REVENUE SURVEYS. 101 



three in the North- West Provinces, six in Bengal, two in Bombay, 

 and one in Assam. Of these 11 were regular survey divisions, 

 and three smaller parties employed on special work distinct from the 

 regular divisions. The total area surveyed and completed in detail 

 was 12,544 square miles, of which 5,424 square miles were muzawar 

 or village by village survey, at a cost of about 50 Rs. per square 

 mile. The cadastral operations introduced into the North-West 

 Provinces in 1871-72 had entailed very considerable labour in the 

 publication of the maps, so it was arranged that about 5,000 of the 

 sheets should be lithographed at Allahabad under the orders of 

 the Board of Revenue, while an equal number were dealt with at 

 the Surveyor-General's Photographic Branch. The Soane Irriga- 

 tion maps, which were on a still larger scale, were most of them 

 handed to a Calcutta firm for reproduction. 



About this juncture an important question arose as to the success 

 of the Survey Department operations in the Lower Provinces of 

 Bengal, and the Board of Revenue expressed their opinion that the 

 surveys necessary for settlement purposes might be doue at far less 

 cost by non-professional agency. This opinion led to the prepara- 

 tion of an elaborate statement by General J. T. Walker, the following- 

 extracts from which will give a good general idea of the three 

 classes of operations : — 



1. The Topographical Sihrvey, on the 1-inch scale. 



" This survey is constructed by the method of plane-tabling, on a trigonometrical 

 basis, in such a manner as to exhibit the positions of towns and villages, the courses 

 of rivers, the general features of the ground, and as much detail as the scale will 

 admit of, with a sufficient degree of accuracy for the requirements of a general topo- 

 graphical map on the 1-inch scale. The surveyor goes over the ground with his 

 plane-table, which he sets up at a sufficient number of points to enable him to ' cut in ' 

 all the most prominent objects and to sketch the general features of the country ; the 

 number of these points, called ' plane-table stations,' will vary with the nature of 

 the ground, being few where it i-s flat and open and numerous when it is hilly and 

 rugged. In all cases the plane-tabler actually goes over only a comparatively small 

 portion of the ground, the greater part being sketched in from his stations. He 

 surveys no village boundaries, but only the principal boundaries, viz., those of the 

 British districts and the Native States and their sub-divisions when they have been 

 demarcated beforehand." 



The plane-tabling executed during the 10 years 1867-68 to 

 1876-77 was performed at the average speed of 55 - 8 square miles 

 per mensem for each surveyor employed on that class of work, and 

 the total cost of the surveys during the same period, including 



