1835.] Progress of Indian Maritime Surveys. 329 



authority, while of more than half the islands on the earth's surface 

 we have no more accurate knowledge, than the fact, that they exist 

 in clusters of uncertain number and position, and of very dangerous 

 approach. Nay, even in the great high-ways of commerce and of navi- 

 gation, there are rocks and sandbanks and other perils, as to the ex- 

 istence and locality of which the evidence is balanced with most per- 

 plexing equality. Such things ought not to be in this age of philoso- 

 phical research, and in a department more especially which admits of 

 exact ascertainment. We look to the labours of the new Geographical 

 Society to dispel the mist of uncertainty which now covers so much 

 of the earth's surface, and by little and little to bring out the whole in 

 clear and well-defined and undisputed outlines. Those who aid in this 

 work, may be assured of the approving cheer with which the results of 

 their labours will be hailed by all classes and all nations ; for geo- 

 graphy is a science, the benefit from advancing which none are so 

 obtuse or so bigotted as not to acknowledge. 



As a science, geography is entirely of modern growth. It has followed 

 upon the advances made in the art of navigation ; and to this circum- 

 stance only can we ascribe, the comparative backwardness of the an- 

 cients in the department, and the little they have left that is of value in 

 it. Before the discovery of the compass and the improvements made 

 in the construction of ships, and the numberless inventions which have 

 made navigation a means of access to the remotest corners of the far dis- 

 tant ocean, the geographer's materials were confined to itineraries, and the 

 confused records of military expeditions, and of laborious land-journies. 

 Then mountains and rivers, and interior seas, deserts and lakes, were the 

 objects of first discovery. Now we have the coasts and outward appear- 

 ance, and the entire size of a continent thoroughly ascertained and de- 

 lineated before we know any thing whatsoever of the interior. With 

 the advance of navigation came the necessity of providing the means of 

 accurately knowing, whereabout on the earth's surface the winds and. 

 waves had carried the adventurous voyager. Hence the discovery of 

 instruments for determining latitudes and longitudes with a precision be- 

 fore undreamt of, and hence the ability to assign a place on the general 

 map of the earth's surface to every object that presented itself to the 

 navigator's observation. 



The refined and scientific surveys on land, undertaken for the correct 

 determination of the earth's figure, would never have been set on foot 

 but for the discoveries previously made by navigation. They are but 

 an extension of that science, and are effected through an application of 

 the same intruments and materials, though these are prepared and 



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