Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/32

 line seven and a half English miles in length was measured near Bangalore in October to December 1800. The records of the measurement are now in the map room at the India office. In 1802, the necessary instruments having arrived, operations commenced with the measurement of a base near St. Thomas' Mount, Madras, in connection with the Bangalore base. Lambton was assisted by lieutenants Henry Kater [q. v.], 12th foot, and John Warren, 33rd foot. From this time the survey operations, combined with the measurement of an arc of the meridian, were carried on without any important intermission, in the face of numberless technical difficulties which later experience has overcome. The reports and maps are preserved in the map room of the India office (see Account of Trigonometrical Operations, 1802–1823). The survey reports include particulars of several base measurements, the last taken at Beder in 1815; the latitudes, longitudes, and altitudes of a great number of places in southern and central India; and observations on terrestrial refraction and pendulum observations.

Lambton became captain in the 33rd foot, without purchase, 25 June 1806, and purchased his majority in the regiment 1 March 1808. When the 33rd returned home from Madras in 1812, Lambton remained behind as superintendent of the Indian survey. He became lieutenant-colonel by brevet 4 June 1814, and was placed on half-pay in consequence of the reduction of the army, 25 Dec. 1818. He was a F.R.S. (see, Hist. Roy. Soc.), a fellow of the Asiatic Society, and a corresponding member of the French Academy.

Lambton died of lung-disease at Hinganghat, fifty miles from Nagpore, on 26 Jan. 1823, at the age of sixty-seven. His beautiful instruments and well-selected library were disposed of at a camp auction, and a few autobiographical notes, known to be among his papers, have not been traced.

Sir George Everest [q. v.], who was appointed Lambton's chief assistant in 1817, describes him at that period as six feet high, erect, well-formed, bony and muscular. He was a fair-complexioned man, with blue eyes. He seemed ‘a tranquil and exceedingly good-humoured person, very fond of his joke, a great admirer of the fair sex, partial to singing glees and duets, and everything, in short, that promoted harmony and tended to make life pass easily.’

 LAMONT, DAVID (1752–1837), Scottish divine, born in 1752, was son of John Lamont, minister of Kelton, Kirkcudbrightshire, by Margaret, daughter of John Affleck of Whitepark. His grandfather, John Lamont of Newton in Fifeshire, was descended from Allan Lamont, second minister of Scoonie, Fifeshire, after the Reformation. He was licenced by the presbytery of Kirkcudbright in 1772, and inducted to the parish of Kirkpatrick-Durbam in that county in 1774. He was made D.D. by the university of Edinburgh in 1780, was appointed chaplain to the Prince of Wales in 1785, moderator of the general assembly in 1822, chaplain-in-ordinary for Scotland in 1824, and died in 1837 in the eighty-fifth year of his age and sixty-third of his ministry. As moderator of the general assembly he read an address to George IV, and preached before him in St. Giles's, Edinburgh, during his visit to Scotland, Lamont was a liberal in politics and theology, a popular preacher, an able debater in church courts, an eloquent platform speaker, and held a prominent place among the cultivated and dignified clergy of the time. A considerable landowner, he divided his property into small holdings, promoted local manufactories, formed benevolent societies among his tenants and parishioners, and 'gained the affection and esteem of all who witnessed his generous and enlightened exertions.' In 1799 he married Anne, daughter of David Anderson, esq., H.M. Customs, and had a son John, an advocate, afterwards a brewer in London. His works are: 1. Two Sermons, Dumfries, 1785-97. 2. 'Sermons on the most prevalent Vices,' London, 1780. 3. 'Sermons on Important Subjects,' 2 vols, 1780-87. 4. 'Subscription to the Confession of Faith consistent with Liberty of Conscience,' Edinburgh, 1790. 5. 'Account of the Parish of Kirkpatrick-Durham's (Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol, ii.). 6. Sermon, in Gillan's 'Scottish Pulpit.'

 LAMONT, JOHANN (1805–1879), astronomer and magnetician, was born at Braemar, Aberdeenshire, on 13 Dec. 1806, His father, a custom-house officer, belonged to an old but impoverished family, and after his death in 1816 the son was removed to the Scottish Benedictine monastery of St. James at Ratisbon, where the prior, Father Deasson, devoted himself to his mathematical education. Having passed with distinction through all his studies, he was admitted in 1827 an extraordinary member of the Munich