The 19th century was rife with the colonial project of knowledge-gathering. New tools aided calculations greatly, and trade offered an impetus for European countries to send scientific emissaries to hitherto unknown parts of their captured colonies. The Schlagintweit brothers had gained a reputation for meticulous and prodigious research in the European Alps, prompting Alexander von Humboldt, the venerable German explorer-researcher, to convince the Prussian king to lean on the British trading company to hire the trio. EIC stuck its neck out: the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was already underway, and the great arc of India was already mapped under…
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