1864.] Beport of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. 883 



in order that any future enquiry regarding the length of the Standard, 

 at the time of the measurement of this Base Line, may be conducted 

 without greater labour than the measurement of a short section. 



It has been well said, by one of the greatest living authorities 

 on scientific matters, that " the ends of a base line should be guarded 

 with religious veneration." In this country they are liable to be 

 viewed with mingled cupidity and dread; the natives sometimes 

 fancy that money is buried below, or they superstitiously fear that the 

 Englishman's mark will cast a spell over the surrounding district. In 

 either case, the mark is liable to be destroyed, as has already happened 

 at the Seronj Base Line. # To ensure the protection of the ends of 

 the Vizagapatam Base, I have had substantial domes of cut stone 

 masonry built over them, without any openings, so that,, before the 

 marks can be reached, the domes must be pulled down, which will be 

 so laborious, that the Police should be able to hear of and arrest the 

 perpetrators, before they have had time to harm the marks. 



Captain Basevi, and the Assistants of the Coast Series Party, 

 shared in the measurement of the Base Line, which occupied about 

 two months. The length of the line is six and a half miles. It was 

 divided into three verificatory sections, which were subsequently 

 checked by two series of triangles, one on each flank of the base, to 

 test the measure of each section against the others. These tests were 

 satisfactory ; for the extreme difference between the measured length 

 of the whole base, and its computed length by triangulation from 

 either section, has been found to be one inch. The comparison of the 

 measured length, with the computed value brought down by triangu- 

 lation from the Calcutta Base Line, is singularly satisfactory, for the 

 error of the computed value is only a quarter of an inch, though the 

 triangulation embraces a distance of four hundred and eighty miles, 



* On this subject, the following extract is taken from a letter by Colonel Sir 

 George Everest, C. B., to the President and Council of the Eoyal Society, dated 

 8th April, 1861 : — J 



" The natives of India have a habit, peculiar to human beings in that state 

 oi society, of attributing supernatural and miraculous powers to our instru- 

 ments and the sites which have been occupied by them. In cases of death, or 

 any other natural visitations, they often offer up prayers to those sites, and if the 

 object of their prayers be not conceded, they proceed to all sorts of acts of 

 destruction and indignity towards them; nay, as in all cases where it was 

 practicable, my station marks were engraved on the solid rock in situ, they 

 have been known to proceed in bodies, armed with heavy sledge hammers, and 

 beat out every vestige of the engraving." - ' 



Jt 



