1834.] to the Orthography of Oriental Languages. 285 



Contemporaneously with this measure, and as part of the same scheme, 

 revenue surveys were put in hand, and maps on a large scale were con- 

 structed, in which the names of every place or object were accurately 

 entered according to the same system. Up to this time, no attempt had 

 ever been made to make this grand improvement in the geography of 

 India. The maps of Bengal were copied to the letter from the sur- 

 veys of Rennell made in the era of jargon, and though better spelt than 

 most of the documents of that period, yet still partaking largely of the 

 miscellaneous mode of writing, so liable to mislead. All the surveyors 

 subsequently employed had been left to pick up the names of places 

 by the ear, and it had never been made an instruction to them to as- 

 certain how they were written in any dialect or language of India, and 

 to transfer them according to system into their maps. The surveyors 

 too unfortunately were very seldom scholars. In order to show the 

 consequences of this neglect, and to expose at once the absurdity of 

 trusting to the ear in a matter of this kind, an extract is annexed* from 

 a map of the Dooab, compiled not ten years ago, and now in our pos- 

 session : it bears the official signature of the surveyor-general of the 

 day, and professes to be from the best materials then in the archives 

 of that department. In this extract it will be seen that the well known 

 road from Cawnpoor (Kanhpoor) to Ukburpooris laid down double, be- 

 ing taken apparently from two routes made with compasses, or the- 

 odolites, varying in a small degree, so as to give a different direction, 

 and the copyists of the surveyor general's department have not disco- 

 vered that the routes are the same, because all the names are spelled dif- 

 ferently. There are regularly 



Kuttra, Gittera, 



Chichehree, Chiclundy. 



Bhysour, Bhysawn, Bheisawn, (Bhenour ?) 



Fattipr. Futtehpr. 



Reneea, Runneah, 



Oomrun, Oomeron. 



With sundry other names, till one road comes to Akberpoor and the 

 other to Akbarpoor, the relative distances of all these places being the 

 same. Like absurdities might be shown in many maps similarly con- 

 structed from materials, in which the names have been set down by the 

 ear without the observance of any system of spelling. It is no fault 

 of the map compiler if he has not recognized Chicheree to be the same 

 place as Chichindy, and Kuttra as Gittera, when they stand in two maps 

 in positions not exactly corresponding. The fault was in the employment 

 of an officer to survey, without instructing him specifically how he was 

 to write the names of his map. The revenue surveys, so far as they went, 



* See Plate xix. fig. 1. 



