1861 THE BROTHERS SCHLAGINTWEIT 329 



other day apud the Schlagintweits. 1 Don Roderigo 2 is 

 very wroth at being made responsible with Sabine, and 

 indeed I think he had little enough to do with it. 



You will see a letter from him in this week's 

 Athenaeum. Ever yours faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



1 The brothers Schlagintweit (four of whom were ultimately 

 employed), who had gained some reputation for their work on the 

 Physical Geography of the Alps, were, on Humboldt's recommenda- 

 tion, despatched by the East India Company in 1854-55-56, to 

 the Deccan, and especially to the Himalayan region (where they 

 were the first Europeans to cross the Kuenlun Mountains), in order 

 to correlate the instruments and observations of the several 

 magnetic surveys of India. But they enlarged the scope of their 

 mission by professing to correct the great trigonometrical survey, 

 while the contract with them was so loosely drawn up that they 

 had practically a roving commission in science, to make researches 

 and publish the results up to nine volumes in all manner of 

 subjects, which in fact ranged from the surveying work to ethnology, 

 and were crowned by an additional volume on Buddhism ! The 

 original cost to the Indian Government was estimated at 15,000 ; 

 the allowances from the English Government during the inordinately 

 prolonged period of arranging and publishing materials, including 

 payment for sixty copies of each volume, atlas, and so forth, as 

 well as personal payments, came to as much more. 



Unfortunately the results were of less value than was expected. 

 The attempt to correct the work done with the large instruments 

 of the trigonometrical survey by means of far smaller instruments 

 was absurd ; away from the ground covered by the great survey 

 the figures proved to be very inaccurate. The most annoying part 

 of the affair was that it absorbed the State aid which might have 

 been given to more valuable researches. 



The Council of the Royal Society had been consulted as to the 

 advisability of despatching this expedition and opposed it, for there 

 were in the service of the Company not a few men admirably 

 qualified for the duty, whose scientific services had received scant 

 appreciation. Nevertheless, the expedition started after all, with 

 the approval of Colonel Sabine, the president. In the last months 

 of 1866, Huxley drew up for the Royal Society a report upon the 

 scientific value of the results of the expedition. 



2 Sir Roderick Murchison. 



