Tuosox.-—Colonial Standard Survey. 99 
of it which has been completed since the year 1884 with the best modern 
instruments. "They have served the purpose for which they were immedi- 
ately required, but they have béen superseded by the base lines which were 
subsequently measured with the Colby apparatus of compensation bars and 
microscopes.” 
To the stock farmer or the agricultural settler the opinions of Colonel 
Walker will appear hypercritical ; indeed, how earnest is he not—yet that 
very earnestness proves a state of views and interests irreconcilable. Where 
shall we draw the line of mutual concession, or shall the settler wait the 
pleasure of the great triangulator ? 
It is interesting here to remark how the modern invention of the electric 
telegraph has invaded the domain of the great triangulator, with whom, not- 
withstanding his subtle splitting of needle points, it is a rival in unravelling 
profound physieal phenomena. Thus, in the measurement of longitude 
between Madras and Mangalore. * The distance by great triangulation is 
20' 8678: by telegraph, 21’ 85^85; difference, 0-93, or 193^95 of arc. 
These figures are by Everest's * Elements of Globe Ellipticity," but by 
Clarke's the difference is reduced by 8^5, or to 10-45. The editor of the 
report remarks on this, that the fact is consistent with the result of Captain 
Basevi’s pendulum operations, which show that the density of the strata of 
the earth's crust is greater under the depressed beds of the ocean than it is 
under the land elevated above the sea level. "Thus the direction of the 
plumb line at Madras, on the east coast, is most probably deflected to the 
east of the normal to the mean figure, while at Mangalore the direction of 
the plumb line is deflected to the west of the corresponding normal. The 
length of the are between the apparent zenith points is consequently 
diminished, and must therefore be n than the length deduced from trigo- 
nometrical observations. 
And so also under the Himalayas we find the same law appertaining, 
viz., that the crust of the earth has greater density under the plains than 
under the huge excrescences of nature towering over them, and the laws 
which govern such physical conditions have been mathematically elucidated 
in the theory of terrestial gravity.+ 
I allude to these subjects in India, as it is the region of great contrasts, 
so it affords most apt illustrations. It is a region wherein we see enormous 
wealth in the few ; most sordid poverty in the many. To a colony like this, 
it presents an aspect in which there is almost no analogy, and as principles 
permeate from centre to extremes, so we find that, as affecting the particular 
theme of this paper, there is no exception. The most profound and refined 
* Report Indian Survey, 1872-3, page 15. 
t Treatise by Archdeacon Pratt. “ Phil. Trans.," London, 1871, p 338. 
