102 GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS. 



precipitated over the cliffs, and how the trade has been carried on 

 under circumstances of such exceptional difficulty is a marvel. 



R N , who was Colonel Tanner's companion through the 



above work, also completed the very arduous undertaking of a circuit 

 round the great Kanchanjanga mountain, not only supplying a sketch 

 of the peak and its dependent spurs, but also a delineation for the 

 first time of the boundary between North-eastern Nepal, Sikkim, and 

 Tibet. 



In 1887-88 the reconnaissance and approximate triangulation 

 of Western Nepal were extended eastwards from the Kumaun 

 boundary to the Gandak river, which has formed a sensible addition 

 to our geographical knowledge of that country. But a good deal 

 still remains to be done. Materials are most scanty where the 

 Gandak and Baghmati rivers break through the Himalayas into 

 the plains, and most abundant, of course, in the tracts adjoining 

 Kumaun and Sikkim, whither observers have been able to gain 

 access without difficulty. The greater part of the operations in 

 1887-88 were done by Sub-Surveyors Rinzin Nimgya and Ram Saran 

 by distant sketching from the tower stations of the N.E. Longi- 

 tudinal Series of the Great Trigonometrical Survey and with the 

 aid of previously fixed distant peaks, a method which enables 

 the Surveyor to fix fairly enough the prominent points of ridges 

 and any other features seen and identified, but which leaves him 

 somewhat in the dark as to the run of the valleys and the details 

 of the drainage. Besides these reconnaissance surveys the only 

 other information we possess is derived from the route surveys of 

 the few native explorers who had traversed the country from time 

 to time, and from a survey by Major "Wilson and Captain Barrow of 

 the valley of Khatmandu. The_ chief difficulties attending Hima- 

 layan surveying of this character are due to the hazy and cloudy 

 state of the atmosphere, which nearly always obscures the central 

 band of mountains. 



Bhutan is another region of which our knowledge is still very 

 fragmentary, and this appears to be mainly due to frequent internal 

 dissensions and the generally unsettled character of the country. 

 According to R. X.. who explored tracts in Eastern and Western 

 Bhutan in 1885-86,* the government is nominally vested in two 

 Ri port on the Explorations of Lama Serap Gyatsho and four other native travellers 

 in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibet. Dehra Dun, 1889. An interesting critical review 

 of the journey, giving many additional details, will be l'ound in the Indian Survey 

 Report i'or 1886-87, page lxxxvi. 



