April 29, 1920] 



NATURE 



277 



1 



I 



Prof. Very states that he made a similar suggestion 

 many years ago. He conjectures that great gaseous 

 nebulae, such as that in Orion, are the synthetic 

 laboratories where matter is being built up ; he applies 

 the idea to the Russell sequence of giant and dwarf 

 stars, supposing that the loss of mass (contrary to 

 Prot. Eddington's suggestion) is a large fraction of 

 the whole initial mass, so that the dwarfs, on his view, 

 are stars not merely of smaller diameter and greater 

 condensation, but also of small mass. The increase 

 of velocity with advance of spectral type would thus 

 receive an explanation. ' 



Map-making in India. 



'T'HE Report for the year 1915-16 (vol. x.) of the 

 ■*• Records of the Survey of India (printed at the 

 office of the Trigonometrical Survey, Dehra Dun, 

 1917), which has lately come to hand, is somewhat 

 belated. The price of it alone would indicate this, 

 viz. "four rupees or 5s. 4^."; which does no justice 

 to the present value of the rupee. It is in other 

 resf>ects a new departure. There is no preface, and 

 we look in vain for the usual summing-up of the 

 scientific results of the year's work by the Surveyor- 

 General, Sir Sidney Burrard, who, for that matter, 

 has ceased to direct the Department and retired 

 to a well-earned rest. On the whole, it is a dry 

 record of useful progress in the work of map-making, 

 supplemented by long tables of the results of scientific 

 observation, which surely, if they are of any use at 

 all, should be published in such an up-to-date form 

 as to compare readily with the work of other observers 

 elsewhere whose researches may lead them into the 

 same scientific fields. There is no narrative or 

 detail explanation showing how the results recorded 

 have been attained; no excursions into the realms of 

 geography to lend a flavour of romance to the volume ; 

 and no new theories or startling discoveries to save 

 it from the familiar atmosphere of dry official dull- 

 ness. It is, of course, not meant to be amusing, but 

 it might easily be made more interesting. One unusual 

 and redeeming feature it does indeed contain. There 

 are seven most excellent photogravure portraits of 

 those gallant officers of the Department who fell in the 

 service of their country. They are so good that one 

 cannot but hope that they exist otherwise than in this 

 official environment, and have already become a per- 

 manent and honourable feature in the headquarters' 

 offices of the Indian Survey. 



The actual progress of mapping for military pur- 

 poses under the difficult conditions of the war period, 

 when so manv men were absent on duty in the fields 

 of France, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere, appears to 

 have been most satisfactory during that busv time. 

 The Punjab survevs extended into Kashmir, and 

 included a great deal of revision on the one-inch 

 scale as well as certain areas on four inches to the 

 mile. This feature of variety in the scale of mapping 

 is common to all the topographical parties, and is a 

 most encouraging sign that the scale is now adapted 

 to the quality of the district surveyed far more freelv 

 than used to be the case. Formerly, there is no 

 doubt, much money was wasted over unnecessarilv 

 laree scale work in districts which had no possible 

 military significance and not much geographical im- 

 portance in any sense. Practically the topographical 

 survevs are scattered all over India, from "the Punjab 

 to Madras and Burma. An examination of cost rates 

 is interesting, for it does not indicate that the cost 

 has greatly altered during the last twenty years. 

 Here again everything depends on the physical charac- 

 NO. 2635, VOL. 105] 



teristics of the district. From 76 rupees per square 

 mile in the Punjab (almost entirely revision) to 

 50-7 rupees in Burma is certainly a most re^^sonable 

 outlay for the work of the one-inch class, especially 

 when compared with the enormous costs of European 

 mapping on the same scale. The two-inch-per-mile 

 surveys were a trifle more costly (when compared with 

 previous years) than usual, but the surveyors had to 

 face special difficulties in the shape of large areas of 

 dense forest growth. 



There is no record of any extension of first-class 

 triangulation, and the scientific branch of the Survey 

 Department seems to have been directed towards 

 the completion of " fore and back double levelling of 

 precision" in the Punjab and the United Provinces^ 

 together with the usual programme of tidal and magi 

 netic observations. It is interesting to note the 

 generally increasing accuracy of tidal predictions, 

 although certain errors seem to require explanation. 

 For instance, there were five predictions at Moulmein 

 which were more than thirty minutes wrong. Why? 

 The tabulated magnetic results show that great dis- 

 turbances occurred in 1915, particularly in the month of 

 June; and on August 29, 1916, the seismograph was 

 dislocated by the violence of its action in recording 

 an earthquake shock. The report, however, says 

 nothing as to the probable location of that shock. 

 It would be interesting to know more about it. An 

 ingenious instrument for calculating attractions, which 

 the designer, Mr. J. de Graaff Hunter, calls an 

 "integrator," is illustrated by photogravure in the 

 report, and this is indeed the one new feature in it 

 which will probably attract most attention from men 

 of science. 



The final record of publications by the Survey of 

 India can be best studied by an examinatiori of' the 

 index charts which form the appendix. Progress with 

 the i/M (one-millionth) Maps of the World Series is 

 very satisfactory. It is this class of geographical 

 mapping which has formed the basis for the Peace 

 Conference boundary delimitations, and in their pre- 

 paration India is working hand-in-hand with the 

 Royal Geographical Society and the Geographical 

 Section of the War Office.' 



Vol. xiii. of the Survey of India Records, which is 

 issued a^. supplementary to the general report of 

 1917-18, brings the topographical records of the 

 Department to a later date than the above. It deals 

 with the same distribution of parties working on 

 original, revision, or supplementary surveys in much 

 the same fields, and denotes good progress at reason- 

 able rates, but for purposes of comparison a more 

 detailed summary is wanted of the amount of survey 

 completed in each class and a few notes on its 

 character and cost by the Officiating Surveyor-General, 

 Col. Ryder, R.E. The geodesic and scientific opera- 

 tions are summarised in part ii., and in the appen- 

 dices will be found useful reprints from the Journal 

 of the Royal Geographical Society (March and 

 October, 1918) on the problem of the Himalayan and 

 Gangetic troughs, containing the views of such 

 scientific experts as Sir Sidney Burrard and Mr. 

 R. D. Oldham on this most interesting subject. 

 S. feature in the report which attracts attention is 

 the distribution of Survey detachments (with the con- 

 sequent weakening of field parties) amongst artillery 

 practice camps, presumably for the same purpose of 

 range determination as that which absorbed such a 

 large and expensive staff of surveyors under R.E. 

 direction during the later years of the war. This 

 leads one to ask whether the gunners could not be 

 trained to carry out such special surveys for them- 

 selves. 



T. H. H. 



