TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 83 



difficult except along the roads, which are few and far between. 

 Great efforts were made to complete the mapping of the Mysore- 

 Kanara frontier during the following season (1879-80), but fever 

 and sickness attacked the party, and at the close of the season two 

 small gaps, aggregating about 25 miles in length, were unavoidably 

 left. Owing to the difficulty of the country the ordinary method of 

 working with the plane-table was in many cases utterly imprac- 

 ticable, and resort was had to special methods, particularly that 

 known as plane-table traversing, in which the plane-table supplies 

 the place of an angular instrument and the measurements are made 

 by chain, a process slow at all times, but especially so when the 

 chain lines, as in this case, had to be cleared through dense forest. 

 The same procedure had to be adopted in 1880-81 in the survey of 

 the western part of the province. The Assistant Superintendent, 

 Captain J. R. McCullagh, R.E., accompanied the Boundary Commis- 

 sioners in their work of demarcation, and inserted on the maps the 

 position of the various marks erected by them. The general work of 

 the party was much impeded by fever, from which all its members 

 suffered more or less ; one valued officer, Mr. R. Chew, Senior 

 Surveyor, succumbed to a severe form of malarious fever contracted 

 in the Bhadra valley. He had been 25 years in the Department, 

 and had gained high commendation for his professional skill and 

 steady attention to his duties. 



A large out-turn of topographical work was rendered in 1881-82, 

 this being due partly to the fact that so much triangulation had 

 been accomplished in previous years that sufficient ground had been 

 thereby prepared for the season's detail survey, and partly to the 

 good health enjoyed by the party. As in former years, part of the 

 work lay in the Malnad, where progress was necessarily slow, and 

 part in the easier and more open Maidan country. The former part of 

 the survey lay on the extreme western edge of the province, and 

 included the famous Falls of Gersoppa, which are said to be the 

 most picturesque falls in India. The Sheravati flowing over a very 

 rocky bed about 250 yards wide here reaches a tremendous chasm 

 960 feet in depth, down which it is precipitated in four striking 

 cascades. The Falls are graphically described in the " Mysore 

 Gazetteer."* 



During the seasons 1883-84 and 1884-85 the mapping of Mysore 

 was steadily pushed forward under Major Thuillier. In the latter 

 * Volume II., pages 386-390. 

 F 2 



