Nov. 23, 1857.] 
TIBET. 
37 
Surveyor-General's Field Office, Deha Dun, 
29th July, 1857. 
Mr dear Colonel Everest, — I have this moment received your very 
kind letter of the 2nd June, announcing that the Royal Geographical Society 
have conferred on me their Gold Medal of the season, and as the most agree- 
able mode of transmitting it have selected you as their medium. 
It is with great pride and gratification I thus learn that my geodetical 
labours in India have received this honourable mark of approbation from so 
distinguished and learned a Body as the Council of the Royal Geographical 
Society, and the pleasure I naturally feel on the occasion is doubled by my 
old and revered commander having been selected as the medium of trans- 
mission : for to your instruction and example I am proud to acknowledge that 
I owe whatever merit my labours may possess. 
I am sure that this honourable distinction conferred on its present head wiR 
operate, if possible, as an additional stimulus to every member of the Survey 
Department to endeavour to merit the approbation of the Royal Geographical 
Society, by unremitting perseverance in their arduous labours. 
I also feel that on an occasion like this it is necessary, with due regard to 
truth and justice, that I should publicly acknowledge that the merit is not 
entirely mine, and that although the medal has been conferred on the head of 
the Department, I ought to share the credit with several of its members, 
by whose zealous co-operation I have been enabled to effect so much. Major 
Tailyour, my late astronomical assistant, the friend of my early days, and 
my associate in so many wanderings and arduous labours; also the late Mr. 
George Logan, 1st assistant ; Mr. J. Peyton, late chief civil assistant ; Mr. W. 
Scott, chief draftsman in the field, and Mr. James Mulheran ; all of whom, like 
myself, were trained up by you, have borne a large share in these interesting 
operations. Of those who have been trained by me in the principles laid 
down by yourself, I would also beg leave to enumerate Lieutenants J. Walker, 
J. Tennant, D. Nesmyth, T. G. Montgomerie, Mr. J. Hennessey, and Major 
Strange, to whose co-operation I am largely indebted. 
Lieut. Montgomerie and Lieut. James Walker have especially distinguished 
themselves in the extension of our geographical researches on the north- 
western frontier, labours which, by bringing the accuracy of modern trigono- 
metrical operations, depending on a known linear unit and point of departure, 
to bear on regions hitherto unexplored, or imperfectly known, have a peculiar 
interest and value. These officers possess remarkable talents for geographical 
research, as also Lieutenants Elliot Brownlow, and Bassevi, who have recently 
joined the department, and are now employed with Lieut. Montgomerie in that 
part of Tibet beyond Kashmir. In all these operations I should also again 
acknowledge the great assistance I have derived from Mr. W. Scott, chief 
draftsman, to whose vigilance, and that of Mr. J. Hennessey in detecting 
errors, I am greatly indebted. 
I must also in justice express my warm acknowledgments to my worthy 
and talented deputy Major Thuillier, for his aid and co-operation in the anxious 
task of administering this widely extended department, and the cordial interest 
he has ever evinced in our geodetical labours. 
Allow me, in conclusion, to beg one more favour at your hands. My 
wanderings in Indian jungles have little fitted me to address learned bodies, 
nor, surrounded as we are now by all the confusion of a military rebellion of 
unprecedented magnitude, do I feel that I could do justice to it, anxious as I 
am for the safety of our standards and records. Will you then do me the 
great favour to express my best thanks to the President and Council of the 
Royal Geographical Society for the honour conferred on me, and the Great 
