Bangalore. Sheet No. 57/3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12. [Large linen-backed map of Bangalore in Southern India].

Bangalore: Office of the Director, Southern Circle, Survey of India, P.B. No. 44, [1915]. 4to. 7.25 x 9.75 in. which holds a 32-panel linen backed colour-printed map which folds out into double atlas folio sized map, sized 36.5 x 53 in. Mounted within Navy-blue linen portfolio, printed label w/ manuscript annotations on front cover indicating the sheet number (minor shelfwear, slight rubbing), still NF copy. First edition, thus, of this map of Bangalore prepared under the auspices of the Survey of India, Office of the Director in the opening years of World War I. This remarkable topographical map featuring a scale of 1” to 1 mile is based on the surveys first launched by William Lambton in the 19th Century known as the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, led successively by Lambton, George Everest, Andrew Waugh, and James Walker. These fulfilled the premise that geodetic survey was the only option for accurate maps of large areas, and much of this work in the survey of India was based upon the base lines in Bangalore, originally measured by Warren, and the base lines of Kumta by De Penning. These original linen-backed survey maps of India from the early 20th Century have become quite scarce. No copies located in Worldcat; See; Rama Deb Roy, The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in a Historical Perspective, Pre-Census Population Studies Unit, Indian Journal of History of Science (1986), Vol. 21 (1), pp. 22-32.