Sabzawar, 185. 
 
 Sachu, 154, 158. 
 
 Sacramento shoal, 21. 
 
 Sadiya, 52. 
 
 Sadri, 322. 
 
 Safed Koh ranges, 130, 178, 180. 
 
 Saes, 135. 
 
 Sagain, 169. 
 
 Sah coins, 348 (note). 
 
 Saharaupur survey, 107, 120. 
 
 Sahet Mahet, 339, 340. 
 
 Sah Kings of Surashtra, 349. 
 
 Saichor, 7. 
 
 Saidabad, 134. 
 
 St. Thom&, 5. 
 
 Saithang, 154, 158. 
 
 Saitu. See Sacbu. 
 
 Saiva caves, 323. 
 
 Saiva temples at Pattadkal, 347. 
 
 Sakaw, 169. 
 
 Salaya creek, 34. 
 
 Salem district survey, 85. 
 
 Salsette island, 353. 
 
 Salt range, the, 241, 246, 251-3, 263. 
 
 Salt range fossils, 259, 263, 268, 270, 273, 276, 
 
 278. 
 Salt produced by solar evaporation at Sar, 81. 
 Salweu river, 155, 168, 203, 363. 
 Sama, 155. 
 Sambalpur, 250. 
 Samding monastery, 158, 159. 
 
 Samuell's, Captain E. W., 86, 120, 124 ; attached 
 
 to Peshawar column, and death of, 124, 130. 
 Sam-ye, 160. 
 San Francisco, 234. 
 Sana, 349. 
 Sancharak, 181. 
 
 Sanchi tope, 322, 327, 330, 343, 370. 
 Sandeman, Colonel, 112, 170. 
 Sandeman, Sir E., 95, 147. 
 Sand Heads, The, 207. 
 Sandoway, 20, 21, 22, 36, 364. 
 Sandrakoptos, 369. See also Chandragupta. 
 SandrapaJi, 240. 
 
 Sands, red and white blown, in Tinuevelly and 
 
 Madura, 262. 
 Sandur hills, 266, 276. 
 Sandwip channel, 19. 
 Sangala, fortress of, 337. 
 Sangamner, antiquities in, 342. 
 Sangram, Prince, 336. 
 Sankara, ancient fort at, 331. 
 Sankisa, 337. 
 Sanpo river, 52, 153, 156, 158, 159, 163, 164, 
 
 171. 
 Sanscrit inscriptions, 339. 
 Sanskrit inscriptions from Girnar, 346 (note). 
 Santapilly, 19, 29. 
 Sapphires in Zanskar, 273, 275. 
 Saracenic architecture, 322, 323. 
 Saraswati river, 88. 
 Saran, 332. 
 Sarez Pamir, 143. 
 Sarhad, 143. 
 
 Saripul, 180, 181; Saripui river, 186. 
 Sir Laspur, 141. 
 Sarun district survey, 109. 
 Sisik, 193. 
 Sasseram, 330, 340. 
 Satara, district survey', 122 ; 200. 
 
 Satpura Mountains, 7 1 ; Satpura basin, 240 ; 
 Satpura Gondwana basin, southern coalfields 
 in, 269, 273. 
 
 Satrunjaya, 322, 346 (note). 
 
 Saugor island, 201, 207; Saugor island obser- 
 vatory, 284, 285. 
 
 Saunders, Mr. T., 374. 
 
 Sauras or Savaras, aboriginal race of, 335 (note) . 
 
 Schlagintweit-Sakiilunski, Afr. H. von, 286. 
 
 Schlagintweit, Mr. K., 259. 
 
 Science and Art Department, 327. 
 
 Scientific instruments. Supply of, 216. 
 
 Sconce, Colonel, 104, 115. 
 
 Scott, Mr. G. B., 95, 104, 130; attacked by 
 Momauds, 130; granted sword of honour, 131 ; 
 in Zhob, 147. 
 
 Scully, Dr. J., 194 (note), 290. 
 
 Sea-level, mean, on Indian coasts, 200-208. 
 
 Sedimentary rocks, 236. 
 
 Selung tribe (Mergui archipelago), 56. 
 
 Sehwan, 48. 
 
 Seismometrie observations, 263. 
 
 Seistan, 173, 175, 176,254 ; Mr.W. T.Blanfordin 
 
 259. 
 Selby, Lieutenant, late I.N., 15. 
 Seleukos Nikator, 369. 
 Selungs in Mergui, 56. 
 
 Senior, Mr. R. W., description of Periyar project 
 
 by, 85 (note). 
 Scrap Gyatsho, Lama, 162 (note), 163. 
 Settlement, Map showing land, in India, 226. 
 Seven pagodas, temple of, 324, 343. 
 Sewell, Mr. E,, 357, 358, 371. 
 
406 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sewestan, 93, 94. 
 
 Seychelles, meteor. (Jbservations in, 309. . 
 Shah-jui, 136. 
 Shah Yar, 157. 
 
 Shah Maksud range, 2.54, 25.5. 
 Shakh Bndin, 251. 
 Shakh Dara valley, 143. 
 Shachau. .See Saehu. 
 Shahahad district survej', 109, 115. 
 Shah Alam, 3G5. 
 Shahhaz-gaihi, 348 (note), 369. 
 Shahderi, .333. 
 Shahk, 188. 
 Shahr-i-Nao, 177. 
 Shahr-i-Wairan, 180. 
 Shah Eiza, of Crush, 366. 
 Shan hills, melalliferous deposits in, 273, 276. 
 Shan States, 166, 1C7, 168, 169, 363. 
 Shapur coal borinfr^, 2.56. 
 Sharag coal locality, 256. 
 Sharan river, 149. 
 .Sharqi kings, 330. 
 Sharigh valley, 277. 
 Shashgao, 140. 
 Sha-iv, iXr., 295, 296. 
 Sheikh ilohidin, 96. 
 Shekabad, 140. 
 Shekawati State, 80. 
 Sherani country, 147. 
 Sheravati, Falls of, 83. 
 Sherpur, 133, 135. 
 
 Sher Shah, tomb of, at Sa-^eram, 330. 
 Shial Bet surveyed, 2 1 . 
 Shibrghan, 181. 
 Shigatze, 151, 152, 158. 
 Shignan, 143, 192. 
 Shikto valley, 146. 
 Shillong, 75, 263. 
 Shingle islands, 8. 
 
 Ships' meteorological observatioas, 289 and 
 passim in Chapter XIII. See alto ilarine 
 meteorology'. 
 
 Shinwari country, 130. 
 
 Shir Shah, 328. 
 
 Shiva table land (Badakshan^, 143 ; Shiva lake, 
 
 193. 
 Shorapur, harrows in, 323. 
 Shorarud hills, 90. 
 
 Shoraivak, 96 ; survey of Shoraivak valley, 129. 
 Shore, Sir .!., 367. 
 
 Shore temple at Seven pagoda-, 343. 
 Sbor Tapa, 187. 
 
 Shortrede, Captain, ha=e line measured by, Gl. 
 Shortt island, 22. 
 Shuidar peak, 146. 
 .-huiar;:ardan pa--, '\Voodthorpc'-i rcconnai^s;iLce 
 
 of, 130; ilx. 
 
 Shwe Dagon pagoda, 364. 
 
 Siahgird, 188. 
 
 Siam coast. Additions to the hydrography of, 53, 
 
 54 ; Siam, triangulation carried into, 54. 
 Sibi, 92, 93, 94 ; Sibi coal deposits, 256. 
 Sibpur Engineering College, 275. 
 Sibsagar, 263 ; Sibsagar observatorj', 285. 
 Sidbpur, 88, 324, 355. 
 Sikandra, 344. 
 Sikaram peak, 130, 131. 
 Sikh States survey, 106. 
 Sikkim, survey by Lieutenant Harman and ilr. 
 
 Koberts, 126, 127; 151. 
 Silahara copper plate grant, 342. 
 Silchar, 258, 263. 
 
 Silk manufactory at Saehu, 154; Silk shawls 
 formerly manufactured .it Paithana, 351. 
 
 Sinclair, Mr. W. F., 342. 
 
 Singorgarh, 329. 
 
 Simla survey, 80 ; Simla Hill States sun-ey, 99 ; 
 Simla and Jutog, map of, 225 ; Simla geologj-, 
 239, 260 ; Simla barometrical observations, 
 288 ; Simla observatory, 304, 306. 
 
 Simni,-'s survey of Calcutta, 122. 
 
 Sind, triangulation in Eastern, 47 ; 231; Blanford 
 on geology of Western Sind, 241 ; tertiary rocks 
 of, 256 ; Sind fossils, 266, 268 ; Sind, Buddhist 
 topes in, 323 ; Sind, archa;ological remains in, 
 342 (note) ; Sind, Arabian conquest of, 348. 
 
 Sinclair, Dr. C, 311. 
 
 Singareni coal-field, 273. 
 
 Singapore, 200, 234. 
 
 Singhbhum, 244. 
 
 Singora, 5. 
 
 Singphos, 75. 
 
 Sinus Arijancus, 46. 
 
 Sirgujah coal-field, 274. 
 
 Sironcha, 240. 
 
 Sironj, 58, 60, 206. 
 
 Sirpur, 335. 
 
 Sirsa village siu-vey, 106, 
 
 Sirthang. See Saithang. 
 
 Sittang river, marine survey required of, 36. 
 
 Siwalik hUl", 2.37; Siwalik and Xarbada Equida;, 
 259 ; Siwalik fauna, 246, 263, 271. 
 
 Skandagupta, 331, 337. 
 
 Sladen, Mr. Percy, 259, 268. 
 
 Slavery in Kafiristan, 134. 
 
 Smalan, 92. 
 
 Smart, Mr. P. B., 115. 
 
 Smith, Mr. E. W., 339, 362, 363. 
 
 Smith, Major Lees, 125. 
 
 .Smyth, Lieutcriant Morris, II.X., surveys Xega- 
 patam and Xagore, 21 ; engaged in buoying 
 the China Bakir entrance to Irawadi, 26 ; 
 surveys ports of Porbandar, &c., 3 1 . 
 
 .Snows, Himalayan, meteorologically considered, 
 
 294, 29.5, 296, 297, 300, 303, 310. 
 Soane irrigation cadastral survey, 114. 
 Soap, Village of (Kashmir), 275. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 409 
 
 Sohagpur coal-field, 256. 
 
 Soils, classification of, 112. 
 
 Sojali, 346 (note), 362. 
 
 Solar physics, 234, 289, 290, 29L 
 
 Soldiers trained for surveying, 99. 
 
 Somnath, 346 (note). 
 
 Sonepet, 277. 
 
 Sonarekha river, 348. 
 
 Son river, old course of, examined, 328. 
 
 Sorath, 347. 
 
 Southeru India, Archaiologieal survey of, 356. 
 
 Soti creek, 19. 
 
 Sonter, Captain, prisoner in Afghan War in 1842, 
 
 131. 
 South-east quadrilateral, 59. 
 Southern Moscos, 53. 
 Southern Trigon, 60. 
 South Patches, Wrecks by, 28. 
 South-west quadrilateral, 59. 
 Speir's " Ancient India," 356. 
 Spelling of Indian names, 318. 
 Springs, list of thermal, 258. 
 Spirit-) e veiling operations, 200. 
 Spiti, 253, 260, 275. 
 Sravasti, 330, 337. 
 Sri Gupta, Jlaharajah, 336. 
 Sri Sailam, 359. 
 Srinagar observatory, 300. 
 Statistical atlas of India, 226, 236 (note). 
 Standard yard measures, 217. 
 Stanford, Mr., 377. 
 
 Statistical Survey of India, 314, et seg pag. 
 Steatite in Karnul, 277. 
 Steel, Colonel E. H., 106, 116. 
 Steel-facing for copper plates. Process of, 223, 
 
 229. 
 Stephen, ilr. Carr, 343 (note). 
 Sterling, E., 179 (note). 
 Stevenson, Rev. Dr., 367. 
 Stewart, Lieut.-Colonel, of Guide Corps, 137. 
 Stewart, Professor B., 289. 
 Stewart, Sir Donald, 129, 134, 137. 
 Stiffe, Captain A. W., late I.N., directed to pre 
 
 pare Annual Return of Lighthouses and Vessels, 
 
 13 ; enti'usted with duty of issuing Notices to 
 
 Mariners relating to India, 13; 34. 
 Stirling. E., 179 (note). 
 Storm flood in Bengal, 286. 
 Strahan, Colonel C, 68, 130, 225. 
 Strachey, General K., 205 (note). 
 Strange, Colonel, 211, 216. 
 Street, E.N., Commander A.D., 12. 
 Strettell, Mr., 169. 
 Stoliczka, Dr., 260. 
 Stone-cutting known to Hindus in Alexander's 
 
 time, 332. 
 Stcne towtr. The, 193 (note). 
 Storm phenomena, observations and warnings of, 
 
 292, 295. 298, 304, 305, 307, 309, 310. 
 
 I Y 20321. D 
 
 Sub-Himalayan districts of the Punjat-., 105, 27 I 
 
 (note). 
 Subansiri, 52. 163 (note). 
 Subarmiti. See Sab.u'ma'i. 
 Subatliu, 80. 
 Suez, mean sea levels at isthmus of, 202,213; 
 
 maps of Suez canal, 224. 
 Sulimau mountains. Geology of, 251, 256, 257. 
 Sunargaon, 333. 
 Sunchi reef, survey of, 10. 
 Sundarbans, 23, 27, 28. 
 Sungar, 179. 
 Surashtra, 347. 
 
 Surat, 89 ; Surat flooded, 297. 
 " Surveys, ji.bstracts of," 374. 
 Surveys, reduction in budget of, 39 ; comparison 
 
 of three classes of, 101-3 ; Survey, equipment 
 
 in field, Report of Committee on, 138 ; Survey 
 
 instruments, 216. 
 
 Surkhab valley (Baluchistan), 97 ; (Afghanistan), 
 
 131, 278. 
 Sunspots and weather, 308. 
 Surveyor-General's Office, Calcutta, 221. 
 Sutlej river, 50. 
 Swan, Mr. J. W., 227. 
 Swat, 141, 150. 
 Swatch - of - no - grounil. Examination by the 
 
 " Investigator" of, and description of, 23. 
 Sylhet, 75, 76, 77, 78; Sylhet Mahalwar survey, 
 
 114; coal for Sylhet, 265. 
 Sydney, 234. 
 " Syud," The, 149. 
 
 Tabakat-i-Nasiri, 184 (note), 190 (note). 
 
 Tabulation of meteorological observations, 301. 
 
 Tagharma peak, 192. 
 
 Tahangarh fort, 336. 
 
 Tailan route, 180. 
 
 Taimani country, 183-185. 
 
 Taiwara, 183, 184, 185. 
 
 Tajiks, 194. 
 
 Taj Mahal, Agra, The, 322; decorations of, Sir 
 
 George Birdwood on, 363. 
 Takapani, 250. 
 Takht-i-pul, 189. 
 Takht-i-Rustam, 190. 
 
 Takht-i-Suliman Expedition, 94, 147, 148, 260, 
 264. 
 
 Taklakhar, 50, 161. 
 
 Tal, 92, 94, 129, 147, 268. 
 
 Tal-Chotiali route to India, 94, 129, 136. 
 
 Tal pass, 141. 
 
 Talaings, the, 363. 
 Talaja, 349. 
 d 
 
410 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Talbot, Captain, the Hon. G. M., 94, 9.5, 137, 
 
 140, 172, 182, 189, 190. 
 Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions, Dr. Burgess on, 1 
 
 371. : 
 
 Tandur, 240. 
 Tandwa stupa, 330. 
 Tangir, 142. 
 Tanjore, 46, 245. 
 
 Tanner, Colonel H. C. B., 8G, 97, 99, 122, 124, 
 130 ; attempts to penetrate into Kafiristan, ib., 
 144, 159, IGO, 161. 
 " Taptee," brig, 15. 
 Tapli river, 297, 329. 
 Tarim river, the, 157. 
 Tarnak valley, 133. 
 Tashi Lhunpo, 158. 
 
 Ta-hkurghan, 188, 189. See also Stone Tower. 
 Tasienlu, 154, 155. 
 Tasmanian Commissioners, 266. 
 Taverner, Lieut. -Colonel, 86. 
 Tavoy, 1 ; Tavoy river, 2, 36, 53, 364. 
 Tawang, 151, 163, 164. 
 Taxila, 326, 333, 337. 
 Taylor, Colonel Meadows, 318, 321, 360. 
 Taylor, Commander A. D., late 1.^., see passwi 
 through Chapter I.; his retirement and services, 
 15. 
 Tchamca, 165. 
 
 Tuesta river. Survey of lands adjoining, 127. 
 Tejara, 336. 
 
 Tejend, 179 (note), 186. 
 Telegraphic determinations of longitudes, 209, 
 
 210, 212. 
 Telkupi, 329. 
 Tellicherry, 4. 
 Telugu country, 351. 
 Temple, Sir R., 7, 8, 314. 
 Temjile^, illustrations oB rock-cut, Mr. Fergusson 
 
 on, 360. 
 Teriu^scrim, 27, 55, 201, 276, 278, 279, 280, 
 
 281. 
 Tengapani IJiver, 5. 
 Terai survey, 112. 
 "Terrible" rocks, 36. 
 Termez, 187, 188. 
 
 Tertiary fauna of Western India, 270. 
 Tezin, Khan of, 135. 
 ThabeitkNun, 167. 
 Thakot, 151. 
 Thai Ghat, 200. 
 
 Thana district forest surveys, 89 ; Thana collect- 
 orate survey, 125 ; Thana, antiquities in, 342. 
 Thanes^ar, 333. 
 Thai, 250. 
 Thayetmyo, 53, 159 ; oil fields of, 276 ; Thayet- 
 
 myo district, 364. 
 Theebaw, king, 166. 
 Theobald, :Mr., 238, 246. 
 Theodoliti', Colonel Strange's great, 219, 224. 
 
 Thermal springs in India, list of, 258. 
 
 Thibaw, Tsawbna of, 167. 
 
 Thingkali, 153. 
 
 Tho Bya, Island of, 56. 
 
 Thomas, Mr. Edward, 348, 372. 
 
 Thomason, Colonel, 7. 
 
 Thompson, Dr., 195. 
 
 Thomson, Sir Wm., 197, 199, 203. 
 
 Thonze, 166. 
 
 Three Pagodas (between Siam and Tenasserim), 
 
 53. 
 Thuillier, C.S.I., General Sir H. L., topographical 
 branch under control of, 38 ; retirement of, 40, 
 224, 373. 
 Thuillier, Colonel H. E., ll.E., succeeds Colonel 
 l)e Free as Surveyor-General of India, 45 ; 
 in Mysore, 82. 
 Tian Shan mountains, 158. 
 
 Tibet, Survey of frontier peaks of, 51 ; route 
 surveys in, 126, 151-160; Mr. Griesbacli on 
 frontier of Tibet, 26u ; meteorological obser- 
 vations in Western Tibet, 290. 
 Tidal observations, 57,. 196-208. 
 Tide predictor, 198, 199, 217. 
 Tiger, Distribution of the, in Badghiz, 195. 
 Tigowa, 337. 
 Tigu lake, 163. 
 Tila La pass, 155. 
 Tilail, mountains of, 246. 
 Time-ball at Fort William, 289. 
 Tinnevelli, 35, 84, 85 ; Mr. Foote in Tinnevelli, 
 
 256, 260. 
 Tipperah natives, 76. 
 Tirah valley, 91, 92. 
 Tiraj (Tirich) Mir, 144. 
 Tirpul bridge, 1 76. 
 
 Toba, Eastern, Sir H. Prendergast in, 99. 
 Toba plateau, survey of, 129. 
 Tochi, 149. 
 Todd, Mr. J., 116. 
 Todd, Mr. 11., 80. 
 Tod, Major James, 348 (note). 
 Tongoup, Lieutenant Channer surveys approaches 
 
 to, 20, 21. 
 Tonghu, 53. 
 Tonk, 146. 
 
 Topographical survey, accomplishment of first, 
 of India, 38, 68 ; reduction in survey budget, 39 ; 
 re-organization of department, amalgamation 
 of trigonometrical and revenue survey branches 
 with, 40 ; list of officers and surveyors in 
 amalgamated department, 40, 41, B7-99 ; com- 
 jjared with other surveys, 101. 
 Topra or Tobra, 333. 
 
 Torrens, Mr., Triangulation by, in Pishin, 48. 
 Tourmaline in Shan States, 279. 
 Tower, Mr. Beauchamp, 199. 
 Townsend, Mr. K. A., 275, 276. 
 Trade, import and export, Maps showing, 226. 
 Trans-frontier regions. Explorations in, 128 ; 
 mapping of, 231. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 411 
 
 Transit of Venus, 213. 
 
 Transit theodolites supplied in Afghan operations, 
 132. 
 
 Trap, Deccan, 274. _ 
 
 Travaneore, 21, 35 ; survey of, 84, 85 ; Dr. King 
 in, 256. 
 
 Traverse survej'S, 121. 
 
 Treasure Trove Act, 34 1 . 
 
 Tree and serpent worship, Mr. Fergusson on, 360. 
 
 Trevelyan, Sir C, 318. 
 
 Triangulation, correction of errors developed in, 
 42 ; completion of entire triangulat'.on of India, 
 58 ; retrospect of, 58 ; stations of, 63, 235 ; see 
 also Trigonometrical survey. 
 
 Trichinopoly, 245 ; observatory at, 285. 
 
 Trigonometrical survey, early history, 38 ; reduc- 
 tion of bndget of, 39 ; re-organization of 
 department, amalgamation of topographical 
 and revenue branches Tvith, 40 ; list of officers 
 and surveyors in amalgamated department, 
 40, 41 ; Trigonometrical Survey Office, Dehra 
 Dun, 221, 282; account of operations of, 233. 
 
 Trincomali, 208. 
 
 Tripalur reef surveyed, 28. 
 
 Trivandrum observatory, 308. 
 
 Trotter, Major, 192 and 193 (note), 245. 
 
 Troughton andSimms, Messrs., 217, 219. 
 
 Tsaidam, 153. 
 
 Tui pass, 141. 
 
 Tuna, port of, 34. 
 
 Tungabhadra river, 350. 
 
 Turbat-i-Haidri, 177. 
 
 Turfan, 158. 
 
 Turkis, 194. 
 
 Turkeskan, Map of, 232, 235. 
 
 Turkomans, 176 ; Ersari Turkomans, 181 ; Turko- 
 man country, 194. 
 
 Turner, Captain, 151, 153. 
 
 Turner, Mr. A. W., 227. 
 
 Turturia, JBrahman temples at, 332. 
 
 Tusaran Bihar, 330. 
 
 Tuticorin, 4 ; roadstead and harbour surveyed, 8, 
 307. 
 
 T>vcen, Mr., 238. 
 
 u. 
 
 U. G. (Ugyen Gyatsho), Lama, 158, 159, 160, 162 
 
 (note). 
 Udaipur, 70, 73. 
 Udayagiri, 331, 337, 358. 
 Umaria coal-field, 255, 264, 269, 273. 
 Umarkot, 238. 
 
 Umballa district survey, 106, 107. 
 Unai hot spring, 88. 
 Undavilli, 357. 
 TJnta Dhurra pass, 50. 
 
 Upheaval of coast between India and Ceylon, 
 261. 
 
 TJrakzai valley, 91, 149. 
 
 Drchha, 340, 363. 
 Urel, 331. 
 Urittaung, 364. 
 Uruvilwa forest, 330. 
 Uzbegs, 187, 189. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vade mecum, Indian meteorologist's, 288. 
 
 Vaigai (Veghavati) river, 46. 
 
 Vaishnava caves, 323. 
 
 Vailarna, the coasting steamer, 307. 
 
 Valej, 190 (note). 
 
 Valabhi, inscriptions of kings of, 371. 
 
 Valishau fort, 190 (note). 
 
 Vallis Comedarum, 193 (note). 
 
 Vambery, Professor, 179 (note). 
 
 Vanreuen, General D. C, 100 ; his retirement, 
 
 104. 
 Varv, 143. 
 
 Vellar river, Triangulation across, 46. 
 VeUur, Temple at, 359: 
 Vengi, Kingdom of, 357. 
 Venice, Geographical Congress, 88, 144, 156, 
 
 224. 
 Ventura, General, 333. 
 Venus, Transit of, 1874, 213. 
 Verawal harbour, 7. 
 Vicary, Captain, 257. 
 Victoria, Minister for Mines, 266. 
 Vienna Military Geographical Institute, 227. 
 Viharas or Buddhist monasteries, 323. 
 Vihowa basin, 148. 
 Village or Muzawar survej', 102. 
 Vilwa or bel trees, Forest of, mentioned in 
 
 Buddha's history, 330. 
 Vindhyan mountains, 236, 250, 256, 269, 369. 
 Vingorla, 18, 19. 
 Vishnu Sastri Bapat, 368. 
 Vizagapatam, 4, 21, 197, 201, 206, 212, 256; 
 
 Vizagapatam and Bakarganj cyclones, 287. 
 Viziadrug, survey of, 4 ; collection, examination, 
 
 and preservation of fauna of shores near, 6. 
 Von Abich, Staatsrath, 257. 
 
 Vypeen Island, Changes necessitating re-survey 
 of, 5. 
 
 w. 
 
 Waagen, Dr., 251, 259, 263, 266, 270, 276, 278. 
 
 Wadjra Karur diamond field, 266. 
 
 Waghers, Commander Taylor sent in 1859 to 
 
 pilot expeditionary force against, 16. 
 Wahab, Captain, 95, 95, 97, 147, 150, 172. 
 Wainn Gaga river, 329. 
 Wajiristan, 180 (note). 
 Wakhan, 143, 270. 
 
41: 
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 ■\Valkci, Mr., 378. 
 
 Walker, RE., ilajor-General J. T., C.B., ap- 
 pointed president of committee for inquiry into 
 workinc; of Marine Siirvey Department, 12 ; 
 TrifTonometrical Branch under control of, 38 ; 
 survey of India under control of, 41 ; notice 
 of service? of, 41 ; on the Lu river, 15.5, 156 
 (note); on tidal observations, 197, 203; on 
 pendulum obser\-ations, 2.?4, 235. 
 
 Walkh, 190 (note). 
 
 Ward, I.N., Captain, 36. 
 
 Wardak, 136, 27H. 
 
 Wardba valley, 240, 248, 329. 
 
 Warth, Dr., 278. 
 
 Warwick, Mr., 49. 
 
 Washin^on (U. S.), 2.34. 
 
 Washington, Admiral, 16. 
 
 Waterfield, Mr. H., 377. 
 
 Waterhouse, Colonel, 223, 225, 227. 
 
 Waugh, Major-General Sir A., 41, 62. 
 
 Waziri country, surveys in, 91, 146, 148. 
 
 Weather reports and charts. Daily, 289, 299, 303. 
 
 Wedge hank, 19. 
 
 Weighing balance for Mint at Calcutta, 217. 
 
 ^Vellesley, Ifarquis, 366. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 58. 
 
 Well~, Deep, in .lodhpur, 81. 
 
 Western coral banks (Andamans) sun-eyed, 30. 
 
 Western Ghats, 6, 82, 202. 
 
 Western India, monument.-; and rock-cut temples 
 of, 322, 346. 
 
 Westmacott, Mr. E. V., 334 (note). 
 Wharton, Captain, K.X., 207. 
 Whi~h, Lieutenant, his survey of Back Bay, 
 1861, 19. 
 
 WhitehoQse, R.N., Lieutenant B., 30. 
 Wilcox, Lieutenant, 171. 
 Wild men in Xortheni Tibet, 153. 
 Wilkins, Major W. H., 107, 108, 116. 
 Wilkins Sir Charles, 321, 367. 
 Wilkin.son, General H. C, 94. 
 Williams, Mr. Monier, 318. 
 WilJson, Mr. W. L., death of, 247. 
 AVilmer, Colonel, 96. 
 Wilson, Dr., 321, 354. 
 
 Wilson, Major, ^uney of Khatmandu valley by, 
 162. 
 
 Wind observations, 196, .301. 
 
 Wood, Lieutenant, I.S., 193. 
 
 Wood-carving in Gujrat, 325. 
 
 Wood-maion, Mr. J., 31. 
 
 ^N'oodthorpe, Colonel, 52 ; in Lakhimpur, 75 ; on 
 Assam frontier, 78, 79, 120; narrow escape of, 
 at Paiwar pass, (6. ; accompanies Sir F. Roberts 
 towards Cabul, 133 ; member of Committee on 
 Survey Equipments, 137; 146, 167. 
 
 Woolber Dr.. 309. 
 
 Wrecks and Casualties, Annual Return of, 3, 
 
 13. 
 Wuleeshac, 190 (note). 
 Wurshigun river, 144. 
 Wyatt, Mr., 167, 168. 
 Wynne, M., 241, 246 ; retirement and services 
 
 of, 263. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Yakban Pain, 184. 
 
 Yakhsu river, 143. 
 
 Yara-dok-tso lake, 151, 153, 158, 159, 1C3, 165. 
 
 Yangi Hissar, 192. 
 
 Yang-tse-kiang river. Upper, 153, 154, 157. 
 
 Yard measures. Standard, 217. 
 
 Yarkand, 158, 192; Yarkand mission, 171; 192 
 (note), 194; Yarkand and Kashghar meteo- 
 rology, 287. 
 
 Yasin, 141, 142, 144, 150, 270. 
 
 Yate, Captain, C.E., 194 (note). 
 
 Yaw country, 168. 
 
 Yenan-gyung oil fields, 276, 278. 
 
 Ye river, survey of approaches to, 27, 36. 
 
 Yembi, 154. 
 
 Ycshil Kul, 193 (note). 
 
 Yule, Sir H., 166 (note). 
 
 Yudish thira. 343 (note). 
 
 Y'usuf Sharif, 95; in Persia, 99, 148, 185, 
 
 190. 
 Yusufzai, 336, 344, 369. 
 
 z. 
 
 Zafarabad, 339, 340. 
 Zaimukht, 133, 135. 
 Zamindawar, 182, 185. 
 Zanakhan, 278. 
 
 Zanskar, sapphires in, 273, 275. 
 Zanzibar observatory, 308. 
 Zarmast pass, 177, 179. 
 Zarakhu valley, 279. 
 Zayul Chu, 155, 156 (note). 
 Zemi, 184, 186. 
 
 Zhob valley, 91, 95 ; Sir H. Prendcrgast in, 99 ; 
 
 146, 147, 148, 172. 
 Ziarat, 97. 
 Zohak-i-Maran, 184. 
 
 Zoological investigations, Afghan Boundary 
 Commission, 194. 
 
 Zorowar Sing's Indian army routed hv C!hinese 
 50. ' 
 
 Zuhak, 190 (note). 
 
 Zulfikar, 174, 176, 183. 
 
 L o X T) o >- : Printed by Etee and Spottiswoode, 
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