270 Biographical sketch of CoL Mackenzie. [July 



16. How far the idea suggested was fulfilled, it is not 

 for me to say ; from adverse circumstances, one part was 

 nearly defeated^ and the natural history was never an- 

 alysed in the manner I proposed and expected in concert 

 with the survey. The suspense I was placed in from the 

 reduction of the slender stipend allotted to myself, both 

 for my salary and to provide for increasing contingencies, 

 was in itself sufficiently mortifying ; and the overthrow 

 of the establishment first arranged for the v/ork, while 

 other* branches were favoured in the application of the 

 orders of the court, the effects of these measures on the 

 public mind, and even of my assistants, all contributed 

 to deaden and to paralyse every effort for its completion. 

 Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, the success 

 attending the early researches, and a conviction of its 

 utility, induced me to persevere till 1807 ; the geography 

 of the provinces of Mysore was actually completed to 

 the minutest degree of 40,000 square miles of territory 

 considerable materials were acquired for the illustration 

 of its statistics and its history, and the basis laid for ob- 

 taining those of the peninsula at large, on a plan which 

 has been undeviatingly followed ever since (see the opi- 

 nion of the Court of Directors on the completion of the 

 work, letter B, annexed). 



17. Much of the materials collected on this occasion 

 were transmitted home in seven folio volumes, with ge- 

 neral and provincial maps ; but it is proper to observe, 

 that still more considerable materials for the history of 

 the south are in reserve, not literally belonging to the 

 Mysore survey, though springing from it. Notices of 

 some of these are in the accompanying sheets. 



* In the regulations of survey of 9th October, 1810, no less than twenty 

 military officers were attached to the quarter-master-general, exclusive of 

 the military institution and the establishment of native surveyors under the 

 revenue department. The results arising from those departments, compared 

 with that of the Mysore survey, would afford the most just means of judging*' 

 of the utility cf either of the works. 



