THE TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 269 



THE TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 



AT the close of the war with Tippoo Sahib, Major 

 Lambton planned the triangulation of the country 

 lying between Madras and the Malabar coast, a dis- 

 trict which had been roughly surveyed during the 

 progress of the war by Colonel Mackenzie. The 

 Duke of Wellington gave his approval to the project, 

 and his brother, the Governor-General of India, and 

 Lord Olive (son of the great Clive), Governor of Ma- 

 dras, used their influence to aid Major Lambton in car- 

 rying out his design. The only astronomical instru- 

 ment made use of by the first survey-party was one 

 of Eamsden's zenith-sectors, which Lord Macartney 

 had placed in the hands of Dinwiddie, the astrono- 

 mer, for sale. A steel chain, which had been sent 

 with Lord Macartney's embassy to the Emperor of 

 China and refused, was the only apparatus available 

 for measuring. 



Thus began the Great Trigonometrical Survey of 

 India, a work whose importance it is hardly possible 

 to over-estimate. Conducted successively by Colonel 

 Lambton, Sir George Everest, Sir Andrew Waugh, 

 and Lieutenant-Colonel Walker (the present superin- 

 tendent), the trigonometrical survey has been prose- 

 cuted with a skill and accuracy which render it fairly 

 comparable with the best works of European sur- 



