REVENUE SURVEYS. 123 



defective, the efforts were unsuccessful, though good use was made 

 of them in the succeeding season. In 1878-79 Major Tanner was 

 employed with the Kbaibar column of the Afghanistan Field Force 

 and Major H. S. Hutchinson took charge of the South Deccan party. 

 For one of the southernmost, sheets (54) the scale of survey was 

 increased to four inches to the mile ; but in other parts the old 2-inch 

 scale was adhered to. 



Major Hutchinson found it impracticable to utilise the topo- 

 graphy of the Bombay maps, owing to the drainage and other items 

 being imperfect and varying much in quality in different localities, 

 according to the time at which it was done and the officer who did 

 it. In 1880-81 the opportunity was taken by Major Andrew, who 

 bad assumed charge, to survey some western portions of the Nizam's 

 dominions which adjoined the area of the party, as no maps were 

 forthcoming of the tract among the records of the old Haidarabad 

 Survey. The general work was steadily continued up to 1886, when 

 the South Deccan party was withdrawn from tbe Bombay Presi- 

 dency and transferred to the Central Provinces to carry on a 

 traverse survey there in aid of a settlement survey. It had been 

 employed in the Bombay Presidency since October 1872, and during 

 the 14 seasons of its employment had surveyed in all, under suc- 

 cessive officers, a total area of 24,867 square miles, leaving about 

 11,953 square miles incompleted. 



The 10th or Nasik, Poona, and Ahmadnagar party, under Major 

 Macdonald, was occupied in 1877 in topographical survey in Ahmad- 

 nagar district, the eastern part of which adjoined Haidarabad territory. 

 The country was generally flat and open, though here and there inter- 

 sected by a network of large and small streams. In the west the 

 ground was broken and undulating, while in the immediate vicinity of 

 the Ghats it was a mass of hills, some very rugged and precipitous. 

 The skeleton survey was a combination of triangulation and 

 traversing, by which the country was first covered by a network of 

 triangles having sides averaging 10 miles in length ; the distances 

 between the triangulated points were then traversed with the chain, 

 thus enclosing main circuits, of which the bearings and co-ordinates 

 obtained by traverse were corrected to agree with the values of the 

 points derived from the triangulation. The city of Ahmadnagar 

 was mapped on the scale of 66 feet or one chain to the inch for the 

 municipality, by whom the extra cost was defrayed. An excellent 



