86 TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS. 



warm -weather approaches the hot winds blaze across the Rami like 

 the blast of a furnace, clouds of dust render it impossible to advance, 

 and travelling is safe only at night, the whole length of the road 

 being marked out by the bones of the cattle and camels which have 

 died from exhaustion en route ; a heavy fall of rain closes the road 

 for days, and camels caught therein have but little chance of 

 escape. Before 1819 the river passing through the Rann was 

 crowded with boats carrying the produce of Sind down to Lakpat, 

 but in that year an earthquake closed the river and destroyed 

 several villages.* 



During the following seasons the Cutch survey was continued by 

 Colonel Pullan. On one occasion while out surveying he was" 

 attacked by a panther and a good deal mauled about ; these brutes, 

 together with lions, haunt the Gir mountains of Kathiawar, and the 

 former are said to be not unfrequent in Cutch. The survey was 

 finally brought to a conclusion by Colonel Pullan in 1880. 



Gujrat. — TheGujrat survey was organized for the purpose of dealing 

 with a large strip of country extending along the western confines of 

 the Bombay Presidency from the Rami of Cutch in the north to Nasik 

 in the south. From the first Colonel Walker devoted his best 

 efforts to utilize the mapping work of the Bombay Revenue 

 surveyors who had already gone over all the cultivated tracts 

 for settlement purposes. But the combination of the two surveys 

 proved a difficult task ; so during the rainy season in 1875 a 

 conference was held at Poona with the view of settling (i) the scale 

 on which the new Topographical Survey maps should be drawn, 

 and (ii) the extent to which the older Bombay Revenue Survey 

 maps could be incorporated and utilised. The Committee were 

 also particularly asked to consider whether the 4-inch scale adopted 

 by Major Haig in Gujrat. or the 2-inch scale adopted by Major 

 Tanner and Captain Samuells in the Deccan and Nasik was 

 preferable. Colonel W.C.Anderson was president, and the other 

 members were Lieut. • Colonel Taverner, Lieut.-Colonel Macdonald, 

 Major Tanner. Captain Samuells, Major Haig, Major-General Bell, 

 ami Colonel Merrimau. The last two were engineers, all the others 

 were Survey officers. 



* Sir Bartle Frere wrote an interesting paper on the Rann of Cutch lor the 

 Royal Geographical Society. Set R. Gr. S. Journal, si., p. 181. Mr. W. T. Hlanford 

 aUo discussed the former existence of a sea covering the Rann, Journal Asiatic Soc, 

 Beng., xlw, p. ii.. I?"'" 1 - 



