HEADQUARTERS OF SURVEY DEPARTMENT. 223 



A considerable amount of labour was thrown on the Department 

 by the preparation of a list of the latitudes and longitudes of all the 

 places in Dr. Hunter's Imperial Gazetteer of India. This was 

 successfully completed in 1879. 



In July 1878 Captain Waterhouse went to Europe on privilege 

 leave and visited the Paris Exhibition and other places to investigate 

 the most recent improvements in photography as applied to map 

 reproduction. He also studied the process of heliogravure* practised 

 at the Military Geographical Institute, and secured for the Depart- 

 ment the right of using Mr. "Willis's platinotype process, a good 

 permanent substitute for silver printing. 



During the year 1879-80 the demand for maps of Afghanistan 

 was very great and urgent, and it taxed the resources of the 

 Department to the utmost to utilise speedily the new surveys which 

 kept coming in from the seat of war from time to time. Five 

 editions of the large map issued under the successive titles of the 

 two routes to Kabul and the seat of war in Northern Afghanistan 

 were compiled and published on the quarter-inch scale. Two 

 editions of the map of Quetta to Kalat-i-Ghilzai and Girishk and a 

 first edition of the map of Sibi to Quetta and Tal-Chotiali to the 

 Pishin valley were published on the same scale, and a new map of 

 Southern Afghanistan and Baluchistan was also taken in hand and 

 completed during the ensuing year. 



The process of steel-facing the copper plates of the Indian Atlas 

 to prevent wear has proved very successful. For some years a 

 large number of the plates had been thus treated and none of them 

 showed the least sign of wear or of suffering from rust, while the 

 system possessed another advantage in the fact that it was no longer 

 necessary to make transfers from the copper to stone, and that the 

 clearer and sharper impressions could be taken directly from the 

 plate without fear of injury to its surface. 



A very useful engraved general map of India on the scale of 

 32 miles to the inch was completed in 1881, to take the place of the 

 old skeleton map which had done duty for many years. Progress was 

 also made with two smaller maps on the scales of 64 and 96 miles to 

 the inch respectively. During the same year the map of Southern 

 Afghanistan in four sheets was also issued. There was a con- 

 siderable diminution in the out-turn of geographical and military 

 maps owing to the withdrawal of the British troops from 



* Described in the Appendix to the Survey Report for 1881-82. 



