The Height of Everest

Today was the first day in five weeks that my wife drove her own car following her knee replacement.  Big Day!

While she was running around to bank and drug store, I stopped by the river too see what that looked like. Oddly, there was a surveyor down there with three theodolites set up.

I chatted him up — he was calibrating his instruments, and needed the shade under a bridge for that.

We chatted about zoning, city vs county workers, Baltimore’s lack of accountability to taxpayers, and taxes.

Then I asked if he knew about the great triangulation survey of India by Everest that established “sea level” at the ocean and, using towers, theodolites, and very long chains, surveyed all of India and established the height of Mount Everest and K2 with great precision?  

He did not, so I urged him to look it up because it was quite amazing for 1870 or so.  I think they got the height of Everest right within a few feet.

It turns out I was wrong on the date — the survey was started in 1802 and finished in 1871.

The native surveyors used on the project were called “pundits,” because the head native surveyor (much respected and now featured on an Indian postage stamp) had been a school teacher before becoming a surveyor.

I looked it up when I got home and it turns out several books have been written about the survey.  

I believe what I know came from reading Kipling’s “Kim”.  

What’s this have to do with dogs? Not a thing, though Rudyard’s poem, “The Fox Contemplates” is en entire canine and vulpine history lesson if you know how to read it.  See >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2005/06/rudyard-kipling-fox-meditates.html?