GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 47 



at Pondicherri. jSTegapatam, and other distant points, and in course 

 of this work recourse -was very frequently had to the lofty 

 temples called Gropurams, the temporary conversion of which into 

 theodolite stations Avas successfully negotiated by the Assistant 

 Surveyor, Mr. Potter. The principal triangulation being finished 

 early in the season, Colonel Branfili proceeded to the west coast to 

 connect the secondary triangulation which Colonel Lambton had 

 brought up from Cape Comorin over the hills of Travancore and 

 Cochin to Ponani, early in the present century, with the secondary 

 triangulation of the Malabar minor series. Colonel Branfili' s opera- 

 tions closed with certain observations for the better connection of 

 the triangulation on which the topography of the Nilgiri Hills is 

 based, with his principal triangulation. This completed the modern 

 operations in Southern India, the greater portion of which fell to 

 his share and were accomplished with considerable skill, energy, 

 and perseverance. 



The Eastern Sind Series, on the meridian of 70°, was commenced 

 by Captain Rogers in 1876, at a side of the Karachi Longitudinal 

 series. It lay across a country of sheer desert, composed mainly of 

 parallel ridges of sand of considerable height with steep slopes 

 covered with low thorn jungle ; occasionally these sandhills disappear 

 and give place to a variously moulded surface of ever shifting sand 

 utterly devoid of vegetation called " draens." Curiously enough, 

 wells of good water are occasionally found in these spots, the 

 water in other parts of the desert being scarcely drinkable. The 

 villages are for the most part built on the tops of the sand- 

 hills, which in winter are warmer than the valleys. During 

 1877-78 the rains failed in Sind, and Captain Rogers was 

 consequently despatched to carry a secondary triangulation from 

 the western frontier of Sind into Baluchistan along the line 

 between Jacobabad and Quetta, a series much needed for the 

 correction of the maps of Southern Afghanistan and Baluchistan ; 

 the position of Kandahar in particular being placed on one of the 

 best maps 15 miles west of its real position. Towards the 

 British frontier there is a great dearth of water and vegetation, 

 but near the hills there are ravines and watercourses, several con- 

 siderable villages, and traces of much greater prosperity and 

 population in times past, the subsequent deterioration being attri- 

 buted mainly to the unsettled condition of the country. Captain 

 Rogers laid out several triangles near the entrance to the Bolan 



