TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 75 



ordinary nature, for the country is a continuation of the Vindhya 

 range, which crosses India from Bombay on the west towards 

 Calcutta on the east and then turns southwards to Madras, forming 

 everywhere the water-shed between the great river-system draining 

 into the Bay of Bengal, and that towards the west into the Indian 

 Ocean. The land is almost entirely a series of plateaux of one uniform 

 height between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above sea-level, and of a wild, 

 hilly, and inaccessible character, destitute of roads, and inhabited 

 by an original population of Kols and Gonds, as well as minor 

 tribes. In addition to the ordinary survey, 11 Government reserved 

 forests were mapped on the four-inch scale. Alphabetical lists were 

 compiled of each State, the areas computed, the houses counted, 

 and the whole arranged in a compendious form as a gazetteer for 

 each of the standard sheets. The Chota Nagpur Division of the 

 Central Provinces covers 75 sheets, of 30' longitude by 15' of lati- 

 tude, and the xSorth-E astern Division, 42 sheets. 



Assam. — The desultory and detached nature of the frontier surveys 

 and explorations on which the Khasia, Garo and Naga Hills party 

 (No. 6) Lad been for some years engaged, necessitated its being 

 broken in 1876-77 into three distinct sections or detachments. 

 Major Badgley, the officer in charge of the party, undertook the 

 revision of certain work in the vicinity of Shillong ; Lieutenant 

 R. G. "Woodthorpe, R.E., and Mr. M. J. Ogle were detached to 

 explore a wild part of the Lakhimpur district at the extreme head 

 of the Assam valley, south-east of Sadiya, and close to the Burma 

 frontier ; while the other two assistants were deputed on the Khasi, 

 Kamrup, and Garo Boundary Survey. Under these circumstances 

 the cost of the work was necessarily higher than usual, while dense 

 forest, swamps, want of good drinking water, venomous insects, 

 and fever seriously impeded the progress of Lieutenant "Woodthorpe 

 and Mr. Ogle's work. Both these officers contributed some in- 

 teresting descriptions of the country and of the manners and 

 customs of the Singphos, Kamtis, Nagas, and other tribes met 

 with. 



The next season (1877-78) saw Major Badgley again engaged 

 in the revision of the survey work between Gauhati and Shillong, 

 (which had been done under unfavourable circumstances, necessitating 

 a re-examination of the ground), and also in triangulation in Sylhet, 

 where the swampy and malarious character of the place, and the 



