The Survey Link Connecting the Triangulations of India and Russia ¹

Abstract

AT the meeting of the International Geodetic Association held in London in 1909 the way was cleared for the completion of a connecting link between Indian and Russian triangulations which would carry scientific measurement from Cape Comorin to Petrograd. This necessitated the extension of a geodetic series across some of the highest and most unapproachable of the snow-capped ranges in the northern Himalayan system. Between Gilgit and Salisbury Peak on the Nicolas (Russian spelling) range of the Pamirs there intervene about 100 miles of inconceivably wild and rugged mountain country distinguished by groups of peaks running to altitudes of more than 20,000 ft. and seamed with a most amazing-series of waterways containing the biggest glaciers in the world. Salisbury Peak, near the western end of the Pamir boundary between Russia and Afghanistan, looks southwards across the valley of the river Ab-i-Panja (flowing westward to the Oxus and skirting the southern foot of the Nicolas range) on to the great ridge of the Hindu Kush. From the Hindu Kush southward to the Gilgit river flow three great mountain streams, which afford the only possible approaches northward, i.e. the Yasin, the Ashkuman, and the Hunza.