A New Map of the Mount Everest Region

Abstract

The society has published with the support of the Mount Everest Foundation a map of the Mount Everest region on scale of i: 100,000 embodying all available surveys and information. Flat copies of the map can be obtained from the office of the Society at ijs 6d (to Fellows 15s), plus postage. The map represents the results of the Society's association with successive Mount Everest expeditions over the last forty years. Compiled and drawn in the Society's Drawing Office under the direction of the Chief Draughtsman, Mr. G. S. Holland, the map is in six colours : a brownish-black for lettering, heights (in metres and feet), rock work and moraines; blue for water and contours on glaciers; brown for contours elsewhere and grey for formlines; a bluish shading for snow and ice slopes; and a greyish shading elsewhere. The printed surface of the map is approximately 29 x 25 inches. The problem with this area, with the central portion closely surveyed and consider? able areas of little known country around it, was to evolve a colour scheme which would keep the surveyed area from dominating the map, hence the use of subdued tints. Another factor for consideration was to keep down, on grounds of expense, the number of colour printings required. But for this last factor, the map would probably have benefited from a ground colour, perhaps brown on the elevated areas and green on the valley bottoms, as was used in the Society's Karakoram map. The latter, how? ever, had eight colour printings, and maps of mountain regions in the Swiss or French styles employ up to ten colours. The names on the map have been approved by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (see below). It should also be noted that the map is not an authority for international boundaries. The major contributions to the mapping of the Mount Everest region have been widely spaced in time, for it is forty years since Major Wheeler's survey was published in 1925 under the title 'Mount Everest and the group of Chomo Lungma', on a scale of one inch to one mile. After the Mount Everest Flight of 1933 the Society prepared a map from oblique and vertical air photographs and ground surveys and photographs on the scale of 1:50,000 by H. F. Milne. In plotting from the oblique air photographs Mr. Milne employed the method devised by Colonel D. R. Crone, r.e. (1934). This map was not printed until 1952, when a limited number of copies were made available at the time of the International Geographical Congress in Washington. For technical reasons it was not possible to publish a revised edition of this, but much of this work has been incorporated in the new map. Prior to and after the Mount Everest Expedi? tion of 1953, the Imja, Mingbo and Khumbu valleys, south and east of the LhotseNuptse ridge, were photographed by Charles Evans, and observations were taken on some twenty-seven peaks and other points. The resulting 320 photographs provided material for the extension of the area of the 1952 map (M. E. Flight 1933) and addi? tional details within its limits. Work on the map now published began with the re-section of the camera stations on a plotting scale of 1:50,000 but the publication of the International Himalayan Expedition's map, 'Mahalangur Himal: Chomolongma-Mount Everest', on 1:25,000 showed that the majority of Evans's stations fell within the area covered and that the photographic cover from them did not add to the detailed photogrammetric survey by Erwin Schneider. Five preand ten post-monsoon stations of Charles Evans were not included within the area of this new map, and the photographs taken from them have been used to provide an extension to the detail in the Mingbo valley, south of Ama Dablam, and in the region of Kang Cho. Added to these were a number provided by Schneider, taken during a reconnaissance survey from stations above the Ngojumba glacier and in the Dudh Kosi. The Society's new map is designed for the use of those planning expeditions, or for