376 GEOGRAPHICAL WORK OF THE INDIA OFFICE. 



From July 1861 to August 1863 lie acted as Private Secretary to 

 Mr. Baring (now Lord Northbrook). A second visit was paid by 

 Mr. Markham to India in 1865 for the purpose of inspecting 

 and reporting upon the then existing chinchona plantations, 

 on the best sites for new ones, and on the pearl fisheries. 

 He served as Geographer to the Abyssinian Expedition in 

 1866, and was created a C.B. in 1872. It was during his service 

 in the Public Works Department that Mr. Markham was entrusted 

 with the charge of the geographical business of the India Office, and 

 his tenure of this post was marked by many important reforms and 

 service? which he was chiefly or wholly instrumental in carrying 

 out. One of his first labours was the preparation of the original 

 " Memoir on the Indian Surveys," a work which had a good 

 circulation, and which was translated into the French and Dutch 

 languages. Mr. Markham always strongly advised the preparation 

 of similar " Memoirs " for all the Departments of the India Office. 

 The resumption of Marine Surveys (which had been wholly 

 abandoned after the abolition of the Indian Navy) was strenuously 

 advocated by Mr. Markham, and eventually sanctioned, and the 

 creation of a central Meteorological Department for the purpose 

 of collating and utilizing the scattered observations was another 

 matter which he continued, and with eventual success, to press 

 upon the attention of the Government. The General Catalogue of 

 all the Geographical Records of the Department was begun by 

 Mr. Markham, and continued and completed by Mr. Saunders. 

 Another task entrusted to Mr. Markham about this time was the 

 preparation of the Moral and Material Progress Statement required 

 by Act of Parliament to be laid before Parliament. Mr. Grant Duff, 

 who had obtained the introduction of the section in the Indian 

 Councils Act,* providing for the report in question, and who was 

 Under Secretary of State in 1872, was desirous that an interest 

 should be aroused in Indian affairs by the annual presentation of a 

 thoroughly readable document. The reports for 1871-2 and 1872-3 

 were great improvements on their predecessors and gained general 

 approbation. The discovery of the journals and other papers of 

 Mr. George Bogle, who was sent on a mission to Tibet by Warren 

 Hastings, and of Mr. Manning, the only Englishman who ever 

 visited Lhasa, was due to Mr. Markham's research, and the 

 Secretary of State sanctioned their being printed and published at 



* 21 & '2-2 Vict. cnji. 106, sec. liii. 



