THE SOUKOEB'O'F'THE GANGES. 431- 



widii'makhlg: $. m^qDloNIje, source: of the ,Ga?ig8S!:a:vid the .countries airound. 

 if, uponoral information-, received horn. Lam as inbrxhiting tlie neighbour-. . 

 ing temples, and upon written notices found at the grand Lama's at Lasa. 

 They omitted however to take the iatitu^e of nlount Kentais&e or Kante-^ 

 shan, (so the CArVi^^^ name the chain of mountains which, runs to the 

 west. ) They even omitted the latitude of the temple where they haltedj; 

 and whence they inquired the course of the Ganges, which flows from the 

 western side of that mountain. The Jesuits ^ therefore-, considering this 

 as a capital defe6l, were desirous that the map should be re-examined bj 

 a learned geographer in Europe: and that task was accordingly under- 

 taken by D'Anville. 



In the prosecution of the task, he was led, by obvious reasons, to re- 

 move the head of the Ganges, from latitude 29^°, which is its" place in the 

 Lama's m^pdiS published by Du H'alde, to a more northerly position; 

 and carried it as high as 32° nearly. But he preserved, and even enlarged, 

 the sweep given to the river in the Lama's delineation of Its course, and 

 carried the northern branch of it still higher, to- latitude 36^ nearly. 



In Major Rennell's first map of Hindustan, D'Anville's con- 

 struction was in this instance copied almost exadlly. Major Renneel, 

 however, was not insensible to the unsatisfactory character of the author- 

 ities, which D'Anville followed; and, 'in his memoir published ih 1783, 

 declared his distrust of those materials, which for want of better he had 

 t>een under the necessity ^of employing ; and intimated a suspicion, that 

 the Ganges does not make so large a sweep to the north west as has 

 been given to it. 



Anquetil du Perron had previously, in 177(>, pronounced the Lama's 

 Avork to be faulty, erroneous and in short unworthy of credit. It is need' 



