Item #10697 Map of Kashmir with Part of Adjacent Mountains. THOMAS GEORGE MONTGOMERIE.
Map of Kashmir with Part of Adjacent Mountains.
The First Scientific Mapping of Kashmir
A Beautiful Example of the Cartography of Mountainous Terrain
Kashmir & Jammu/ Mountaineering.
[Dehra Dun: J. & C. Walker for Surveyor General's Field Office, 1859]

Map of Kashmir with Part of Adjacent Mountains.

49 ½ x 52 inches, Lithographed folding map on 4 sheets, each dissected & mounted on linen as issued. In original slipcase; Fine condition.

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            A very accurate as well as beautiful, folding map of the nearly entirely mountainous area of Kashmir and Jammu that resulted from surveys conducted from 1855 to 1857 in some of the most arduous conditions imaginable.  The surveying team was led by Captain Thomas George Montgomerie as a part of the storied Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, for which Montgomerie was First Assistant.   

            Colonel H. M. Vibart in Addiscombe, its heroes and men of note (1894) described the conditions in which Montgomerie and team worked:

 

The field of these labours embraced one of the most stupendous mountain tracts in the world, and certainly the most gigantic group of existing glaciers not polar. Many of the stations of observation exceeded 15,000 ft. in height — while a good many ranged from 18 to 20,000, and in one case the theodolite was set up on a peak near the Chang Chenmo Pass 20,866 ft. above the sea. The success which attended the whole of the prolonged observations to their close, was due, first, to his excellent administration and method; and secondly, to the strong personal regard that existed between the head of the Survey and his assistants

 

            In all, Montgomerie was employed for nearly 10 years in the topographical survey of Kashmir and Jammu and the Tibetan regions of Ladak and Balti, an area of 70,000 square miles.  He was the first to use the nomenclature of K1 through K6 to identify six mountains in the Karakoram Range (not within the area of this map) and later developed the system of training natives as clandestine surveyors to work in areas inaccessible to British personnel.



* Markham, A Memoir of the Indian Surveys (1878), pages 113-114 and 407.

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