1600 miles, 50 years started circa 1800, no fewer than 700 men, few tons of equipment, Lethal Climate - Insects, Dense jungles, Malaria, Typhus fever, Tigers, Snakes etc.
Colonel William Lambton, Superintendent of the great Trignometrical Survey of India and later his successor Lieutenant George Eve-rest, inspite of the casualities (entire teams of about 150 were wiped out at times), mapped India.
Model of accuracy and the maps which it yielded faithfully....indicating 'the position of every town, fort, village.. all rivers and their courses, the roads, the lakes, tanks [reservoirs], defiles, mountains, and every remarkable object, feature, and propert of the country'
Inspite of the combined assault of climate and local prejudice which contributed to wiping out survey parties in single season, they carried on relentlessly sometimes taking long sabbaticals to recuperate from exhaustion and sickness.
Nothing gives a better idea of his passion for shaving tolerances to an infinitesimal minimum than this pursuit of a variable amounting to just seven thousandths of an inch.
But at times the measurements made by zenith observations could not be reconciled by triangulation.
It was said that if experienced observers, taking all possible precautions, found rhemselves confronting an anomoly for which they could not account, they were probably 'on the vergeof some important discovery'' - The fact that mountain masses exercise an attraction over the plumbline
Finally in 1857 the "Great Meridional Arc of India" was completed, The heights of the major himalayan peaks (Nanda Devi, K2, Kanchenajunga) were ascertained and Mount Everest was named (obvously in honour of Lieutenant George Eve-rest) . During this period Surgeon Ronald Ross discovered the source of Malaria at Begumpet (Hyderabad)
In the land of rope tricks, snake charners, superstions, spirituality and sadhus; This sweat soaked odyssey was the largest scientific endaevour known to man. It was one of the most stupendous works in the whole history of science.
An Awesome Project.
Colonel William Lambton, Superintendent of the great Trignometrical Survey of India and later his successor Lieutenant George Eve-rest, inspite of the casualities (entire teams of about 150 were wiped out at times), mapped India.
Model of accuracy and the maps which it yielded faithfully....indicating 'the position of every town, fort, village.. all rivers and their courses, the roads, the lakes, tanks [reservoirs], defiles, mountains, and every remarkable object, feature, and propert of the country'
Inspite of the combined assault of climate and local prejudice which contributed to wiping out survey parties in single season, they carried on relentlessly sometimes taking long sabbaticals to recuperate from exhaustion and sickness.
Nothing gives a better idea of his passion for shaving tolerances to an infinitesimal minimum than this pursuit of a variable amounting to just seven thousandths of an inch.
But at times the measurements made by zenith observations could not be reconciled by triangulation.
It was said that if experienced observers, taking all possible precautions, found rhemselves confronting an anomoly for which they could not account, they were probably 'on the vergeof some important discovery'' - The fact that mountain masses exercise an attraction over the plumbline
Finally in 1857 the "Great Meridional Arc of India" was completed, The heights of the major himalayan peaks (Nanda Devi, K2, Kanchenajunga) were ascertained and Mount Everest was named (obvously in honour of Lieutenant George Eve-rest) . During this period Surgeon Ronald Ross discovered the source of Malaria at Begumpet (Hyderabad)
In the land of rope tricks, snake charners, superstions, spirituality and sadhus; This sweat soaked odyssey was the largest scientific endaevour known to man. It was one of the most stupendous works in the whole history of science.
An Awesome Project.
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