NA TURE 



June cS, 1905 



A committee is now sitting somewhere in India to 

 •decide on the best method of increasing the efficiency 

 of the Indian survey department from the point of 

 view (amongst others) of the English expert. It may 

 .be doubted whether the Indian surveyor has much to 

 learn from the English expert, excepting in the science 

 ■of map reproduction ; but it may be tliat the Indian 

 financier will learn therefrom that the way to improve 

 and develop a department is not to starve it under the 

 pressure of each successive spasm of financial de- 

 pression, but to give consistent support to its work 

 in the field and encourage the publication of such 

 results as are of world-wide interest. Compare this 

 half-starved production with the survey reports of 

 North America, of Canada, of any Continental coun- 

 try, or even with the intermittent publications of 

 ■South America, and it would really appear as if India 

 ■offered no field for scientific research that was worth 

 a descriptive record. The report is unworthy of the 

 •Government of India. 



There is apparently but one triangulation party 

 now existing in India which works on geodetic prin- 

 ciples, and this is gradually pushing its network of 

 ■triangles through Burma, giving a good basis for 

 two topographical surveys to extend their minor 

 triangulations and lay out a framework for detailed 

 mapping. Only these two topographical parties 

 figure in the report, and the narrative of their pro- 

 gress is confined to the dullest of all dull statistics. 

 Yet one of them is working in the Shan States on 

 the Chinese frontier, where, if anywhere in the 

 •eastern world, there must be a most delightful field 

 for new experiences and original observation. 



Of geographical exploration on or beyond the Indian 

 frontier, or of scientific investigations in the Hima- 

 layas, there is not a word in the report ; nor, for that 

 matter, is there the faintest reference to the solid 

 work of the revenue and forest surveys which are 

 spread in more prosaic form over half the continent. 

 Possibly there may be much of really stirring narra- 

 tive rendered by the officers concerned in trans-frontier 

 work to which it is not deemed well to make any 

 allusion. This is comprehensible on the grounds of 

 political prudence, but the worst feature of this form 

 of suppression is that it is apt to be permanent. A 

 report once pigeon-holed in an Indian office might 

 almost as well be solemnly committed to the earth 

 with a spade. The man who wrote it, and who knew 

 what he wrote about, leaves India at the mature age of 

 fifty-five, and thereafter has nothing further to say to 

 "it. His opinion is never consulted, and it becomes 

 merely a matter of academic interest to him to watch 

 a new generation of frontier administrators flounder- 

 ing along by the light of experiences gained, let us 

 say, in South Africa or in Egypt. He faintly wonders 

 what has become of all the detailed information of 

 the Indian frontier gathered in his time at the cost 

 of so much labour and expense. 



There is, however, doubtless much to be learnt from 

 the series of tidal, levelling, and magnetic tables 

 which take up nearly fifty of the eighty pages of the 

 report, although it is not easy to recognise their 

 claim to be considered narrative. Presumably these 

 tables are published for the benefit of the compara- 

 tively few men of science who are interested in these 

 special classes of investigation, but thev hardlv seem 

 to justify the title of the report, and should certainly 

 be preserved (as they probably are) in other forms 

 more readily accessible for purposes of reference. 



There is an account of a local survey (including 

 levelling operations) which was undertaken for the 

 benefit of the salt revenue department in order to 

 ascertain the source of the Sambhar Salt Lake water 

 supply. The result of the investigation would have 

 teen interesting had it been state'd. The lake was 



NO. 1858, VOL. 72] 



surveyed thirty-eight years ago, and the source of 

 supply carefully examined then. Probably the report 

 was pigeon-holed. 



It would be pleasant to congratulate Colonel Longe 

 on the success of his first administrative report as 

 Surveyor-General of India, but, as a matter of fact, 

 it is obvious that hardly even the skirts of narrative 

 have been touched so far as the .Survey of India is 

 concerned, and we can only hope that there may be 

 another and a more comprehensive report issued here- 

 after in some other form. T. H. H. 



NOTES. 



It cannot be too often emphasised that Japan owes its 

 triumphs chiefly to the adoption of the scientific spirit as 

 the essential principle of national progress. The State 

 that accepts this axiom of practical politics secures for 

 itself a place among leading nations ; while, on the other 

 hand, the country that gives little or no encouragement to 

 science must fall behind in the future. The Paris corre- 

 spondent of the Times states that this view is taken by 

 M. Ludovic Naudeau, Who, in the course of a telegram 

 from Tokio on the causes of the Russian defeat, re- 

 marks : — " It is now idle to attempt to hide the fact that 

 never was the Russian lack of science, of the modern 

 spirit, or, to speak frankly, of intelligence — never was the 

 absence of training and of enthusiasm which retards the 

 efforts of the whole Empire displayed in a more melan- 

 choly fashion than in the Sea of Japan. All the Russian 

 inferiority is in the intellectual sphere." We understand 

 that even in the midst of the war, the subject of education 

 is being keenly discussed in Japan. In our own country 

 it is necessary to urge that satisfactory provision for the 

 future can only be made by taking a wide view of scientific 

 education, and by insisting that all who have the affairs 

 of State under their control should possess such a know- 

 ledge of the methods of science as will enable them to 

 understand that the most potent factors of success in the 

 arts of peace or of war are scientific education and 

 research. 



Under the name of the Potentia Organisation, an inter- 

 national association has been formed with the object of 

 establishing among nations a mutual relationship and 

 cooperation for the diffusion of accurate information and 

 unbiased opinion concerning international events and 

 movements, and to combat narrow, prejudiced, and often 

 interested views and news that contribute so much to 

 international mistrust and misunderstanding. It is pro- 

 posed to publish throughout the world, through the medium 

 of newspapers and reviews, statements of simple fact and 

 expressions of opinion by eminent public men of all 

 nations on all important political, social, philosophical, 

 economic, scientific, and artistic questions, to present the 

 sincere views of experts on all current International events, 

 and to refute false or biased news and views calculated 

 to spread error and to endanger the peace and progress 

 of the world. A cosmopolitan alliance of this kind should 

 meet with many adherents in the world of science, in 

 which the sole aims are the discovery of truth and the 

 extension of natural knowledge. We trust that the 

 organisation will do something to show that scientific 

 culture Is at the foundation of all national progress. 



Mr. St..\nlev Gardiner, leader of the Sladen Trust E.\- 

 pedltion for the exploration of the Indian Ocean between 

 Ceylon and the Seychelles in H.M.S. Sealark, has sent 

 Prof. Herdman a letter from Colombo (May 7) In which he 

 gives the following provisional programme : — Leave 



