BOOKS.
INDIAN SURVEYS.*
Ma. 'MARK:RA:sr, Secretary of the Indian Geographical Depart- ment, has produced a work which does credit to his industry and "bump of order." His "Memoir on the Indian Surveys" dis- closes a genuine love of the branch and branches of science with which his department is concerned, for nothing but affection could have enabled him to collect and arrange the immense mass of details forming the essence of any catalogue ralsonnr; like the work under notice. " The object of the memoir," be writes in his business-like preface, "is to furnish a general view of all the surveying and other geographical operations in India from their first commencement, in order that, in reading the reports of cur- rent work, ready means of reference to the previous history of each branch may be at hand." Mr. Markham has attained his object, and has furnished inquirers with an excellent clue to the labyrinth of the past ; for he has been unsparing in his use of foot-notes, containing abundant references ; has, in short, surveyed his subject thoroughly, and has set up an adequate series of finger-posts along the various and devious routes, so that none need waste time in finding the way, The essential part of the work has been so well performed that we can afford to overlook minor defects. Mr. Markham gives one the idea, for example, that, in his opinion, surveying in all its branches was the final cause of creation ; that the earth exists as a condition precedent to the measurement of a "great arc" and the making of divers maps ; and that Clive, Hastings, the Welles- lays were necessary indeed, but wholly subordinate to the career of Rennell, Everest, and Waugh ; nay, that our Indian Empire itself is chiefly important as a field for scientific campaigns. The courage of the" mere soldier" is more than once referred to in order that its inferiority to the courage of a surveyor might be set forth, and it is plain that, at least when he is composing a memoir, Mr. Markham regards warriors and statesmen as the coolies of the 'scientific societies, the "working parties" of the Indian Geogra- phical Department. This is an amiable weakness, requiring a passing notice because it is characteristic ; but it does not detract from the worth of a book which will be an invaluable guide to all future inquirers into any one of the subjects traversed by the author.
What one is forcibly struck with is not only the great mass of information accumulated, but the large quantity which has been allowed to disappear. The East Iadia Company were so busily employed in getting, governing, and keeping territory, that they had not the time or means needed to preserve and edit and con- dense scientific memorials. The problems of what we may call daily life, the perpetual struggle for existence, as well as the increasing demands for government, meaning an ever-augmenting enlargement of the sphere of duty, were quite as much as the ruling power could cope with ; and though it is matter for regret, it is not matter for surprise, that log-books, the narratives of enter- prising travellers, reports, returns, observations, many of them the work of volunteers, should have dropped out of sight into cellars, have vanished by sleight-of-hand, or otherwise, into pri- vate collections, or have been "reduced to pulp" by ignorant impatience and officious zeal. In the " pre-scientiac period" even men of science were not always clear-sighted or judicious, and directors could not be expected to show more wisdom and discrimination than members of the learned societies. When the Royal Society ignored Everest and tried to set up Jervis in his stead, it was not to be expected that a Court of Directors should be more enlightened than they, or that the promotion of science should hold a place in their thoughts equal to that occupied by the exigencies of polity and the complex details of administration. Due regard being had to the diffioulties of holding and ruling India, ample testimony is afforded by Mr. Markham's memoir that none of the branches of inquiry, about which he is naturally solicitous, have been neglected by the Government of India.
Very justly has Mr. Markham put the services of the Indian Marine in the forefront of his work. The early records were mainly burnt in 1860, but from the middle of last century to the middle of this, the Bombay Marine and the Indian Navy were incessantly acquiring and collating facts to guide the soldier, the mariner, the merchant from the Gulf of Suez to the China Seas. Hardy and
energetic young officers, often with very poor means, crept about coasts and shoals and reefs and estuaries and islands with unwearying tenacity, until the dangers of the narrow seas and the * 4 Memoir on Indian Surveys. By Clements B. Markham. Printed by order of her fdajosty's Secretary of State for India in Council. London: Allen and Co. broad ocean and the treacherous land were "laid down "in charts for the benefit of all. Nor were the more enterprising satiated by
service on the waters. They invaded and explored portions of countries still imperfectly known, and added to our knowledge of manners, customs, languages, and men. And besides this, they fought pirates, crashed slave-dealers, upheld British influence in remote waters, and wore afloat the worthy counterparts of their military and civil brethren ashore. Any one who reads nothing
but Mr. Markham's succinct record will readily see that the Royal Navy can never, in what we may call Indian waters, supply the place of the ill-fated Indian Navy.
The great laud surveys, now fast approaching completion, had their origin in political and military exigencies. The route surveys so zealously and ably executed by Major Rennell, first a sailor, then a soldier under Clive, and continued by his successors, were the natural fruit of Pliesey, for a knowledge of roads, rivers, obstacles, watersheds was essential alike to the Government in its military and its civil capacity, and the labours of Rennell justly earned for him the title of " father of Indian geography." The route surveys were carefully pushed in all directions useful to the new power, and the accomplishments of the founder imparted a solid character to the work done by his successors. The route surveyor went wherever the power and influence of the Govern- merit were able to protect him, and when these failed he found means to protect himself. But the project of obtaining an accurate knowledge of the country by means of a great trigonometrical survey was originated by an officer of infantry, William Lambton, so obscure that the place of his birth and the names of his parents are unknown. Self-educated, he served in America, rejoined his regiment, the 33rd, after an absence of thirteen years, acted as brigade-major daring the Mysore campaign, and led the left column at the storming of Seringapatam, after all his inferior officers had been disabled. At the close of last century Lambton laid before Government proposals for a mathematical and geo- graphical survey of India and the measurement of an arc of the meridian, found a powerful supporter in his chief, Sir Arthur Wellesley, and obtained the neSded sanction, but could not secure instruments until 1802. Then the work began with a base lino at Madras, the first measured in India, and from this sprang the series of triangulations so enthusiastically carried for- ward by Lambton and completed by Everest and Waugh. Other base lines were measured, the latest by Walker in 1862, but to the primary work geographers will always look back with the fondest interest. The large results of this small beginning in 1802 are now visible in the magnificent series of surveys which form such a strik- ing network on the index map published with this memoir. Thegreat are, begun by Lambton, has been carried by Everest and Waugh up to the buttresses of the Himalaya, a meridian from Cape Comorin to Mussoori has been accurately measured, and the enthusiasm of Mr. Markham impels him to anticipate, in his own day, the con- tinuation of the lino to the Arctic Ocean. The tenacity, hardi- hood, endurance, inventiveness of the surveyors, military and civil, deserve all the encomiums bestowed by the writer who has chronicled their labours ; but these gallant soldiers and civilians, we are sure, would have been better pleased had Mr. Markham refrained from the invidious disparagement of those other workers for the common- weal, whose valour, genius, and fortitude rendered it possible for the "great surveyors" to carry forward and complete their achievements.
Lambton was a man of unueue.1 mettle. When his great theodolite fell from the Tanjore pagoda, he carried the battered but priceless instrument to Bangalore, and shutting himself up in his tent, worked for six weeks until it was restored almost to its original form. For twenty years he continued his labours, with- out rest, and looked back " with unceasing delight" on the time he had passed in India. Yet he had but slight encouragement and very poor resources. When Everest joined him, in 1818, he was "an old man, with a bald head fringed with a few snow-white hairs. He was abort six feet high, erect, well formed, and muscular." In 1822, nearly seventy years of age, ho alone was left of all his assistants, who were down with jungle fever, and taking no rest at night, he pored away, observing the stars, until his faculties failed, and he died, in 1823, literally at his post. " Men cannot last for ever,' wrote his assistant, [Everest?] and the Colonel's infirmities had evidently subdued all but his spirit, lit the time of his last effort.'" He " completed the triangulation of 165,342 square miles in the peninsula of India, at a cost of £83,537 ;" and his hope that the work he began might be ex- tended over British India was fulfilled by George Everest, his youngest and ablest assistant. Everest, with more genius than Lambton, and a less hardy physique, equalled him in resolution. When he succeeded Latubton, many of his helpers died around or left him, and he had to work himself. While in the Berar valley be was " attacked by severe fever, and his limbs were paralyzed. Still he resolutely persevered, lest, if he broke down, the establish- ment should be scattered, mind the trained men he lost whom it would be impossibleto replace. He was lowered into and hoisted out of his seat by two men, where he observed with the zenith sector."
The record is fall of similar examples of quiet heroism carried even unto and into the gates of death. These two may stand as representatives of the men who surveyed British India ; but there are less conspicuous gentlemen whose lot was not to be famous, like George Logan, who died at Museoorie ; Wood, who pushed up to the sources of the Oxus; the two young brothers, Morrieson the name of them, one of whom (lied in the Sonderbunds, the other in fight against Glioorkas ; Strange, the cavalry captain, who led his surveyors across the Roan of Catch ; Colin Mackenzie, famous topographer ; Voysey, enterprising geologist ; Herbert, Hodgson, and a host who all have ii niche in this little temple which Mr. Markham has raised to commemorate their deeds. The later men are better known ; but even DOW vast works are done in India which escape notice, and it is not always the most notorious, or the best writers of reports, or the most highly placed who deserve the meed of fame.
All the branches of scientific inquiry are now better cared for than ever they were before ; the labourers are working more upon system, with the advantage of larger publicity. The Government of India is a great publisher, and pours forth yearly, one might say, miles of print on the most varied subjects, administrative, political, financial, scientific, historical. Mr. Markham has included in his Su'r'e!/s, the astronomers, geologists, botanists, archmologists, observers by land and water, and seems equally enthusiastic about them all. Indeed, as we have said, his memoir is a compendious catalogue raisoone: of the scientific work done by- the English in India, who often receive but scant justice from their countrymen on this side of the globe. The memoir might have been more carefully written, so far as polish and even accuracy of composition are concerned ; but it is luridly arranged, and will take high rank as a work of reference and guide to all who, by taste or necessity, are led to devote time and talents to the vast area of Indian inquiry, or who have to labour in that boundless field.
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