The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoir of William Watts McNair, by J. E. Howard

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Title: Memoir of William Watts McNair

Author: J. E. Howard

Release Date: December 4, 2003 [EBook #10382]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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Memoir of
WILLIAM WATTS McNAIR,
_Late of "Connaught House" Mussooree,
Of the_
INDIAN SURVEY DEPARTMENT,
The First European Explorer of Kafiristan.

_BY J.E. HOWARD._

INSCRIBED TO
THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,
IN REMEMBRANCE OF
A LIFE MADE HAPPIER BY ITS
RECOGNITION OF RARE AND MODEST WORTH.

MEMOIR.

William Watts McNair, who was born on the 13th September, 1849, joined
the great Indian Survey Department in September, 1867, when he was
only eighteen years old, and served the Government of Her Majesty the
Queen and Empress of India faithfully unto the day of his death, on
the 13th of August, 1889. In the official proceedings or notes of the
Surveyor-General of India, for August, 1889, will be found the
following more than merely formal notice of the services of the
deceased officer of a great but scarcely sufficiently recognised
scientific department of the magnificent Indian Empire of Her Majesty
the Queen-Empress. "The Surveyor-General deeply regrets to announce
the death of Mr. W.W. McNair, Surveyor, 3rd grade, from fever
contracted at Quetta while attached to the Baluchistan Survey Party.
He was granted leave to proceed to Mussooree, where he died on 13th
August. Mr. McNair joined the department on the 1st September, 1867,
and was posted to the Rajputana Topographical Party. The first twelve
years of his service were passed on topographical duty with this party
under Major G. Strahan, R.E., and in the Mysore Party under Majors G.
Strahan and H.R. Thuillier, R.E. From the very first he showed special
aptitude as a plane-tabler, and was soon recognised in the department
as an accomplished surveyor. In the autumn of 1879 he was selected to
accompany the Khyber Column of the Afghan Field Force, an