Xlil 



the ideal would shortly have been realized, but, from motives of 

 economy, the Government suspended operations, and the organic 

 whole, to Larcom's intense disappointment, was not to be the crown- 

 ing glory of the Ordnance Survey. Its component parts, however, 

 were in time undertaken by various scientific bodies, some of which 

 took their rise from these very operations now suspended. Years 

 afterwards, the President of the Royal Irish Academy, the present 

 distinguished Bishop of Limerick, referred to Sir Thomas Larcom in 

 the following words : — " For my own part, I do not hesitate to express 

 my belief that to the individual who planned and organized it [the 

 Survey, as to its literary, historical, and statistical branches] we are 

 indebted for some of the most important advances which have been 

 made within the last quarter of a century in the studies relating to 

 the history, the languages, and the antiquities of Ireland. To Lieu- 

 tenant, now Major- General Sir Thomas Larcom, belongs this honour." 

 ("Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," VII, 437.) During the 

 eight concluding years of the Irish Survey, Larcom had the entire 

 executive charge of it, his chief's presence being required in London 

 for the English Survey. 



In 1846, when the Irish Survey was completed, Larcom was finally 

 adopted into the Civil Service of Ireland, as a Commissioner of the 

 Board of Works ; but he had already been an Assistant Commissioner 

 in special connexion with the works systematized by way of relief to 

 the sufferers by the Irish famine. The immense labours of that and 

 the next year, which were required of him as the chief director of 

 these works, nearly brought him to the grave ; and indeed it would 

 have been impossible that he could have carried them through, 

 had not his previous employments given him a minute acquaint- 

 ance with every necessary detail. In 1832 he had prepared for 

 Government the plans required for the Irish Reform Bill ; in 1836 

 he had prepared the topographical portion of the Report on Irish 

 Municipal R.eform, when elaborate plans and maps of sixty-seven 

 towns were prepared and presented in the space of one month ; in 

 1837 and 1838 he had executed, with a view to commencing the Irish 

 Railways on a scientific plan, the first general map ever made in 

 Europe on which the ground was completely delineated as one whole. 

 In 1841 he had been a Census Commissioner, and made the great 

 statistical advance of including in the Report an account of the classi- 

 fication and condition of the population as well as its numbers, an 

 extension of the old method since adopted in Great Britain and on 

 the Continent. In 1842 he had been a Commissioner to inquire into 

 the state of the Royal Irish Society, and in 1845, for purposes relating 

 to the new Queen's Colleges. 



For none of these Commissions or other work of the sort would he 

 ever receive any remuneration; and to this resolution he adhered, 



