796 report— 1884. 



among the most primitive hill tribes, the narrative reports of the officers of the 

 Indian Survey are full of ethnographic and other curious information. Take for 

 example the account given by Mr. G. A. McGill, in 1882, of the Bishnoies of Raj- 

 piitana, a class of people, he says, who live by themselves, and are seldom to be 

 found in the same village with the other castes, ' These people hold sacred every- 

 thing animate and inanimate, carrying this belief so far that they never even cut 

 down a green tree ; they also do all in their power to prevent others from doing 

 the same, and this is why they live apart from other people, so as not to witness 

 the taking of life. The Bishnoies, unlike the rest of the inhabitants, strictly avoid 

 drink, smoking and eating opium ; this being prohibited to them by their religion. 

 They are also stringently enjoined to monogamy and to the performance of regular 

 ablutions daily. Under all these circumstances, and as may be expected, the Bish- 

 noies are a well-to-do community, but are abhorred by the other people, especially 

 as by their domestic and frugal habits they soon get rich, and are the owners of the 

 best lands in the country.' 



In one particular, the experience of the Indian Survey carries a lesson to this 

 country. ' A constantly growing demand,' says General Walker, ' has risen of 

 late years for new surveys on a large scale, in supersession of the small scale surveys 

 which were executed a generation or more ago. . . . The so-called topographical 

 surveys of those days were in reality geographical reconnaissances sufficient for all 

 the requirements of the Indian atlas, and for general reproduction on small scales, 

 but not for purposes which demand accurate delineation of minute detail.' We 

 have in the Canadian North-West, a region which has not yet passed beyond the 

 preliminary stage, and it would probably be possible to save much future expendi- 

 ture by timely adoption of the more rigorous system. There is perhaps no region 

 on the globe which offers conditions more favourable for geodesy than the long 

 stretch of the western plains, or where the highest problems are more likely to 

 present themselves in relation to the form and density of the earth. The American 

 surveyors have already measured a trigonometrical base of about 1080 miles in the 

 Sacramento Valley, the longest I believe as yet measured in any country (the Yolo 

 Base) and reported to be one of the most accurate. 



14. The Australian continent has been crossed again from east to west, on the 

 parallel of 28° South or thereabouts, by Mr. W. Whitfield Mills. Starting from 

 Beltana, near Lake Torrens, S. A., on June 6, 1883, and travelling almost due west, 

 he finally reached the coast at Northampton, W.A., in January last, after great, 

 suffering from want of water. But for the introduction of camels, the expedition 

 must have broken down. On one occasion they were eleven or twelve days without 

 water. He reports a great extent of available pasturage between the Warburton 

 range and the Blyth watershed ; but he found only three perennial sources of water 

 supply in 1,600 miles ; such conditions give more than usual interest to the recent 

 discovery that subterranean supplies may be expected all over a cretaceous area esti- 

 mated at 120,000 square miles in the central region of the Australian continent. 

 Good water was struck in April last by an artesian boring at a depth of 1 ,220 feet at 

 Turkannina, lat. 30° S., long. 138|° E. It is difficult to overrate the importance 

 of this discovery, the supply being very abundant, and not likely to fail, since its 

 sources are believed by Mr. Brown, the Government geologist, to be derived from 

 the rainfall of the southern watershed of the Queensland and Northern ranges. 



Mr. Mills started with thirty camels, attended by five Afghan drivers ; six of 

 them died from the effects, as was supposed, of eating poisonous herbage. Mr. 

 Mills did not deviate much from the tracks of the late Mr. W. C. Gosse, and of 

 Mr. J. Forrest, his journey has therefore added little to previous geographical 

 knowledge, but it has helped to make the route better known, and afforded fresh 

 evidence that the value of the camel in those terrible Australian Saharas is in no 

 degree less than it is where he has long been known as the ' ship of the desert.' 



Another traveller, Mr. C. AVinnecke, starting from the Cowarie station on 

 the Warburton River, in 28° S. has traversed about 400 miles of new coun- 

 try in a northerly direction, and made a sketch map of 40,000 square miles, 

 up to Goyders Pillars, a remarkable natural feature in the Tarleton range. He 

 too owed his success to the employment of camels, which he describes as ' behaving 



