Abstract
THE Report for the year 1915–16 (vol. x.) of the Records of the Survey of India (printed at the office of the Trigonometrical Survey, Dehra Dun, 1917), which has lately come to hand, is somewhat belated. The price of it alone would indicate this, viz. “four rupees or 5s. 4d.”; which does no justice to the present value of the rupee. It is in other respects a new departure. There is no preface, and we look in vain for the usual summing-up of the scientific results of the year's work by the Surveyor-General, Sir Sidney Burrard, who, for that matter, has ceased to direct the Department and retired to a well-earned rest. On the whole, it is a dry record of useful progress in the work of map-making, supplemented by long tables of the results of scientific observation, which surely, if they are of any use at all, should be published in such an up-to-date form as to compare readily with the work of other observers elsewhere whose researches may lead them into the same scientific fields. There is no narrative or detail explanation showing how the results recorded have been attained; no excursions into the realms of geography to lend a flavour of romance to the volume; and no new theories or startling discoveries to save it from the familiar atmosphere of dry official dullness. It is, of course, not meant to be amusing, but it might easily be made more interesting. One unusual and redeeming feature it does indeed contain. There are seven most excellent photogravure portraits of those gallant officers of the Department who fell in the service of their country. They are so good that one cannot but hope that they exist otherwise than in this official environment, and have already become a permanent and honourable feature in the headquarters' offices of the Indian Survey.
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H., T. Map-making in India. Nature 105, 277 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105277a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105277a0