b» TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 



efficiency in the methods and procedure of the surveys, and in the 

 completeness and trustworthiness of the resulting maps. 



At the close of the period dealt with in the last edition of the 

 " Memoir," the primary topography of the larger part of India, 

 as shown by the index map attached to General Thuiliier's topo- 

 graphical report, had been completed, the most conspicuous blanks 

 still remaining being the western half of Rajputana, the greater part 

 of the North- West Provinces, the Konkans, and nearly all the Madras 

 Presidency. The old maps of nearly all these regions had supplied 

 material for published sheets of the Indian Atlas on the scale of 

 four miles to the inch, but much of it was incomplete and unsatis- 

 factory, and the re-survey and re-engraving of the less-accurately 

 mapped tracts have consequently had to be taken up as financial and 

 other considerations permitted. The most recent index map of the 

 Indian Atlas shows that the Punjab, Sind, the Berars, part of 

 Rajputana, most of the western and southern portion of the Bombay 

 Presidency, Haidarabad, and nearly all Southern India, as well as the 

 North.- West and Lower Provinces, must be re-engraved before the 

 Indian Atlas sheets exhibiting those regions can be held to be up to 

 the level of accuracy befitting the standard map of India. And as 

 in many of these tracts fresh and better surveys must precede the 

 preparation of fresh plates, it is clear that there is abundance of 

 employment still awaiting the Indian Topographical and Revenue 

 Survey parties. 



During the season 1876-77 nine separate parties of the Topo- 

 graphical Survey were at work in different parts of India. The 

 area allotted to the operations of the Gwalior and Central India 

 Survey covers an extensive portion of country east and south 

 of the Rajputana desert. One of its principal duties in 1876-77 

 was the construction of large scale surveys of the fortress of 

 Gwalior, the cantonments of Morar, the native city, and the Resi- 

 dency lands and surrounding country for the military authorities. 

 These were superintended by Captain Charles Strahan, R.E., chief 

 of the party, while Lieutenant J. R. Hobday carried on the one-inch 

 work towards the west in the Native States Udaipur, Dungarpur, 

 and Tonk in the Rajputana Agency. Part of Captain Strahan' s 

 operations lay near the great water-patting of the rivers draining 

 east into the Bay of Bengal and those flowing into the Gulf of 

 Cambay on the west, and the difference here observable is most 

 remarkable, the north-east portion being very flat and quite open, 



