A Memoir on the Indian Surveys

This comprehensive 1871 work on British surveys of India covers sea and land mapping from the seventeenth century.

Clements R. Markham (Author)

9781108079921, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 March 2015

344 pages, 4 maps
25.4 x 17.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.6 kg

Sir Clements R. Markham (1830–1916), the doyen of historical geography in the late nineteenth century, published this comprehensive work on British surveys of India in 1871, at the request of the Indian Office. As he states in his preface, the object of his book is 'to furnish a general view of all the surveying and other geographical operations in India from their first commencement', so that there was a ready source of information on work already done, both for readers of current surveys and also for the surveyors themselves. Markham begins with the earliest European exploration of the Indian Ocean, including the earliest voyages of the East India Company. Systematic land surveying in India, begun by Major James Rennell, remained in military hands through the period of the trigonometric and topographical surveys, and Markham also covers the geological, archaeological and astronomical surveys of the subcontinent in the nineteenth century.

Preface
1. Indian marine surveys
2. Major Rennell and the route surveys, 1763–1800
3. First period of the trigonometrical surveys, 1800–23
4. First period of the topographical surveys, 1800–23
5. Second period of the trigonometrical surveys, 1823–43
6. Second period of the topographical surveys, 1823–43
7. Third period of the trigonometrical surveys, 1843–61
8. Third period of the topographical surveys, 1843–61
9. Fourth period of the trigonometrical surveys, 1862–70
10. Fourth period of the topographical surveys
11. Supply of instruments for the Indian Survey
12. The Geological Survey of India
13. The Archaeological Survey of India
14. Meteorological and tidal observations in India
15. Astronomical observations in India
16. Physical geography of India
17. The geographical department of the India Office
18. List of the members of the great trigonometrical, topographical, revenue, and geological surveys of India, and of the geographical department of the India Office.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]