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Description

From The Library of Donald MacKenzie Wallace, Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire.

Spectacular railway wall map of India, published in Calcutta by the Survey of India in 1887.

This map is a treasure trove of information about early Indian rail development, recording developing infrastructure in what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, and the other surrounding regions. The map includes an inset titled "Continuation of Malay Peninsula and Sumatra on half the Scale", which shows Penang, Malacca, and Singapore, indicated as British colonies.

The map was based on the results of the Great Trigonometric Survey, which started in 1861, in conjunction with more recent Topographical and Revenue Surveys. These were commenced in 1871 under the direction of Colonel H. L. Thuillier, C.S.I-F.R.S., Surveyor General of India. The map was published under the direction of Lieutenant General J.T. Walker, C.B.-R.E.-F.R.S., one of Thullier's successors in the post of Surveyor General of India.

The key traces eleven different kinds of railroad tracks in the key:

Lines Worked by Gtd Cos [Private Companies]
State Lines Worked by Gtd Cos
[State Lines Worked by Gtd Cos] Under Const[ructio]n
State Lines Worked by the State
[State Lines Worked by the State] Under Const[ructio]n
Lines Worked by Assisted Co[mpanie]s
[Lines Worked by Assisted Companies] Under Constn
Lines in Native States
[Lines in Native States]       Under Constn
Lines Located & Ready for Construction
Lines Surveyed and Under Survey

Provenance

The map was owned by Donald Mackenzie Wallace, as evidenced by his ink signature above the title.

Wikipedia says of Wallace:

Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace KCIE KCVO (1841 – 1919) was a Scottish public servant, writer, editor and foreign correspondent of The Times (London).

Donald Mackenzie Wallace spent all his time before the age of twenty-eight in continuous study at various universities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, focusing his study on metaphysics and ethics. He spent the remaining years at the École de Droit, Paris, and applied himself to Roman law at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, graduating with a doctorate in law from Heidelberg in 1867.

Wallace accepted a private invitation to visit Russia, having a strong desire to study the Ossetes, a tribe of Iranian descent in the Caucasus. Living in Russia from early 1870 until late 1875, Wallace found the Russian civilization far more interesting than his original Ossetes. Wallace returned to the United Kingdom in 1876 and published three volumes in his work Russia by 1877, right before the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War. His book had great success, going through several editions and being translated into many languages.

Due to the success of his work in Russia, Wallace was appointed as foreign correspondent of The Times. His first post was St. Petersburg in 1877-78; he was then sent to the Congress of Berlin in June and July 1878. There he assisted Henri de Blowitz, the famous Paris correspondent of The Times, and carried the text of the treaty from Berlin to Brussels sewn into the lining of his greatcoat.

From 1878-1884 he was in Constantinople; while there, he investigated the Balkan peoples and their problems and ended up going on a special mission to Egypt. The outcome of Wallace's mission to Egypt became another successful book, Egypt and the Egyptian Question (1883).

After traveling through the Middle East, Wallace was selected as the political officer of the future Tsar Nicholas II in his Indian tour of 1890-91, for which he later received 1st class Russian Order of St. Stanislas. He served as Private Secretary to Lords Dufferin and Lansdowne, in India.

Wallace was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) for his services to India in 1888, and subsequently appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) for his services during the Commonwealth tour in 1901. 

Condition Description
Original hand-color in outline (railroads), along with some manuscript annotation (e.g., "Frontier New Military Roads"). Dissected and mounted on contemporary linen with green selvage. Some minor toning at folds.