McNair, briefly noticed in our last issue:--Amongst the many practical
geographers who have passed away during the year 1889 is Mr. W. McNair,
of the Indian Survey Department. His career was very closely connected
with a new phase of military exploration carried out on the frontier of
India, which had gradually superseded the older forms of
reconnaissance, and was rendered possible by late improvements in the
smaller classes of instruments, and a wider knowledge of the use of the
plane-table. For about ten years previous to the Afghan War of 1879,
McNair was attached to the topographical branch of the Indian Survey,
and he had always shown a special aptitude for that class of work,
which consists in acquiring a comprehensive grasp of a wide field of
geographical detail in the shortest possible space of time. When war
broke out, Afghanistan no longer afforded a field for such simple
geographical exploration as had already been accomplished during the
campaign of 1839-43. A completer military survey of all important
districts was required, which would furnish detailed information of
routes and passes which were far removed from the beaten tracks of
previous armies. At the same time the conditions under which such a
survey was to be made were exactly the same as those under which the
rough reconnaissances of the former campaign were obtained. The
surveyor was under the same urgent restrictions, both as to time and as
to the limits of his own movements off the direct line of march.
McNair, with one or two others, was selected for this topographical
duty with the Afghan field force, and right good use he made of his
opportunities. He was present during the fighting which took place
before Kabul in the winter of 1879-80, and was shut up with the
garrison of Sherpur during the fortnight's siege. His energy and
determination carried him through the campaign with more than
credit--he was able to illustrate modern methods of field topography in
a manner which threw new light on what was then but a tentative and