PRELIMINARY NOTICE. Vll 



been published by the Government Surveys, I have felt myself at 

 liberty, without interfering with such maps, to adopt that system for 

 the transliteration of native names for localities, which is in use by the 

 great Trigonometrical Survey. This is fundamentally the system of 

 Sir William Jones. It is not assumed that the names on this map 

 will in ail cases be found correctly spelled, even on that system. There 

 are great, and indeed almost insurmountable difficulties where, as in the 

 case of the Geological Survey, the only knowledge of the names of 

 places can be acquired from the illiterate natives, no two of whom 

 will probably pronounce the name even of their own village in exactly 

 the same way. But still it is hoped that the present will be found an 

 improvement on all former maps of this district, as regards the ortho- 

 graphy of the names. 



That there is really no great difficulty in arriving at the correct 

 spelling of the names of all places in any part of the country, I have 

 been satisfied long since, and I may give an instance here which will 

 elucidate this. The name, Pancbet, which will be found to recur so 

 frequently in the following pages, was found spelled indifferently 

 on previous maps, as follows ; Pachate, Pachet, Panchete, Panchooit, 

 Pachite, Pachit. Even the same word is on one map spelled Pachet 

 when applied to the hill, and Panchooit when applied to the village 

 close by. Mr. Blanford corrected the spelling into Panchit, giving the 

 true sound of the first syllable. But feeling satisfied that for a name 

 so well known there must be some acknowledged and admitted deriva- 

 tion, and therefore some established and correct mode of spelling, 

 I applied for information to Baboo Rajendralala Mittra, whose pro- 

 found knowledge of Bengali and Sanscrit is well known, and he at 

 once stated that the name was supposed, by most persons, and amono- 

 others by the Rajah of the place, to be derived from Pancha kota, or 

 five forts — but that in an old Sanscrit book he found it stated to be 

 taken from Pancha kuta or five peaks, from the hills adjoining. In 



