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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

In the introductory remarks prefixed to this Memoir I have endeavoured to indicate
briefly the objects and methods which guided me in the surveys of my three Central-Asian
journeys and in the preparation of the maps which contain their final cartographical record.
It only remains for me to acknowledge with gratitude my manifold obligations for the effective
help which alone rendered possible the topographical tasks bound up with my explorations.

That I was able to plan and carry out those tasks was due to the fact that the Survey
of India, accustomed ever since its inception to serve the interests of
Help of Survey of geographical research, not only within the vast area forming its own
India sphere of activity but also beyond the borders of India, supported from
the start my aims with the means best suited for them. In Chapter 1, dealing with the
history of our surveys, I have had occasion fully to note the services rendered by the experi-
enced Indians whom the various Surveyor Generals deputed with me, and the extent of the
help which I received by the provision of instruments, equipment and funds to meet the
cost of their employment. To the Survey of India was due also the compilation and
publication of the results brought back by our joint efforts from each successive journey.

The topographical results thus secured have not only helped me to make my journeys
directly profitable for geographical study, they have also greatly facilitated my archæological
explorations in regions which, though largely desolate today in their physical aspects, have yet
played a very important part in the history of Asia and its ancient civilizations. But apart
from the gratitude I owe for this furtherance of my researches, the fact of my having
been able to work in direct contact with the oldest of the scientific departments of India will
always be remembered by me with deep satisfaction.

Ever since in 1899 the proposals for my first Central-Asian journey had received the
Government of India's sanction, successive Surveyor Generals did
Interest of their best to facilitate the survey tasks of my expeditions. I still
Surveyor Generals think back gratefully to the very helpful advice and instruction by
which the late Colonel St. George Gore, R.E., while at Calcutta during the cold weather of
1899-1900, showed his personal interest in the enterprise. His successor as Surveyor General,
Colonel F. B. Longe, R.E., was equally ready to meet my requests concerning the plans I
had formed for my second and much more extensive expedition of 1906-08.

But my heaviest debt of gratitude is due to Colonel Sir Sidney Burrard, R.E.,
K.C.S.I., F.R.S., who as Superintendent of the Trigonometrical Survey
Guidance of Sir since 1899 had direct charge of all arrangements for the survey work
Sidney Burrard of my first and second expeditions, and who during his succeeding long
term of office as Surveyor General was equally ready to extend to me unfailing support
and guidance with regard to the third. Moreover quite as great a stimulus was the thought of
his own lifelong devotion to the study of the geographical problems connected with innermost
Asia and the great mountain systems which enclose it. I feel hence very grateful for being
allowed to dedicate this record of our labours to Sir Sidney Burrard not merely as a most
helpful friend and guide but also as a living embodiment of that spirit of scientific research
which has never ceased to pervade the Survey of India since the days of Rennell, Lambton,
and Everest.