Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/84

 metrical survey of India under the immediate direction of Major (afterwards Sir) George Everest [q. v.], the surveyor-general. Waugh, with his friend and contemporary, Lieutenant Renny (afterwards Major Renny Tailyour), was sent in the following year to assist in operations near Sironj, to carry a series of triangles up one of the meridians fixed by the longitudinal series. They explored the jungle country between Chunar and the sources of the Sone and Narbada up to Jabalpur, and submitted a topographical and geological report, now in the geographical department of the India office. In the following year the surveyor-general wrote officially in terms of great commendation of Waugh's capabilities and services.

In November 1834 Waugh joined the headquarters of the surveyor-general at Dehra, to assist in measuring the base-line. In April 1835, Everest having represented that Waugh and Renny unquestionably surpassed all the other officers under his orders in mathematical and other scientific knowledge, in correctness of eye and in their aptitude and skill in the manipulation of the larger class of instruments, Waugh was appointed astronomical assistant for the celestial observations connected with the measurement of the great arc. At the end of 1835 he was at Fathgarh, conducting the rougher series of the great trigonometrical survey; but in January 1836 he joined Everest at Saini, to assist in the measurement of the arc of the meridian extending from Cape Comorin to Dehra Dun, at the base of the Himalayas, commencing with the northern base-line in the Dehra Dun valley, and connecting it with the base-line near Sironj, some 450 miles to the south, and remeasuring the latter in 1837 with the new bars which had been used at Dehra Dun. The wonderful accuracy secured in these operations may be estimated by the differences of length of the Dehra base-line as measured and as deduced by triangulations from Sironj being 7.2 inches.

Everest continued to report in the very highest terms of the ability and energy displayed by Waugh, and the court of directors of the East India Company on several occasions expressed their appreciation of his services. His training under Everest instilled into him the importance of the extreme accuracy with which geodetic measurements have to be conducted. In November 1837 two parties were formed, one of which was placed under Waugh to work southwards on the base Pagaro to Jaktipura; the other, under Everest, proceeding upon the base Kolarus to Ranod. The work was satisfactorily accomplished by the end of February 1838, when Waugh was detached into the nizam's country to test the accuracy of the triangulation between Bedar and Takalkhard and to lay out the site of an observatory at Damargidda. In October he took the field, commencing with azimuth observations, at Damargidda, and, working north with the triangulation, completed his portion of the work at the end of March 1839. He shared with Everest the arduous observatory work carried on simultaneously at the stations of Kaliana, Kalianpur, and Damargidda from November 1839 to March 1840, by which the arc of amplitude was determined.

In 1841 Waugh was engaged in the remeasurement of the Bedar base, which resulted in a difference of only 4.2 inches. Between 1834 and 1840 Waugh had conducted the Ranghir series of triangles in the North-West Provinces, and in 1842 he carried the triangulation through the malarious Rohilkhand Terai, which Everest considered to be ‘as complete a specimen of rapidity, combined with accuracy of execution, as there is on record.’

At the end of 1843 Everest retired, and, in recommending that Waugh should succeed him as surveyor-general, he wrote: ‘I do not hesitate to stake my professional reputation that if your honourable court had the world at your disposal wherefrom to select a person whose sum total of practical skill, theoretical attainment, powers of endurance, and all other essential qualities were a maximum, Lieutenant Waugh would be the very person of your choice.’ Although only a subaltern of royal engineers, Waugh was accordingly selected to fill, from 16 Dec. 1843, this very responsible and important post. He was promoted to be captain on 14 Feb. 1844. He began by carrying out the remaining series—seven in number, a total of some thirteen hundred miles in length, embracing an area of some twenty-eight thousand square miles, originating from the Calcutta longitudinal series on the ‘gridiron system’—projected by Everest (to form a correct conception of this system, see the chart facing p. 109 of the Memoir of the Indian Survey). The eastern side was formed by the Calcutta meridional series (begun in 1844 and finished in 1848), which terminated in another base-line near the foot of the Darjiling hills.

One of the finest of surveying operations commenced about this period was the north-east Himalaya series, connecting the northern end of all the before-mentioned meridional series. In these field operations Waugh