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Finding out where we are
Tuberculosis (2002) 82(6), 259--260 & 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1054/tube.2002.0371
EDITORIAL
Finding out where we are The Great Arc by John Keay provides an excellent account of the efforts invested in the trigonometric survey of India during the first half of the 19th century. This was the vision of William Lambton. His aim was to establish a defined meridian stretching from top to bottom of the subcontinent, which would facilitate calculation of the precise size and curvature of the globe, and at the same time provide a reliable reference for future maps and surveys. I do like the notion that there might be some continuum within which pursuit of grand questions of the nature of existence are somehow inextricably bound to more practical improvements in details of the human condition. Accuracy was fundamental to Lambton’s plan. His strategy involved a painstakingly slow progression of rigid triangles that grew from the southern tip of the continent to the foothills of the Himalayas, at each stage using two defined reference points to sight and fix the position of a third point, which would then provide one corner for the next triangulation. The whole process was anchored by a series of pinpoint accurate baselines. From 1802, Lambton edged his Great Arc gradually northwards till death truncated his final triangle in 1823. He was succeeded by one of his assistants, George Everest, who completed the survey in 1841, earning recognition in the christening of what could now be seen to be the world’s highest mountain. The Great Trigonometrical Survey was hailed by the Royal Geographic Society as one of the most significant contributions to the advancement of science in the 19th century. Fame was short-lived, however. Once established, the Great Arc was quickly taken for granted and
the struggles and achievements of Lambton and Everest were forgotten. The mountain is still there, of course, though Keay tells us that the man himself would be appalled by the accepted pronunciation, insisting that his name was ‘Eve-rest’ and disdaining to rhyme with ‘cleverest’. There would seem to be some interesting parallels between the Herculean efforts of these 19th century geographers and the great millennial efforts invested in genome sequencing. At the outset, both undertakings presented a nearly unthinkable challenge in terms of accuracy and prolonged commitment; a challenge that attracted practitioners of a very particular frame of mind. I suspect that, like the Great Arc, the genome will very quickly be ‘taken as read’, and subsumed into our scientific landscape. Pity we can’t come up with a new mountain to mispronounce in commemoration of the sequencing heroes. The story of The Great Arc is framed around the contrasting personalities of Lambton and Everest. Colonel Lambton came over on the same boat as the young Arthur Wellesley en route to his first military successes in India. Lambton got on well with his local assistants and adopted various Indian habits. Everest, on the other hand, was a strict disciplinarian in the stiff-upper-lip, highcolonial mould. Lambton retained the ‘louche’ temperament of the 18th century, while Everest was firmly fixed in the 19th. The interplay between the two characters brings to mind the partnership of Mason & Dixon recounted in Thomas Pynchon’s outstanding surveyor novel.
Top-to-bottom and side-to-side: the GreatTrigonometrical Survey of India and the Mason--Dixon Line.
259
260
Editorial
Jeremiah Dixon was a down-to-earth land surveyor from the mining county of Durham. The book opens when he is paired with Charles Mason to participate in another major scientific challenge, the simultaneous recording from globally dispersed vantage points of the transit of Venus across the sun in 1761. Mason was a head-in-the-clouds astronomer from a middle-class background, with diffuse and frustrated aspirations to higher social status. Less fortunate than Lambton in dealings with the East India Company, the melancholic Mason bitterly envied the connections of his rival Nevil Maskelyne, a brother-in-law of Lord Clive and future Astronomer Royal. After initial sparring in South Africa and St. Helena, the partnership reached its zenith with a commission to establish its eponymous line demarcating the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania in the wild east of America. While the Mason–Dixon line was laid down without the aid of triangulation, the perspective obtained from the combination of two viewpoints is central to the novel. The success of the survey rested on the ability to combine the vertical celestial vision of Mason with the horizontal terrestrial view of the avuncular Dixon. Throughout the novel, Pynchon built a compelling sense
Tuberculosis (2002) 82(6), 259 --260
of the late 18th century mindset. Rather than by linear narrative, he often achieved this by describing two or more reference points but leaving the reader to carry out the mental task of filling in the intervening gaps. In addition to the heaven and earth perspectives of the two principal characters, important parts of the story were squeezed out from the oppositions of east and west, black and white, slavery and freedom. This process of fixing a position in reference to two other points seems such a robust and intellectually satisfying strategy that I am keen to find evidence of it in my own research. I am disappointed. I look back on a much more tenuous progress based on setting and testing of distressingly linear ‘is it A or is it B?’ hypotheses. Perhaps as we move into a post-genomic era in which we are overwhelmed with data, triangulation –coming at a topic from two independent directions – may provide a useful discipline in drawing inferences from computer searches. Douglas Young Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection, Flowers Building , Imperial College, London SW 7 2AZ, UK
& 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
EDITORIAL
Finding out where we are The Great Arc by John Keay provides an excellent account of the efforts invested in the trigonometric survey of India during the first half of the 19th century. This was the vision of William Lambton. His aim was to establish a defined meridian stretching from top to bottom of the subcontinent, which would facilitate calculation of the precise size and curvature of the globe, and at the same time provide a reliable reference for future maps and surveys. I do like the notion that there might be some continuum within which pursuit of grand questions of the nature of existence are somehow inextricably bound to more practical improvements in details of the human condition. Accuracy was fundamental to Lambton’s plan. His strategy involved a painstakingly slow progression of rigid triangles that grew from the southern tip of the continent to the foothills of the Himalayas, at each stage using two defined reference points to sight and fix the position of a third point, which would then provide one corner for the next triangulation. The whole process was anchored by a series of pinpoint accurate baselines. From 1802, Lambton edged his Great Arc gradually northwards till death truncated his final triangle in 1823. He was succeeded by one of his assistants, George Everest, who completed the survey in 1841, earning recognition in the christening of what could now be seen to be the world’s highest mountain. The Great Trigonometrical Survey was hailed by the Royal Geographic Society as one of the most significant contributions to the advancement of science in the 19th century. Fame was short-lived, however. Once established, the Great Arc was quickly taken for granted and
the struggles and achievements of Lambton and Everest were forgotten. The mountain is still there, of course, though Keay tells us that the man himself would be appalled by the accepted pronunciation, insisting that his name was ‘Eve-rest’ and disdaining to rhyme with ‘cleverest’. There would seem to be some interesting parallels between the Herculean efforts of these 19th century geographers and the great millennial efforts invested in genome sequencing. At the outset, both undertakings presented a nearly unthinkable challenge in terms of accuracy and prolonged commitment; a challenge that attracted practitioners of a very particular frame of mind. I suspect that, like the Great Arc, the genome will very quickly be ‘taken as read’, and subsumed into our scientific landscape. Pity we can’t come up with a new mountain to mispronounce in commemoration of the sequencing heroes. The story of The Great Arc is framed around the contrasting personalities of Lambton and Everest. Colonel Lambton came over on the same boat as the young Arthur Wellesley en route to his first military successes in India. Lambton got on well with his local assistants and adopted various Indian habits. Everest, on the other hand, was a strict disciplinarian in the stiff-upper-lip, highcolonial mould. Lambton retained the ‘louche’ temperament of the 18th century, while Everest was firmly fixed in the 19th. The interplay between the two characters brings to mind the partnership of Mason & Dixon recounted in Thomas Pynchon’s outstanding surveyor novel.
Top-to-bottom and side-to-side: the GreatTrigonometrical Survey of India and the Mason--Dixon Line.
259
260
Editorial
Jeremiah Dixon was a down-to-earth land surveyor from the mining county of Durham. The book opens when he is paired with Charles Mason to participate in another major scientific challenge, the simultaneous recording from globally dispersed vantage points of the transit of Venus across the sun in 1761. Mason was a head-in-the-clouds astronomer from a middle-class background, with diffuse and frustrated aspirations to higher social status. Less fortunate than Lambton in dealings with the East India Company, the melancholic Mason bitterly envied the connections of his rival Nevil Maskelyne, a brother-in-law of Lord Clive and future Astronomer Royal. After initial sparring in South Africa and St. Helena, the partnership reached its zenith with a commission to establish its eponymous line demarcating the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania in the wild east of America. While the Mason–Dixon line was laid down without the aid of triangulation, the perspective obtained from the combination of two viewpoints is central to the novel. The success of the survey rested on the ability to combine the vertical celestial vision of Mason with the horizontal terrestrial view of the avuncular Dixon. Throughout the novel, Pynchon built a compelling sense
Tuberculosis (2002) 82(6), 259 --260
of the late 18th century mindset. Rather than by linear narrative, he often achieved this by describing two or more reference points but leaving the reader to carry out the mental task of filling in the intervening gaps. In addition to the heaven and earth perspectives of the two principal characters, important parts of the story were squeezed out from the oppositions of east and west, black and white, slavery and freedom. This process of fixing a position in reference to two other points seems such a robust and intellectually satisfying strategy that I am keen to find evidence of it in my own research. I am disappointed. I look back on a much more tenuous progress based on setting and testing of distressingly linear ‘is it A or is it B?’ hypotheses. Perhaps as we move into a post-genomic era in which we are overwhelmed with data, triangulation –coming at a topic from two independent directions – may provide a useful discipline in drawing inferences from computer searches. Douglas Young Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection, Flowers Building , Imperial College, London SW 7 2AZ, UK
& 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.