cost-cutting exercise. That left Lambton with just four lowly sub-assistants, all in their twenties and all of whom regarded his headquarters as their home. They werealso all locally recruited and all, to jaundiced British eyes, socially disadvantaged because they had been born in India of at least one non-British parent.
Lambton preferred such company. Kater had been of German birth and Warren was French, though born in Italy and with Irish connections. Joshua de Penning, the most senior of these young sub-assistants, had originally come from a Madras orphanage and was perhaps Dutch by birth. Of the other three, William Rossenrode and Joseph Olliver would both, like de Penning, have long and distinguished careers in the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Moreover both had already fathered, or would soon, sons who followed in their footsteps.
Lieutenant Everest would consider himself very superior to all these ‘gentlemen’, as he called them (the word was meant to emphasise that they were not, like him, officers). Nor would they for their part easily become resigned to Everest’s notions of authority. Lambton they worshipped, but for Everest they simply worked; and if in time Everest would come to think of them and their numerous dependants as his family, it was a family which he had inherited.
Not only did Lambton recruit and train these young men, he also demonstrated the utmost confidence in them. As the Survey faced about and began extending its triangles north from Mysore into the territories of the Nizam of Hyderabad, Joshua de Penning was increasingly entrusted with the Great Theodolite and even with the primary triangulation of the Great Arc. Lambton meanwhile took the field mainly to measure base-lines and to conduct the vital astronomical observations.
Star-gazing was almost as important and certainly more demanding than triangulation. The latter simply fixed the Survey’s points of observation in relation to one another and to base-lines. But to orientate Lambton’s triangles and to establish the position of his trig points on the earth’s surface in terms of latitude and longitude, as well as to detect theearth’s variable curvature, it was essential that the survey be anchored by astronomical observations. These were usually made by measuring the angles at which planets and stars passed through the zenith as seen from the more important of his trig stations.
The more such observations from any one trig station the better. At the Tirunelveli base-line in the extreme south Lambton had spent twenty-seven consecutive nights closeted in a tent with his zenith sector (an instrument with a telescope and a giant five-foot ‘sector’ for observing these vertical angles). The result was more than two hundred astronomical observations for latitude at this one location, the mean of which could be taken to give as precise a value as circumstances allowed.
To establish the distance between two points several hundred miles apart, say at the current extremities of the Great Arc, it was important that the same stars be observed at each place, preferably at the same time and with identical instruments. This was asking a lot of the Indian climate since the monsoon in the north of the peninsula does not coincide with that in the south. It also asked a lot of the Survey’s resources and would challenge even Everest’s genius for organisation. Nevertheless, Lambton was able to make some important corrections to existing maps. The position given to the great city of Hyderabad, whence he now directed the progress of the Great Arc through the territories of the Nizam, he found to be ‘out [by] no less than eleven minutes in latitude, and upwards of thirty in longitude’.
The Observatory in Madras, where observations and records stretched back many decades and where the dependable Warren now held sway, was the starting point for all peninsular surveys. Its value in relation to the Greenwich meridian (the zero for longitude)
Lambton preferred such company. Kater had been of German birth and Warren was French, though born in Italy and with Irish connections. Joshua de Penning, the most senior of these young sub-assistants, had originally come from a Madras orphanage and was perhaps Dutch by birth. Of the other three, William Rossenrode and Joseph Olliver would both, like de Penning, have long and distinguished careers in the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Moreover both had already fathered, or would soon, sons who followed in their footsteps.
Lieutenant Everest would consider himself very superior to all these ‘gentlemen’, as he called them (the word was meant to emphasise that they were not, like him, officers). Nor would they for their part easily become resigned to Everest’s notions of authority. Lambton they worshipped, but for Everest they simply worked; and if in time Everest would come to think of them and their numerous dependants as his family, it was a family which he had inherited.
Not only did Lambton recruit and train these young men, he also demonstrated the utmost confidence in them. As the Survey faced about and began extending its triangles north from Mysore into the territories of the Nizam of Hyderabad, Joshua de Penning was increasingly entrusted with the Great Theodolite and even with the primary triangulation of the Great Arc. Lambton meanwhile took the field mainly to measure base-lines and to conduct the vital astronomical observations.
Star-gazing was almost as important and certainly more demanding than triangulation. The latter simply fixed the Survey’s points of observation in relation to one another and to base-lines. But to orientate Lambton’s triangles and to establish the position of his trig points on the earth’s surface in terms of latitude and longitude, as well as to detect theearth’s variable curvature, it was essential that the survey be anchored by astronomical observations. These were usually made by measuring the angles at which planets and stars passed through the zenith as seen from the more important of his trig stations.
The more such observations from any one trig station the better. At the Tirunelveli base-line in the extreme south Lambton had spent twenty-seven consecutive nights closeted in a tent with his zenith sector (an instrument with a telescope and a giant five-foot ‘sector’ for observing these vertical angles). The result was more than two hundred astronomical observations for latitude at this one location, the mean of which could be taken to give as precise a value as circumstances allowed.
To establish the distance between two points several hundred miles apart, say at the current extremities of the Great Arc, it was important that the same stars be observed at each place, preferably at the same time and with identical instruments. This was asking a lot of the Indian climate since the monsoon in the north of the peninsula does not coincide with that in the south. It also asked a lot of the Survey’s resources and would challenge even Everest’s genius for organisation. Nevertheless, Lambton was able to make some important corrections to existing maps. The position given to the great city of Hyderabad, whence he now directed the progress of the Great Arc through the territories of the Nizam, he found to be ‘out [by] no less than eleven minutes in latitude, and upwards of thirty in longitude’.
The Observatory in Madras, where observations and records stretched back many decades and where the dependable Warren now held sway, was the starting point for all peninsular surveys. Its value in relation to the Greenwich meridian (the zero for longitude)
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