1S38.] 



Memoir on the Indian Surveys. 



437 



routes by Captain Mackenzie, during a period of twelve years, four of 

 which were incessantly devoted to that duty constituted the basis of the 

 geography of the south of India, lying principally between the Krishna 

 river and Cape Comorin. Captain Mackenzie's labours began towards 

 the close of the war of 1783, in the provinces of Coimbatoor and of 

 Dindigul, afterwards in the coarse of his professional duties as an 

 engineer in the provinces of Madras, Nellore, and Guntoor, throughout 

 the whole of the war from 1790 to 1792 in Mysore, and in the countries 

 ceded to the Nizam by the peace of 1792, from which period till 1799 he 

 was engaged in the first attempts to methodize and embody the geo- 

 graphy of that prince's territories and the Deckan, interrupted only for 

 a short period by the voyage and campaign to Ceylon in 1795-6. The 

 peculiar talents of Captain Mackenzie for geographical and statistical 

 inquiries had been early brought to the notice of Lord CornwuUis, and 

 his deputation to the Nizam's dominions, at the conclusion of the cam- 

 paign of 1792, enabled him to reduce the materials for the map of that 

 prince's territories to some degree of order. This map with the routes, 

 memorandums, and notes, constituted the most useful exemplar of mili- 

 tary survey, and contains, besides actual measurements, a multiplicity of 

 curious and useful remarks on every subject that fell within his reach. 



But a new and important era was now opening on this department 

 of knowledge throughout the civilized world. The defectiveness of the 

 best British maps, the revolutionary turn of affairs in France, and an 

 accidental circumstance of the most unlooked for nature led in each of 

 these countries to the entire remodelling of the respective surveys. 



The British government having deputed Lord Macartney on an 

 embassy to the Emperor of China, charged their ambassador with vari- 

 ous magnificent presents, and amongst others some which perhaps 

 even our modern intellectual diplomatists would consider a little out of 

 character, a beautiful zenith sector and 100-feet steel chain, construct- 

 ed by Ramsden, a levelling and transit instrument, besides other ap- 

 paratus of a like costly and scientific description. The Emperor hav- 

 ing declined this conciliatory offering, the embassy stopped at Madras 

 on its return homewards, and on coming to a reckoning with Dr. Din- 

 widdle, the astronomer and physician who had accompanied Lord Ma- 

 cartney, the luckless instruments were assigned to him in part pay- 

 ment of his salary. The mathematical abilities and philosophical turn 

 of mind of Colonel Lambton, at that time a lieutenant in H. M. 33d 

 regiment, had not escaped the observation of its distinguished com- 

 mandant, the Honourable Colonel Wellesley. Lieutenant Lambton, who 

 was at that time officiating as brigade-major to Sir David Baird, hav- 



