misc interesting facts

MEASURING HEIGHT OF EVEREST

Everest was first named peak B by John Armstrong. Then named peak XV by James Nicolson. Then Andrew Waugh, surveyor general of India assigned the task of figuring out the height of summit to brilliant Indian, chief computer Radhanath Sikhdar given the distance of the sightings and the problem of atmospheric refraction the challenge was enormous. It took 2 yrs. for Sikhdar to determine that this unknown summit was 29002 ft – 1000ft higher than any other known mountain on earth (Kangchenjunga was thought to be highest). Actual elevation of the mountain, measured today by satellite technology is 29035 ft. But the mountain has been rising at a rate of a centimeter a year for the last several centuries. So in 1805 when Sikhdar did his calculations w pencil paper and math wizardry he was only off by 28ft.

GIVING EVEREST A PROPER NAME

Naming provoked controversy. Andrew Waugh proposed to sir Roderick Murchison, then president of RGS, that they name mountain after his predecessor. Sir George Everest was not pleased. He was a remarkable geographer and largely responsible for the Great Trigonometrical Survey which he led from 1829. But he was a miserable cantankerous man made few friends in India – had little time for Indian religion etc. But his name was actually pronounced Eave-rest – ironic his legacy was to have a mountain named in his honor yet mispronounced for all time.

SURVEYING THE AREA COVERTLY

Dance of espionage as celebrated in Kipling novel – KIM – the Brits had trained Indian cadres as surveyors disguised them as pilgrims, holy men or peasants and sent them on foot across the high passes of the Himalaya to find what lay beyond the all of mountains that defied their every diplomatic initiative.  These pundits meant to gather geographical info – location and accessibility of major passes, character and extent of rivers that drained the Tibetan plateau and flowed into foothills of India. The surveyors could only use what could be disguised as monks’ religious instruments. Trained to walk at precisely 2000 paces to the mile – they were given rosaries w 100 beads (instead of traditional 108) and instructed to drop a single bead into prayer wheel every 100 steps. The scrolls hidden in prayer wheel were blank so data could be recorded.

THE UNUSUAL SPORT OF PIG-STICKING

Gen Bruce’s nephew Geoffrey Bruce young 25-year-old soldier in Indian army. He excelled at pig sticking – men on horses w 9 ft. lances to spear wild boar unique to India known to attack and kill elephants and tigers… Young Bruce reached semi-finals.

OTHER REVERED EXPLORERS OF MALLORY’S TIME

Robert Falcon Scott, CVO (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13. During this second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that they had been preceded by Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian expedition. On their return journey, Scott and his four comrades all died from a combination of exhaustion, starvation and extreme cold.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE, FRGS (/ˈʃækəltən/; 15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish polar explorer and one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest South latitude at 88° 23′ S, 97 geographical miles (112 statute miles, 180 km) from the South Pole, by far the closest convergence in exploration history up to that time. For this achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.

After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen’s conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying—the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. Disaster struck this expedition when its ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed before the shore parties could be landed. There followed a sequence of exploits, and an ultimate escape with no loss of life, that would eventually assure Shackleton’s heroic status, although this was not immediately evident.[2] In 1921 he returned to the Antarctic with the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, intending to carry out a programme of scientific and survey activities. Before the expedition could begin this work Shackleton died of a heart attack while his ship, Quest, was moored in South Georgia. At his wife’s request he was buried there.