Account of the Operations of The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India (Vols I-VIII only)

Full titles: Vol. I. The Standards of Measure and the Base-Lines. Also an Introductory Account of The Early Operations of the Survey During the Period 1800-1830. Vol. II. History and General Description of The Principal Triangulation and of its Reduction. Volume III. The Principal Triangulation. The Base-line Figures, the Karachi Longitudinal, N. W. Himalaya, and Great Indus Series of the North-West Quadrilateral. Volume IV. The Principal Triangulation. The Great Arc (Section 24°-30°), Rahun, Gurhagarh and Jogi-tila Meridional Series, and The Sutlej Series of the North-West Quadrilateral. Volume V. Details of The Pendulum Operations by Captains J. P. Basevi, R.E., and W. J. Heaviside, R.E., and of Their Reduction. Volume VI. The Principal Triangulation of the South-East Quadrilateral, Including The Great Arc, Section 18° to 24°, The East Coast Series, The Calcutta and the Bider Longitudinal Series, The Jabalpur and The Bilaspur Meridional Series, and the Details of their Simultaneous Reduction. Volume VII. General Description of the Principal Triangulation of the North-East Quadrilateral Including The Simultaneous Reduction, and the Details of Five of the Component Series: The North-East Longitudinal; The Budhon Meridional; The Amua Meridional; The Rangir Meridional; The Karara Meridional. Vol. VIII. Details of the Component Series of the North-East Quadrilateral Including the Following Series; The Gurwani Meridional; The Gord Meridional; The Hurilaong Meridional; The Chendwar Meridional; The North Parasnath Meridional; The North Maluncha Meridional; The Calcutta Meridional; The East Calcutta Longitudinal; The Brahmaputra Meridional; The Eastern Frontier, Sec. 23° to 26°; The Assam Longitudinal.Insert in vol. V states these volumes were presented to the Scientific Association, Hamilton by Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council - India Office, London.James Thomas Walker, CB, FRS (1826-96) was an Anglo-Indian Surveyor General of India. Born at Cannanore, India, he was educated at the military college of the East India Company in Surrey. In 1844 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Bombay engineers and in 1846 was sent to Sindh as an executive engineer at Sakkar. Much of his early career was spent in military operations but, on March 12, 1861, he was appointed superintendent of the great Trigonometrical Survey of India. Over the next two years the last three meridional series in the north of India were completed. His first independent work was the measurement of the Vizagapatam base line, completed in 1862. He next undertook a revision of Lambton's triangulation in the south of India with remeasurements of the base lines. In 1878 he was appointed Surveyor General of India, retaining the office of Superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Society, and the Russian and French geographical societies. In June 1883 he received an honorary LL.D. from Cambridge. The Great Trigonometrical Survey aimed to survey the entire Indian subcontinent with scientific precision. It started in 1802 under the auspices of the East India company under infantry officer with some surveying experience, William Lambton. Under the leadership of his successor, George Everest (after whom Mt. Everest is named), the project was made the responsibility of the Survey of India.Upon discovering that accurate instruments could not always be purchased through the standard system of government contract, Everest personally supervised the construction of instruments, getting a maker named Henry Barrow to set up an instrument company in Calcutta. Everest was succeeded by Andrew Scott Waugh, followed by Walker who oversaw the completion in 1871. The survey party at times numbered 700 people. Among its many accomplishments were the demarcation of the British territories in India and the measurement of the height of Himalayan giants like Everest, K2, and Kanchenjunga. The Survey had enormous scientific impact, responsible for one of the first accurate measurements of a section of an arc of longitude and for measurements of the geodesic anomaly that led to the theories of isostasy. While it might be supposed the surveyors were entirely British, native surveyors (called pundits) worked in the Himalayas, especially in Tibet where Europeans were not allowed. Note that the complete set would include 22 volumes, the last of which was published in 1910.