Editorial Review:
The Great ArcThe Dramatic Tale Of How India Was Mapped And Everest Was Named The Great Indian Arc of the Meridian, begun in 1800, was the longest measurement of the earth's surface ever to have been attempted. Its 1,600 miles of inch-perfect survey took nearly fifty years, cost more lives than most contemporary wars, and involved equations more complex than any in the precomputer age. Rightly hailed as "one of the most stupendous works in the history of science," it was also one of the most perilous. Through hill and jungle, flood and fever, an intrepid band of surveyors carried the Arc from the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent up into the frozen wastes of the Himalayas. William Lambton, an impossible martinet, completed it. Both found the technical difficulties horrendous. With instruments weighing a half-ton, their observations often had to be conducted from flimsy platforms ninety feet above the ground or form mountain peaks enveloped in blizzard. Malaria wiped out whole surbey parties; tigers and scorpions also took their toll. Yet the results were commensurate. The Great Arc made possible the mapping of the entire Indian sub-continent and teh development of its roads, railways and telegraphs. India as we now know it was defined in the process. The Arc also resulted in the first accurate measurements of the Himalayas, an achievement that was acknowledged by the naming of the world's highest mountain in honor of Everest. More important still, by producing new values for the curvature of the earth's surface, the Arc significantly advanced our knowledge of the exact shape of our planet. This saga of astounding adventure and gigantic personalities is here told in detail for the first time. With an eye for intriguing incident and an ear for the telling phrase, one of the finest writers on India vividly resurrects the nineteenth century's most ambitious scientific endeavor.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
Would You Be Able to Measure Up 2008-12-08
Over a forty year period, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, sought to determine the boundaries and size of the sub-continent. Supervised by three men (and two monumental personalities) hundreds of extras (usually Indian coolies) spent years determining the distances between every major city and town in India. Cui Bono (for what good?). Well for want of any other answer, because they could.
The two men most involved with "The Great Arc" were William Lambton whose idea the 'Arc' was and his successor Sir George Everest for whom the world's tallest mountain is named (though he never saw it). The whole survey is based on Pythagoras' Theorem, that if you know the length of two sides of a triangle you can calculated the third. Ok so big deal and could this subject be any more boring? Well no. But Keay does a great job of making it interesting without bogging us down in numbers and calculations.
Most of the book is taken from the notes and reports that Lambton and Everest (pronounced EVE-Rest not Ever-rest). Both were very quirky personalities and were very good at 'soldiering' on while everyone around them was dieing of fever and getting eaten by tigers. If a town or forest or building got in the way of the line-of-sight or the survey it was cut down or shortened or a whole was blasted through. Needless to say the locals were not very enchanted. At times whole survey groups were lost in areas and so were the groups sent out to find the first group. This was NOT like Boy Scout camping. On the other hand, Lambton (who was slightly off center) was a Mr.Fezziwig type character who was known for his multiple 'wives' and children who accompanied him on the surveys. Everest, was a pompous bullying English Sahib who spoke of Indian born Englishmen as 'mestizos' and treated the native Indians even worse.
This book proves that you can write something interesting on the most dry and banal history and make it palatable to the layman. It say a lot about Keay that he accomplished so much out of so little.
Zeb Kantrowitz
The Great Arc  2006-03-11
This is a well written and fascinating account of the mapping of India and the measurement of the Height of Everest, or as it should be pronounced Eve rest. The account is certainly dramatic and the characters are just that. A book I found hard to put down.
John Keay Hits a Gold Mine of History 2003-12-30
An exhilarating history of two forgotten men, first William Lambton and then his successor Sir George Everest, who by sheer will power overcame enormous contrary forces to lay out the first geodetic survey of India. With more suspense than a Harrison Ford movie, John Keay tells us how the large teams that each Surveyor General commanded, from technicians down to coolies, battled numerous huge obstacles to triangulate the land mass of India. What's more amazing is that these triangles, dozens of miles on a leg, were accurate to within inches. It's hard to imagine the dedication of Lambton in 1820, working at night by kerosene lamp, evaluating complex trigonometrical formulas long before calculators were available. One numerical error in the fourth decimal place would cost months of backtracking, but few were made. Lambton and Everest loved their project.
One feels the slow pace of life in 19th century India. Things could stop for years, and then pick up again as if no time had passed. This enterprise was comparable in its time to the Apollo project of the 1960's in effort and scope, but it ran for roughly 60 years!
The story culminates with the first precise measurements of the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal. It is fitting that the peak that eventually emerges as the highest of all was given Everest's name (Lambton had died long before). And once again to our amazement, the altitude was correct!
Not many historians are comfortable with science and technology. So for every book about the relentless advance of those subjects, there are probably 50 rehashing the political intrigues of Europe. But Keay writes in a fascinating way about men who spent their lives immersed in these fields, and about Lambton's and Everest's faith that the future would belong to science, engineering, and technology as they moved forward on the bedrock of mathematics.
Inspiring tale (told from European eyes) 2003-09-04
A thin but inspiring history: how William Lambton, George Everest (pronounced EVE-rest), and other hardy and dedicated souls mapped a great deal of India. The Arc was a series of triangles plotted through vertical and horizontal triangulation, sometimes confirmed by fixing one's place by observation of the stars. This mapping required braving malaria- and dysentery-infested forests and plains; crunching the numbers in impossibly complex equations; lugging a vast instrument called The Great Theodolite over rugged terrain; contructing towers and scaffolding for flagmen and flares, and huge amounts of patience. The story is awe-inspiring, if only for the bravery of these pioneers, who often faced greater casualty rates than soldiers in the name of science; but I was most impressed by the precision of the survey under the given conditions. Every variable was predicted and dealt with, even to attaching thermometers to the measuring-chains so as to calculate the metal's expansion and compensate in the resulting calculation. In all this plotting, the measuring of mountains was incidental, but Keay also reveals how the bad-tempered Everest somehow got his name attached to the world's highest peak. This book is a fine work of scholarship and very pleasant to read. However, it is a pity that there is so little on the reactions of Indians to the survey: I'd like to know how Everest's own native contingent felt, what local villagers thought on seeing the great procession, what the survey's own Indian mathmatical genius felt about the project. Perhaps there is no record of their feelings, but that's a shame. Otherwise, this is a stirring tale of human acheivement.
Endeavour and India 2003-08-28
I enjoyed this book but perhaps not quite as much as John Keay's 'The Discovery of India'. Both books capture elements of the exoticness of India and even more so, the eccentric Englishmen who made their lives and endeavours in the country. As I have a mathematical background I would have liked some hard science details in the book - how does triangulation work with its dimensions of measurement (horizontal and vertical), how can independent checks be made by using astronomical sources, and so on. But I recognise that for many readers the omission of this material may be a significant positive!
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