Page 10 of 11. An Electronic Supplement to Bilham, R.,Tom LaTouche and the Great Assam Earthquake of 12 June 1897: letters from the epicenter. Seism. Res. Lett. 79(3), 426-437, 2008. doi: 10.1785/gssrl.79.3.426.
Synopsis
1904 Meets Oldham in London. The international congress in Europe. Returns to Burma where he finds errors in Datta's mapping.
1905 Datta makes himself unpopular, meets Finlay of Burma oil, Kangra earthquake, meets Omori from Japan, Curzon resigns, more problems with Datta's mapping.
1906 Looking for gold in Burma (photos), Griesbach retires and ill. Meets Bruce the Everest climber
1907 Griesbach dead. Oldham in Shawford, Hampshire. September in Shropshire with Avice, his daughter. Meets Burrard, Director General of Survey of India
1908 Working on Rennel's diary. Describes belemnites used as bullets by Tibetans. Holland knighted.
1909 Appointed acting Director to replace Holland. Oldham in Burma
1910 Acting director, Finishes Rennell memoir. Retirement. Hayden takes over.
1911 Visits Cambridge to enquire about a possible appointment without any success.
C258/73 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Apr-Nov 1904
Paris Gare du Nord 7 June 1904 Describes visit to Cambridge, then to Jermyn Street "where I saw Mr Teall and my other friends there. Oldham and Hooker punctually at 1 and the former insisted that we have lunch with him at his club in St. James St. so we went there and had a good talk. I had some tale about his being asked to go out and take Mr. Storrers place as Inspector of Mines, but I don't think there is much in it. I went off then to see my old school fellow Dr. Lewis Jones. " A fairly rough crossing from Calais.
C258/74
2 December 1904 Pyangyang
3 Dec This is one of the bits of geology that Datta has mapped all wrong, and I want to make sure that I am right about it. Later in the month LaTouche makes corrected maps comparing his geology with the Datta's erroneous interpretation.
22 Dec He is told that Tipper will be in the Andamans for the next 6 months and will thus be unable to join him in Burma.
30th Dec Camp Onghkok. (with Mr Simpson) I made a successful voyage up the river today in a dugout, and successfully cleared up one or two points I was in doubt about, besides finding out how Mr Datta has gone wrong in his mapping. He has mixed up two formations, and it is not to be wondered at that his maps seemed to have something wrong about them. I dont think I have much trouble now in putting them straight. I hear that he has not been at all well lately, poor little man, and perhaps he will take what pension is due to him and go. I am afraid he is not likely to do much more useful work. If he had not shown himself to be so cantakerous and pigheaded I would have had more sympathy for him.
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12th February 1905 Camp Mongyang I went to one of Datta's fossil localities, and found as I expected that he had not recognised the fossils he found there, but must needs call the rocks there by a new name. They are exactly the same that I showed him near Maynyo five years ago,
Camp Hotan 26 Feb I find that Mr D. has got himself a very bad name up here. He seems to have treated the district officials as if they were babus or coolies, and naturally they didn't like it. They are all glad I put a stopper on his coming back to these parts.
Camp Mansam 2 March 1905 My Darling Edie, Today I found an egg in my tent which one of my hens had laid there. And where do you think she wanted to lay it? I was sitting at my table and I heard a scratching noise behind me, and when I turned round there she was trying to get in under my eider down which was on my bed to lay her egg there! I was just in time to stop here and then she went off and laid it behind one of my boxes in the ground.
14th now joined by Holland and Finlay "who is a most amusing man with plenty to say for himself, and his wife and her sister who comprise the household are both pretty women and unaffected. Mr F. is Irish and comes from Rostrevor. Her father was a Mr. Norton, Financial Comm'r in Burma. Mr F. is Managing Agent of the Burma Oil Co. He came up the river with the Hollands and they seem to have a good time on board. Mr H. says he is very stiff today after his walk yesterday, mainly from trying to keep step with me! LaTouche comments that Holland is really interested in his work, and will see a lot more than Mr Griesbach did. By the time Holland left on the 18th he had convinced Holland that Datta 'was not fit to be trusted with such a piece of work, and that most of his geology is wrong, which is what I wanted him to find out"
29th April and 2 May Rangoon mostly about acquaintences etc. Then mention of the journey Rangoon to Calcutta by sea.
8 May 1905 Calcutta I went to the office today and found that Mr. Hayden is in hospital and has had to undergo an operation poor fellow for an abcess. He has been there for about a fortnight. Mr. Holland is away at Simla in the Punjab investigating the earthquake. Mr Middlemiss and one of the new men, Mr Pascoe, are still up in Kangra on the same business. Vredenberg, Datta, Fermor and two of the new men Walker and an Irishman named Cotter are here. The latter seems to be a very nice fellow. After leaving the office I went to see Mr Hayden and found him very cheerful though he looks a good deal pulled down. I think he ought to go on leave as soon as he can move and told him so. He is probably a good deal run down after that Tibetan expedition.
We are in a considerable state of trepidation now because we have heard that Dr. Noetling has turned up in Madras, with a German paleontologist & it is very likely that they will come in here and give trouble. Mr. H. wrote to me today that he (Dr. N.) is on no account to be allowed into the office and if he persists in trying to get in we are to send for the police! But I don't think we should be justified in doing that. I hardly think though he will have the cheek to come to the office.
---I have spent most of the day unpacking specimens, and I have several boxes still to do, but I must get on with that wretched paper on petroleum if it is to be finished by the end of June. I dont think any of us are likley to have our papers ready by then as this earthquake has upset all Mr. Holland's plans. He wants to bring out a new edition of the Manual of Geology dealing with economic products, and each of us has ebeen given a certian portion ot do, I have petroleum and amber. Luckily there is not much to be said about the latter, as it is only found in one place, and that is in upper Burma, but the oil will take a good deal of work.
10th May Calcutta. I heard this story of the [Kangra] earthquake today. A telegraph signaller was sending a message when he was interrupted by the shock. When it was over he went on with his message- "Earth here gone quack, how there?"! Some of the reports sent in by babus are very funny. One man says he felt a rumbling noise in his feet.
16th May Calcutta An interruption came this morning in the shape of a letter from Mr Holland asking me to see whether I could rig up a seismograph to be set up at Simla to register the earthquakes, and I have been at that all day. I have sent him one that was made by Mr. Oldham on the same principle as the one I set up in Shillong in '97, which is still at work, but I am afraid it is too small to be of much use. Mr H. is at Dharmsala now to find out if the place is safe enough to build on again.
20th May Calcutta. I am feeling rather tired tonight as I have been fixing up an instrument for measuring earthquakes which I got from the Survey of India Dept. It was interesting to find out how this thing worked. As you know I enjoy a mechanical job of that kind. I think I ought to have been an elecrical engineer!
21st May Calcutta. I went to the observatory this afternoon to see a seismometer they have there, but it is too delicate to be put up in a place where they get real earthquakes. It is meant for registering quakes that take place at the other side of the Earth.
25th May Calcutta. I have spent most of the time packing up a seismoscope to go to Mr. Holland, and writing about it.
26th May Calcutta. I have been giving a little dinner party in honor of the Japanese savant, Dr. Omori, the great authority on earthquakes, who has come over from Japan to study this big quake. He came into the office today and we have had a long talk, and I have done all I can for him. I had Col. MacCartic [?MacCurtis] and Mr Simpson who has been up at Mussourie and Dehra Dun investigating the shock to meet him, and I think they all enjoyed it. Dr. O is a very quiet individual, very polite and pleasant, and very grateful for any assistance we can give him. He is going up to Simla, and I expect he will be made much of there as he has an introduction from the Viceroy. I had heard a good deal about him from Mr. Oldham and I was very glad to see him. He was over here after the big Assam earthquake in '97, when we were in Rajputana.
27th May Calcutta. Dr. Omori turned up again at about 10'oclock and stayed for about an hour looking over maps and talking. I gave him a lot of maps of the hill stations he is going to visit, for which he was most grateful. It would do you good to see the bows he made as he was taking leave.
28th May Calcutta. After dinner I went to see Dr. Omori off to Simla. He had a very good send off. Besides myself there were Mssrs Vredenberg, Simpson and Pascoe and two little Japanese friends of his. He was profuse in his thanks for what we had done for him and went off bowing and smiling. It is rather difficult to understand what he says as he does not speak English well, though he can write it perfectly. I had a letter from Mr Holland this morning but it is all about earthquake matters and he says nothing of Mr Hayden
8th June Calcutta. I hear that Mr. Middlemiss who has been over Kangra and Kula investigating the earthquake is on his way back.
12th June Calcutta Mr Hayden came back from Simla looking much better
28th June Discussion of the Curzon/Kitchener controversy that eventually will lead to Curzon's surprise resignation.
C258/ 75 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Jul-Dec 1905
Calcutta 7 July 1905. Friday. I began writing the petroleum paper today--- but I think it will take until the end of the month to finish it. Mr Holland is coming down next week and Mr Middlemiss arrived today full of earthquake lore. I had an exhibition of the sketches I made in Burma this last season and they were much appreciated. I am dissappointed that Mr. M has nothing to show. He sketches very well but he has done nothing lately, lazy man!
11th July 1905. I had a letter this morning from my friend Dr Paulche, one of the Germans I met in Vienna. It seems that Dr. Noetling has applied for the professorship of Geology at Karlsruhe, and wants to know under what circumstances he left the Survey. He says Dr N. is giving out that he left the survey because he was not made Director! Dr. N. was out here a couple of months ago but he did not come to Calcutta. Mr. H. had him shadowed by the police, and when he found it out he bolted back to Germany. It will be a great shame if they give him that Professorship and I hope Mr. H. will be able to stop it, but I dont think he can do anything unless the Karlsruhe faculty apply to him for the truth about Dr. N.
18th July 1905. We had the first of our officers meetings this afternoon and discussed the program for the next cold weather's work. The present idea is that I should have 3 men in Burma - Mr Mclaren, our gold specialist, Mr. Pascoe, who is to take up the petroleum question, and one of the new men, either Mr Hallowes or Mr Cotter, probably the former who is a Cambridge man. He is a queer looking fellow, with a rather round childish looking face, but I believe he is clever, and at any rate he has a lot more in him than Mr Pilgrim. he has not long come out, and of course has not been to camp yet. I am sure he will be more companiable than Mr. P.
19th July describes a game of billiards with Middlemiss "to decide which of us should have Mr Cotter with him next season, and which Mr Hallowes. Mr Cotter is the better man of the two and I won him, but I don't whether he will really come with me or not. Mr Hallowes it appears has made rather an ass of himself over his earthquake observations at Mussourie, and if he is that kind of man he would be of no use in Burma.
20th July the petroleum report is now finished but in order to type it he has to wait for Mr Vredenburg to finish using the typewriter. "Mr Hayden seems all right. His absess was in the groin not in the liver. He is working very hard and sometimes does not leave the office till 6, and I tell him he is overdoing it.
25th July I did a pretty good day's work, my dear, and got rid of one job that has been worrying me for some time writing an official account of Mr. Datta's shortcomings in the Shan Hills. Not a very exhilarting piece of work. Mr Holland and Mr Hayden are both going on leave next year and the question of promoting someone to Superintendent will come up again and Mr. H. wants some definite opinions about Mr. Datta's work. I don't there is the least chance in him being promoted on other ground.--- Mr. Holland has come to the conclusion that it would not do to send either Mr Hallowes or Mr Cotton to Burma, as the country is so jungly, and no other older man can be spared, so I expect I shall be alone again".
2Aug "Graces birthday, She also is 40 my dear I suppose but I cant beleive it any more that I can imagine you having reached that age". [Grace was his sister, through whom he met Nancy 15 years previously].
21 August Dr. Omori the Japanese earthquake man turned up again today, and I have asked him to dinner on Wednesday. He says he has had a very pleasant time in India, but he found it very hot--- We were all considerably astonished this morning to find that Lord Curzon's resignation had been accepted and his successor Lord Minto had been appointed. The general opinion seems to be that he, Lord C., has been very badly treated by Mr Broderick, and that there will be sanctions when he gets to the House of Common.s
10th September "It is actually 14 years since we were married"
20 October 1905 Calcutta I have not heard anything more from Norman (his brother) & I dont know whether he is really coming tomorrow or not, but I have asked Mr. Middlemiss to dine with me and meet him. They will talk about Mr. M's musical notation invention, which he is still working at, though he has not been able to get any music publisher to take it up yet. His latest hobby is Esperanto, the new universal language, a most uncouth jargon it is to my mind.
20 November 1905 Mandalay
23 Nov 1905 I am feeling very pleased with myself tonight my dear for I have done a good day's work. I made a most interesting discovery, which has cleared up some of the difficulties in the geology of these hills wonderfully. It is only some little fossils called Fusilina, some of which Mr. Datta found away near Lashio. They are very characteristic of a certain set of beds, the Carboniferous, and I was pretty sure all along that the rocks here were the same as those on the plateau, though Griesbach and Noetling and Datta laughed me to scorn. And now I have found these same little fossils down here, & that settles the question. They are very small not bigger than this [he draws three concentric ovals the biggest being 1 cm by 5 mm, but there is no mistaking them. I thought at once when I found them how pleased you would be to hear of it, my dear. How I wish you were here to congratulate me.
2 Dec 1905. We have had 8 Christmases together out of 14 counting this one. Can you remember them all? They are:
1891 Molipani, '92 Ara, '93 Sukkur, when you made the plum pudding! '94 You and Avice went home just before Christmas, 95 Willowdale, 96 Jodhpur, 97 Near Erinpura. Do you remember the ruined D.B. on the old cart road besides which we camped. '98 On the desert near Jodhpur, 1903 Tivoli Terrace.
Enclosed with his letter asis a home made Xmas card 2 Dec 1905 to Avice, Denis, Edie (short for Edith), Jim and baby Lynette (who reached age 2 on 24th Dec 1905)
12 th Dec 1905 Nawnghkio Do you think that Avice is really reserved, or is it only that she feels a shyness in telling you what is in her mind? A child of her age is often afraid of being laughed at I think, though I know you would not do that my dear if Avice were to tell you what she is thinking of, but I remember something of that kind of feeling myself. I think I always was, and know that I am know, afflicted with shyness in that way.
27th Dec 1905 I did come across something new today, at least some rocks that I did not expect to see, according to Mr Datta's mapping but I am not at all surprised at finding something wrong in his maps.
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MSS Eur C258/76 76 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Jan-Jun 1906
8 Jan 1906 Camp MauMau I have just been reading Mr Middlemiss' preliminary account of the Kangra earthquake last April. and I must send it to you as you would be interested in it, knowing the country as you do. There is a good map with it, with most of the places we were at together, [?Nageh], Palampur and the rest marked on it. [The next several letters talks of looking for gold in the streams of the area. Finding gold in one stream he follows it to a distributary and looks further. In fact he was unable to find any simple distribution of the gold and had to resort to probing with trial excavation pits in the alluvium. ]
26 Jan 1906 I have not heard a word from Mr Holland about my Fusinuliniae, indeed I have not heard from him at all for more than two months, but he must have said something of them to the other men for I had a card from Mr Middlemiss with "vivu Fusulinae" on it, vivu being Esperanto for Vivat. You have probably never seen an Esperanto Christmas card, so I will send it to you. The photo is one taken by Mr Middlemiss, of some cattle at a ford. (P.N.D. means Mr Datta of course. Holland has been starting a "Mining and Geological Institute of India" which will last, I fancy, as long as he takes an interest in it. [Its centenary was celebrated in 2007]. He is the first President of it. What its objects are I don't know, but I suppose it is composed prinicipally of the coal miners in Bengal, and the Geol. Survey, who will of course be expected to support it with their subscriptions. (Please put Mr Middlemiss' card in my P.C. Album.)
[He digs more gold pits during the month of February, sometimes finding gold shows, but more frequently not.]
LaTouche's Camp on Nanchen River February 2006 GSI 989
3 March 1906 I dont think I told you that poor Mr Griesbach has had a stroke - of paralysis, I suppose he means, but he was getting over it. He has not been able to enjoy his retirement long, poor man. Mr H. also says he has recommended that I should be asked to act for him & I suppose I must accept, though if he only goes for three months it will mean much worry and little extra pay.
His 6 March 1906 letter has in red ink diagonally across page 3's blue script "Not to be read to the children" on it, and describes the trashy novels he reads in Calcutta and the field. He comments how sexual relations always work out some how, and how pointless it is for authors to dwell on their resolution.
24 March Mentions McLaren leaving and how he and Holland don't get on well, but that Mclaren has high personal regard for him - LaTouche.
29 March I had a letter from the Govt. of Burma yesterday saying that the L. G. (Leftenant Governor) had reported me to Mr. Holland for using "unseemly and improper language" in saying that they should have told the Superintendent of the S. Shan states that I was coming into his territories. I cannot see anything unseemly in that, can you?
Sunday 1 April I had a telegram from Mr Holland at last. It must have crossed mine to him wondering how much longer I could stay out. He says "can I conveniently return to Calcutta on or before the 15th" and that he is taking leave from the 18th but is doubtful whether he can get a passage.
11 April We had quite an exciting journey down from Mandalay. When we had gone some distance we were told that there had been an accident on the line, an almost daily occurrence, and that it might be 6 hours before we could get on. When we got to the place where the accident had happened we found an engine off the line, buried in the earth up to the axles, and and the rails torn up for some distance. It had run over a loose rail which had tipped up and thrown it off the lines. So we had to get off our comfortable mail train and walk to where they had a local train with very little accommodation in it waiting for us at the other side of the break. There were 10 1st class passengers, two of them ladies, and only one little 1st class compartment. However we all packed into the 2nd class and started off again very slowly for of course they had to back the train to the nearest station. Then the question was where to get dinner [they wire ahead to the next town to order something prepared, which they do, but not enough for everyone- three pages of amusing tribulation]
19 April 1906 He shows his paintings to Mr Middlemess a good artist himself and a formidable critic, who likes them a lot. "I have improved a lot this season in the management of color".---He describes his health, and clear skin and asks Nancy not to mention it to others, and that he has lost a few pounds, and goes to get a small pox vaccination and fails. He apologizes for his apparent vanity but indicates he is merely relating this to reassure Nancy. ---"Mr Holland and Mr. Maclaren have a had a great quarrel and the latter has sent in his resignation & will go in another 6 months. It is all about nothing, but Mr M. is a NewZealander and very touchy and always fancying that he is not properly appreciated.--- Mr H. is off to Simla on Monday and has been showing me around the office and explaining everything.
22 April 1906 "My appointment as Officiating Director was in yesterday's Gazette so that is settled."
Holland eventually leaves and La Touche takes over. LaTouche indicates to Nancy that he plans to keep the office going but to ignore all Holland's pet schemes. Despite this he is left with several special chores, one of summing the mineral wealth of India in terms of exports etc. Another is to map the advance and recession of glaciers. The other is dealing with Datta and his expectation of a promotion now that an opening has occurred.
3 May 1906---The first case I shall have to tackle is a scheme for making observations on the variations of glaciers, and one of us will have to go a up to fix points from which to measure their advance or retreat.. --- he regrets he won't personally have time to do this.
15 May 1906 Sunday "A letter today came from Dr. Arthur Neve saying he would be glad to help in the glacier business, and I am sure he will be able to help us very much. He had written to Col. Burrard, a Survey of India man, who is taking some interest in the matter and he forwarded it to me. I was just thinking of writing to Dr. Neve about it and I shall now do so. I am very glad to hear of him again.
18th May 1906 -- in the morning I gave two of the young men Messrs. Cotter and & Brown some instruction in the art of using the plane- table as they will have to make plans of the glaciers they visit. Do you remember me teaching Mr Edwards up in the Salt Range how to use it?
19th May 1906. I have been talking with Mr. Middlemiss and his friend about Esperanto and other things. Mr. M. is very enthusiastic on the subject of the new language. It has quite driven out his musical notation of which I never hear anything these times. he is going home on furlough next week, lucky man. I dare say I shall have some trouble filling up the officiating appointment for Mr. Datta is pretty sure to be passed over and he will of course want to know why.
24th May 1906 My next job will be to recommend some one to act for Mr. Middlemisss. Mr. Datta is the next man on the list, but I know that Mr Holland is very much against his being promoted though if he only officiates for 6 months it will do no harm, There is a lot of correspondence on this subject that I shall have to go through tomorrow. If Mr. Datta is passed over I know that I shall have trouble with him. He will think it is my doing but iI dont much mind that. These are the kinds of things that make running the department interesting.
26th May 1906 I have been at work all day on this promotion question and I think I have found a way out of it all right but it remains to be seen what Govt. will think of it. I find that they have laid it down that they don't object to Mr D's having an Officiating promotion, so long as he understands that it is to give him no claim to a permanent step.
14 June 1906 Calcutta This is to wish you a happy birthday.
I send you as a birthday present some lines of Michelangelo's that I came across some time ago.
Thy wondrous beauty, image of the grace
That fills the heaven with glory, to us shown
By the Eternal Artist's hand alone,
When Time and Age have worn it from thy face,
Nor Age nor Time can from my heart displace,
But ever deeplier graven shall it be ,
For in my thought that beauty I shall see,
Which time's cold finger never can erase.
He then describes a three day visit from Professor [Edgeworth] David from Australia ("not often do we have a real live Professor to visit us") - who brings striated pebbles from the Australian boulder beds. "He is a charming man with a brown, keen, healthy face and blue eyes, chock full of enthusiasm about all sorts of things."
30 June Calcutta the GSI office was struck by lightening out of the blue. There was no storm. Vredenberg mistakenly thought it was a meteorite.
"The government have accepted my proposals about Mssrs. Datta and Vredenberg and both of them are to officiate as Supts. (govt. had accepted la Touche's uprecendented suggestion]. I am very glad about this for if Datta had been passed over I would have had a lot of trouble with him.He mentions a new Indian geologist who is about to join and affirms that that he is to be given a temporary consulting appointment. "We don't want any more natives in the survey after our experiences with Mr Datta"
"Mr Hayden is going up to Dehra Dun on Saturday to consult with Col. Burrard of the Survey, about the geography of the Himalayas the latter is bringing out for the use of globe trotters. It will do Mr H. good I hope. He has been getting headaches lately and wants a change I am sure." [This lead to the famous four volume Burrard and Hayden memoir on the topography, drainage and geology of the Himalaya, which after Henry Hayden's death was updated by Alexander Heron as a co-author.
C258/77 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Jul-Dec 1906
First letter to Dennis 5 July 1906 showing a diamond core drill sketch. He talks of cricket skills. His letter to Nancy mentions "I have been reading a curious idyll of Rudyard Kipling's called "they" and I hardly know what to make of it though I think I understand something of what he means. He is a queer man. The letter also speculates on some requested but pending new pay increments Rp2500 to Holland and possibly Rp1600 (from Rp1100) for him and Middlemiss. Holland's daughter Peggynow in England is much better now and can walk about (she had a swollen knee).
12 July 1906. I have been writing to Govt about sending Mr Hayden to Kashmir to observe glaciers and two other men to Lahaul and Spiti for the same reason
13 July 1906. Today I had a visit from a friend of the great Mr Edison the inventor, who was commissioned to find out if we had any ores of cobalt in India. Mr Fermor and I took him around the museum and showed him what we had in that way, and he was very grateful. He was a German, a Herr Maller. He seemed greatly surprised at our giving the information we had so freely. It must have been quite a new experience for him. He was on his way to Tibet, but he would not let out what he going for specially. It is very funny how secretive these mineral prospectors are. As a matter of fact we know that he will find nothing where he is going, as Mr Hayden has been all over the ground
20th July 1906 At an officers meeting they discuss moving to Dehra Dun because 6 more officers are being advertized for in Nature. Only Vredenberg opposes the idea since he has many musical ties in Calcutta and doesn't mind the heat.
24th July He relates that the pay raise actually approved will only be an increment of 300 to 1400 Rp not 1600 .
1 August 1906 Mr Hayden had a pleasant surprise this afternoon. He had a telegram from Sir F. Younghusband who is now resident in Kashmir asking him to stay with him. (the reason for the surprise was that LaTouche had asked the govt for permish for Hayden to go study glaciers in kashmir and Younghusband had learned of Hayden's pending visit from Government sources, before Hayden had been told by LaTouche)
14th August 1906 Mr Hayden went to Kashmir last night. He is to stay with his friend Col Younghusband who is resident now and then he will look up Dr Neve and go on to the glaciers.
24 August 1906 He makes his first real appearance after a month of jaundice with some time in a sanatorium on the Coromandal coast having lost 16 lbs. "I had a letter from Mr. Hayden written at Gulmarg. He says the road in was in a very bad state, and he has got a splinter of steel in his eye, from the yoke of the tonga bar I suppose which had to be searched for by the doctor, and his eye was very much inflamed. He is in Srinigar by now with Col Younghusband across the Woolar lake to that place were we stayed a day or two in our house boat. I forget the name now, where the Gilgit road begins. He is going right up to Hunza to measure the big glaciers there and I dont thing he will be back till the end of October.
6 Sept 1906. I have been writing all day a summary of Mr Pascoe's Burma oil reports.
9th Sept 1906 Sunday I have just come in from a long walk all around the maiden with Mr Graves, with whom I had an interesting talk about earthquakes.
Mr Holland's letter describes LaTouche's children after visiting the family in Ireland "The oldest boy is an excellent specimen of a boy, quiet in manner but exact and precise in all he says (that would appeal to Mr. H. who is nothing if not precise) indeed they all speak very nicely, except the baby who wouldn't say a word, but had many other ways of expressing her thoughts- she wanted to come away with me, and Mrs LaTouche had a job to head her off in the road". I am very glad you had a good talk with him and that you enjoyed seeing both of them. He can be first rate comapny .
I had a very pleasant letter from Mr Hayden yesterday. He says he is very fit and has been doing 17 mile marches, 27 miles in one day, all on foot.
16th Sunday I spent the afternoon writing a long note for Prof Bonney's benefit on glaciers. He sent out some suggestions for our glacier observers, and I have been trying to answer them.
Sunday 8th Calcutta I had a another cheerful letter from Mr. Hayden yesterday. He caught Col Younghusbad up at Gilgit and was handed over to the care of the chiefs of Hunza and Nagur, who he says cannot do enough for him. He says the scenery is most magnificent up there. The valley is only 7000 ft above the sea and hills rise to 18 or 20000 ft straight above. He ought to get some very nice photographs.--- The club is very noisy right now---inside they are knocking holes in the walls of every room for electric clocks which is the latest fad of the committee ---in the dining room they are putting up a ceiling to deaden the noise. When many men are dining it is simply deafening.
28th Sept I had a telegram from Mr Holland from Bombay to say he would be here on Sunday evening.
29th Sept 1906 We had quite a sensation today in the shape of an earthquake at 11 o'clock this morning. It does not seem to have done any damage here except a few cracks in walls, but it was strong enough to make most peopleclear out of their houses. I was sitting at the table at my office room when it came. There was first a very slight tremor, and then about 15 s afterwards a sort of wave, which made the whole building sway. It was gone in less than half a minute , but I thought it would be safer outside, and I led a procession of all the people in the office down stairs. Everyone of course is talking about it this evening. It stopped a good many clocks and Canon Lucknow has just told me that the spire of the cathedral is cracked slightly. I went around the museum soon after and found a little plaster fallen in one place. This time it does not seem to have come from Assam as they did not feel it at Shillong or Darjeeling. We shall probably hear more about it tomorrow
30th Sept 1906 Sunday ---I drove to Howrah this evening to meet Mr Holland who arrived looking very well. I shall hand over charge to him tomorrow morning and give him an account of my stewardship. [In fact Holland arrived on the 1st praising LaTouche little, and asking that LaTouche should to stay in charge until after the Pujas were over, a few days later. Holland did, however, repeat his flattering remarks about the LaTouche children, Dennis and baby]
11th October Nani Tal Two weeks in the mountain resort mentioning lots of society names and events.
18th Oct 1906 I have been reading the original diary of a Surveyor [Rennel] who was sent out in the time of Warren Hastings 1864-66 to survey the rivers of Bengal. Mr Holland gave me the book to see whether there was anything worth publishing in it, and I have found it most interesting. I must tell you more about it another time.
20th Oct 1906 Left Naini Tal with Jemmie [Sir James LaTouche] and Julia an unrehearsed official and mostly unofficial farewells to this apparently well liked administrator, and with discussions about Jemmies pending retirement. "Mr Holland wants me to prepare for the Board of Scientific advice. That board is one of Lord Curzon's creations and is of very little use, so far as we are concerned. It simply registers Mr. Holland's ideas and they might as well go straight to the government of India and it worries us with demands for reports on our work before it has been properly digested
5th Nov Calcutta is detailed description identifying the people in a photo (unavailable to us) taking of a tea party at Naini Tal.
6th Nov Calcutta I spent today writing a paper for the Records on the remains of the volcano that I discovered in the Shan hills last season. I think it will be interesting, but Mr. Holland won't let me put in all the photos I wanted to illustrate it. He says our funds for that purpose have run very low.
8th Nov Calcutta Hayden, Pascoe and Cotter return, and laTouche has fever for the next few days.
15th leaves Calcutta for Rangoon arriving 19th
21 Nov 1906 Rangoon I also saw Mr Finlay, the manager of the Burma Oil Co. and had a talk with him. He is a very pleasant man to deal with and wanted to take me for a trip up the river in his steam launch, but I can't spare the time.
22 Nov Mandalay As soon as I arrived I went off to find Mr Swinhoe and have just come back from having a talk with him at the Club. He has just got a concession for building a light railway to a place about 16 miles north of this, and had been writing to ask me if I knew where he could get good stones for ballast for his line. He is full of it of course, and is convinced it will be a paying concern. --- I have to go and report to the hospital at 3 o'clock . One is supposed to do it every day for ten days after landing and exhibit a passport on account of the plague. Rather absurd it is, as there is plague in a good many places in Burma already, and they can no longer hope to keep it out. It has been pretty bad here in in Maymyo and they were thinking of burning down the bazaar at one time but I hear there is a very little now, not so much as there is in Calcutta.
27th Nov Mandalay Tells Nancy he is looking around for a site for GSI office in town, and idea of Mr. Holland's, supported by Govt of Burma.
29th Nov. Mr Holland thinks that Govt will soon increase the pensions for men with over 25 years service, and it is worthwhile holding on for that, not to speak of getting full pay. Very few of our men have completed their 25 years, only Mr Medlicott and Dr. King since I joined it I think. Neither Griesbach nor Oldham did so, so I am feeling rather proud of myself. I would drink to my health if I had anything to do it in, but for the present I am still a strict teetotaller. I think though I should be able to venture in a modest peg at dinner time now that I am getting so much exercize.
25th Thanks Nancy for sending him a package of Christmas mince pies. I have just seen cousin Jemmy's retirement gazetted, and he has only two more days to serve. I wonder how he is feeling about it.
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C258/78 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Dec 1906-Oct 1907
31 Dec 06 Camp Maupet Burma
6th Jan 1907 Hkunpong with Mr. Brown (Coggin brown?) finding lots of trilobites and graptolites.
7th Jan 1907Tawnh-ma Which I believe means big hill, and it certainly is a fine site. There is a clear view in all directions for miles and the village is just over 5000 feet above the sea.--- I discovered an upright stone near the village this evening just like those that the Khasia in Assam have in their hills. This is the only thing of the kind I have seen in the country. This one has a rough inscription on it and it has been covered with gold leaf at one time so I think it must quite ancient. The head man of the village says it is only a grave stone, but they dont put up grave stones about here, and certainly don't guild them. I have taken a rubbing of the inscription but I doubt whether anyone will be able to decipher it.
14th Jan 1907 Hkawngsha There was a partial eclipse of the sun today, and the villagers were a good deal excited about it at first.---I am going to leave Mr B here to do a piece of work and he will come and rejpoin me in two or three days. He is quite keen to have a little independent work to do and I am anxious to see how he aquits himself. I shall probably have to give him several jobs of the same kind. He is a very nice fellow to have with me, has plenty of good sense and talks well, a very different sort from Mr. Pilgrim who could never see a joke.
29th January 1907 Manliu There is an eclipse of the moon going on. The natives are taking it very cooly. [he encloses some pressed flowers. The place of silver mines he is now working in is quite barren "The Chinese must have killed off the trees with the fumes from their smelting furnaces - [The next few letters tell of details of the silver workings, defences, furnaces and photos [ not shown but possibly in the Calcutta archive ]
12th Feb Kuang-hka-Today's march was much more interesting as I found a good deal of rock, and some fossils, but it is a terrible country to get through, it is so jungly, and cut up by narrow ravines. We must have marched at least 12 or 14 miles and have only come about 8 as the crow flies. Finally we got among a lot of narrow ravines with a narrow path leading straight across them, and after getting some of the mules with great difficulty across one of them, I decided to turn back and camp at this place, a tiny village with dense jungle all round. It is no joke turning mules in a narrow path. They don't understand it and get obstinate, and bang their loads about terribly. One beast had to have its load taken off and be regularly pushed head over heels down the a steep slope into the stream. It took all three Chinese drivers to move it. However, I think we have now found a better road for tomorrow, and meantime we are quite comfortable here.
23 rd Feb. we have not had any more trouble with the red ants since we moved camp
24th Feb the plast came off my finger today and I found to my surprise that the nail shows no sign of coming off, though it looked as if it was cut clean through. The dak seems to have glanced off it, and only shaved off a piece of it. The cut has healed perfectly and has left hardly any scar. [The next several letters have details of the topo and geology of the place but time prevents their trancription].
5th April 1907, I didn't tell you that I had a letter from Mr Oldham by last mail. He is living at a place called Shawford in Hampshire which seems to suit him, but he says he is not perfectly fit, though much better than when he left India. He gives a very poor account of Capt Meakin, who he says is practically confined to his bed and is not likely to get better. It is a very sad case, as he had just got a fair start in Calcutta when he got so ill.
13th April Pang Hkyem I stopped on the way to talk with one of the tramway engineers, a young American from Michigan named Ewing. He seemed to have done a great deal of knocking about, mostly in mining concerns like this, and I found him interesting. He describes a hot spring in one of the railway cuttings.----
16th April Maymyo Yesterday evening when I arrived at Hsipaw and was getting out my baggage a lady tackled me with a request that I should subscribe to a nuisance paper she was interested in, "the Oriental Watchman", published by some Trust Soc. It was rather startling especially as I had not spoken to a lady for some six months! She lent me a copy of the paper to read but I did not find it very illuminating. She was rather nice looking so I was sorry to dissapoint her.
17th May 1907 I was sorry to see in one of the newspapers that Mr Griesbach is dead. he has not enjoyed his pension long poor fellow, and I believe he has been ill for some time.
20th May 2007 Pascoe, Cotter Brown and he, all booked to return on the same boat. LaTouche remarks "4 geologists on board, enough to sink the ship".
LaTouche arrived in Calcutta and " I went to the office of course in the morning and began to unpack my collections and made the acquaintance of the new men who came out this winter except one who is still in camp with Mr Hallowes. Their names are Christie, a tall rather thin man with glasses, who has come out as a chemist to the Dept., Heron, Jones and Pages. Mr. Holland is away on tour, so I have not seen him yet, but Mr Middlemiss is here. Vredenberg is at home on three months leave.
3 June 1907 I had a letter from Mr Holland yesterday asking me if I would represent the department at the big centenary meeting of the Geol. Soc. in London which is to be held in September
6 June 1907 I have just been giving directions to our carpenter to make a box for my bicycle. Norman has a spare that he will lend me.
7th June 1907 In this letter he outlines in a page or so his plans for editing Rennel's diary and publishing it in the As Soc. He books a passage on the Egypt leaving Aug 6, arriving Aden 1lth July, Port Said 17th, Marseilles 21st July. He plans to stay in Europe for 5 months.
His letters start again in September written from England
Stokesey 23 Sept 07. It seems queer to be writing to you again my dear, but thank God it will not be for long this time. We have had a very good journey, sea of course quite calm, and fairly comfortable in the train, though it was rather crowded from Crewe to Shrewsbury. At the latter place we had a walk through the town and Avice enjoyed it at thought Shrewsbury the most beautiful and interesting place she had ever seen. We went to the School of St. Mary's and then through some of the old streets to see the timbered houses which took her fancy greatly. She had a wash and a brush up in the train coming down here and was looking very neat and fresh when we arrived. Lucy, Mary, Katie, Violet, Dorothy and Ruth were there to meet us, so we had a good recption. Lexa is laid up a bit having had a collision on her bicycle last week, and is lying on the sofa, and Willie has gone off fishing with Dr. White who is staying at the hotel and will not be back till after supper. Mary had a tennis party and left her guests to come and meet us , and coming over the hill above the school we met mother who is looking uncommonly well & Avice ran to meet her. The cousins seem to have taken to A at once. She was walking part of the way arm in arm with Katie and afterwards with Vi & Ruth. She has the room over the study with Violet and I have the spare room next to it at the head of the stairs. Avice does not seem at all tired but I have just told her she must go to bed in good time. Katie is going to walk down with me to post this.
You will be assurred to hear that my unfortunate box has gone astray again, and the two bicycles! They were not to be found at Crewe and must have been put out at Chester. I made a big fuss about them at Crewe and got a telegram sent off at once, so I hope they will soon turn up. A's box & my gladstone bag are safe
Stokesey 24 Sept 1907 Willie and I have just returned from an excursion to Builth Road ! for fossils. We went down to Llandrindod on excursion tickets 2/9 return & after collecting at a quarry there rode in to B. Road and got some good trilobites there also. The bicycles and my box turned up today--- my address in London will be c/o W. H. Hooker, 12 Pengwern Road , Earls Court
Centenary 1807-1907 Geol. Soc of London Burlington House 25 Sept '07 Uses the new Piccadily line tube to get around London
C25879 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Jan-Jun 1908 He speaks for three minutes (the time alloted to all delegates) and shakes hands with Geikie who gives the address at 3 pm. "I have met a lot of men whom I know: Mr. Oldham, Mr. McLaren, Profs Bonney and Hughes and so on---Willie Hooker and I dined with Grace last night. On the 29th he goes on field trip to Northhampton.
1 Oct 07 Pembroke College Cambridge ---I lunched with Mr Oldham and Mr Mclaren at the Roy. Soc. Club in St. James St. and we had a good talk
Stokesey 2 Oct 07 I enjoyed my stay at Cambridge very much. Soon after we arrived we, Mr Oldham, an American from San Francisco, a Dr Mauson [massoro could he mean Lawson?], a most amusing man, and Mr Hutchinson a fellow of Pembroke who entertained us, had luncheon in his rooms and then went to the Sedgwick Museum, where we met the other visitors. After looking around a bit they were taken off in batches to see the colleges and I went off to find Mr Bushe Fox. He lives a short distance outside the town in a house that he had built for himself with a good large garden. --- We were all photographed in front of the Senate house where degrees had been conferred on some foreign geologists.
Stokesay 3 Oct We -Willie, Avice, Dorothy and I went in to Ludlow this afternoon and saw the Church and Castle. It was a fine day though there had been a heavy shower in Ludlow and the country was looking beautiful. Avice enjoyed it very much and was greatly interested in the Castle though she did not say very much.---
last letter sent 6 Oct. from Stokesey
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C258/79 15 Jan 1908 Passes through Stokesay on his way to Charring Cross Hotel (where he had first proposed to Nancy) before embarking on the SS Marmora from Marseilles. Passes the Lipari islands and Stromboli, Aden and then Bombay 1st. Feb.
Calcutta 4 Feb.1908 I met Mr H just coming away and he greeted me effusively and started to talk at once about his scheme for the museum, which seems on be on his brain just now. I shall probably talk with him tomorrow. There are only 2 or 3 men here now, Mr. Middlemiss with whom I had some talk but nothing of any particular interest. He is still mad on Esperanto; our chemist, Mr. Christie and Mr. Vredenberg.
5 Feb Well my dear I had a talk with the great man today and it was fairly satisfactory, but it is evident he has no intention of taking leave this year. He indicates he will be able to finish his memoir on the Shan States, but will need to look after the office when Middlemiss takes to the field. "I hear that Mr Hayden is on his way down from Afghanistan and if he does not go home may take over the office".
17th I spent the day as usual, over proofs and files and nothing of interest happened except that just before I left the office a tall and very solemn Babu came in and with much hesitation said that he had seen my description of that specific gravity balance in Nature & wanted to know how much it would cost to make one like it. He is one of the geology Students at the University, I think. I told hiom that if he liked he could have a drawing of the instrument made and get an estimate for it, whereupon he thanked me and withdrew, as they say, when a deputation waits on a cabinet minister.
28th Feb 08 One letter was rather amusing- from Col. Younghusband at Sheikh Budin who sent down a fossil which he said was shaped like a pom-pom shell and as it was found on one of the passes near the Takht i Suleiman he wanted to know if it was some kind of bullet. I think I know whereabouts it comes from as I found a lot of the same kind of fossil when we were up in the Sherani country. It is shapped like this . [Draws a belemnite-looking fossil]
The funny thing is that when I showed the letter and fossil to Mr. Hayden, he told me that when they were up in Tibet Expedition the Tibetans actually used these fossils as bullets & he picked up several that were fired into the camp - so Col. Y. was not so far wrong after all. This is not the man who is now resident in Kashmir, but I fancy a brother of his.
1 March 08 I spent most of the day at the As. Soc which is just round the corner, working at that diary of Rennels. I am working on his routes with the aid of his original map of the country, of which we have a copy in the library. Today I paid some more calls, the last for some time I hope as it is getting rather hot for that kind of pleasure! In the middle of the day I found 3 ladies ar home, Mr Burrard- He is acting as Surveyor General this year- and as I had some correspondence with him about those glaciers I was very glad to make his acquiintence. I liked the look of both of them. They have not been to Calcutta before and seem more genial than most Calcutta folks. She is rather tall and well dressed with very pleasant manners,
3rd Well here I am back in Calcutta after a very pleasant day in the country. We travelled in great style in a very magnificent carriage, fitted with all kinds of luxuries - electric fans and lights and a fine big bath etc. It was a very slow jouorney as we were tucked onto a train that stopped at every station but I slept very well both going and coming. We got to the coal field about 9:30. There were somewhere about 60 members of the Institute present and we were divided into parties and taken round the mines, including a journey underground for about half a mile from one pit to another, I etc etc Did I tell you that they madew me Tresurer (of the institute).
4th he meets a man call Hirst who is mapping the Ganges delta and they have a confab. about Rennel's original maps. Meets Bose who retired and is now an independent consultant. Bose wanted to get to the Saphire mines in Kashmir and was put out when he was told that it would take at least a month from Srinigar there and back to reach them.
10th Professor Schuster of Manchester visits (He is a nice quiet unaffected man, though not very clever. He was at Cambridge in my time) and Holland gives a dinner inviting Burrard Hayden etc
13th Lord Ktchener was dining here the day before yesterday. He is not a distinguished looking man, rather a coarse face, and I dont think I would pick him out as a great man by the look of him. I dare say he looks better in uniform
24th Had tea with the Burrards -not very interesting - talked mostly about the weather.
25th Council meeting of the As.. Soc rather more lively than usual. They have asked me to be General Secretary
26th Middlemiss is back and La Touche finishes his account on the glaciers.
6th Mr Hayden has started at last for home.
10th May--- it is the 201st monthly celebration of their anniversery
3th June Mr H has an offer of a Professorship in Manchester but the climate there is unattractive
18th June Mr Middlemiss is setting off for Kashmir on Tuesday
24th We are wondering whether Mr Holland's name will be on the list of honors this time. It is about time they gave him a CBE or something. Mr Middlemiss went off to Kashmir on Tuesday, and will be getting near Jummoo by this time. He is going up over the Pir Panjal, not by the Banichal pass, but another further west and it will be some time before he gets to Srinigar. I wish I were going too
25th June So our worthy director has been made a KCBE and is now Sir Thomas, more power to him. I dare say you will see it in tomorrow morning's papers. Won't Lady H be the proud woman? I would like to offer you that kind of honour, but there is no "push" I'm afraid about me.
28th June Sunday Mr Pascoe who came from Simla today says that Sir Thomas is much pleased with his decoration which he says was quite unexpected. He had accepted the Professorship in Manchester only two days before, but he is not going there until Sept.. 1909
C258/80 1908 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Jul-Dec 1908 , she in Kingston, Ireland
Calcutta Mr H is now referred to as Sir T. and there follows some minor speculation about whether he will retire and La Touche will succeed him. Foote retires and they give him a gift designed by La Touche (a drawing of this curious object is attached).
2 July 1908 Calcutta he has copied a 1774 letter from the Victoria museum in which Rennel requests a pension.
9 July toothache, swelling face and a headache
His 14 Aug letter has the sketch of the presentation rock for Foote. Looking for Gypsum deposits and fears that their absence will not support Holland's theory of the closure of the Ganges seaway. This he knows will make Holland vexed but notes that it is Holland's own fault for proposing theories without evidence to support them.
26 Nov Harmirpur indicates he has been nominated for Vice President of the Recently formed Indian Mining Institute, after having rejected his nomination of president because he could not attend the annual meeting. Heading for the Salt range he sends telegram from Kalpi 10 Dec to Mrs La Touche, Tivoli Terrace, Kingstown, Ireland
30 Dec 08 Camp Pail Some of the mince pies have gone moldy and have had to be thrown away. He comments on letters from the children etc. I got a fine view from the crest of the hill I climbed up and saw one of the salt lakes of the plateau in the distance where my next halting place will be. I want to visit each of the lakes and try & find out what has caused them. The one I saw today is evidently due to a double fold in the rocks like this :- he sketches a double fold.
I could see the rocks bending over quite distinctly from the top of the hill but the others have quite a different cause.
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5th Jan Kabaki Salt Range Today's march was not very interesting, mostly over undulating plateau country. There are two lakes here, one of them about a mile long, and I went out in it in my boat this afternoon, The water is quite salt. The surroundings are not very picturesque, just stony hills with very little vegetation.
C258/81 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Jan-Jul 1909 la Touche first in the Salt Range then to the Gangtok mountains, sketches etc
Camp Kabaki 5 January 1909 My darling Avice,
I think it is your turn for a letter this week and as it is the first of the new year it must be all right. I don’t think I have much to tell you though, as I have not been doing anything interesting lately. There are two big lakes here and I have pitched my camp between them, I went out on my little boat this afternoon and tried to sail, but there wasn't wind enough so I soon gave it up. I am going to have another go tomorrow if there is any wind. The water in the lakes is quite salt, like sea water, because there is no stream running out of them and so the water evaporates and leaves the salt behind. I went to find out tomorrow how deep the water is , and I have been making a lead line marked off in fathoms to measure it with.
It is very nearly a year since I left home, only a week more now, and it will be another year before I begin to think of going home again. Just fancy you will be 17 then and I shall hardly recognize you. I hope you will work steadily and well this year, dear Avice, and realize that as the oldest of the children you are responsible for setting a good example to the rest of the children. This is the time when you can become a real companion to Mother and help her in many ways especially by talking over with her any ideas that come into your head. With God's blessing my dear and Mother to help you will become what I pray and trust you will be in a true Christian woman, and a comfort to both of us as we grow old. I have a strong belief that you will do so.
With very much love, Your loving Father
Camp Kabaki 6 July His letter to his wife is 6 pages written 6-11 Jan and mentions the Calabria earthquake, news of which had arrived that day. He mentions Denis's exam results and how they might pay for schooling, and the formation of the lakes (recent tilt) where he is camped. He climbs Kangra -Walu [?waler] and views the Jhelum and the Indus, and has letters from Hayden and Tipper.
Camp Katha 20-26th Jan 1909
Mentions view over the Potwar plateau towards Rawalpindi. He discusses the directorship issue again. "Sir Thomas will probably take furlough and I may be made acting director. If they make a younger man director no doubt Mr. Hayden will be the man, and I should be very glad to work under him for a year it he is appointed. None of the other men are competent is seems to me.
30th Jan. 1909 Choya Saidan Shah, Salt Range, mentions finding mercury in the RC mission. Had to send Bhola off to get some more photographic plates from Lahore. Mentions Christmas letter from Nancy that brought Christmas with the 5 children alive for him. Discusses Morley reform bill etc, He encloses three sketches of Bhaganwala Village and fort dated 7 Feb 1909. It is one of the few places in the Salt Range where trilobites are found.
LaTouche took this photo of the historical town of Katas in the Salt Range 30 January 1909.
7th Feb 1909 Sunday "I did not do very much today but in the morning I climbed above the village looking for fossils, but had no success at all. When Mr Middlemiss came up here in '93 we found a few but I could not hit upon the same places again. However, I took some photos and afterwards made a rough sketch looking up towards the hills for you."
9th Feb. 1909 Khewra In the evening I strolled up the road to have a look at the town of Khewra which is built on the hill above the salt mines. It is a most peculiar looking place, all bright red hillsides, and houses and all. I hope to get some photos of it tomorrow if the wind will allow me. I could not have set up camera today it was so strong. He describes the enormous caverns mined for salt.
14 Feb 1909 arrives in Lahore.
18th Feb Calcutta " I found Sir T., and Mr Middlemiss, who ought to be in camp, Hayden, Fermor, Tipper are here and of course we have had a good deal of talk together. Sir T. says he has never a moment to spare, and that is why he has not written . He seems to have no end of schemes in hand as usual- one for remodeling the As. Soc among them, but I fancy he will find most of them unfinished when he goes. Of course he said nothing about his successor and I don’t suppose he knows anything yet."
Mentions presenting Bruce Foote (78) with the stone implement he designed last year. It is 50 years since Foote joined the Dept. and he retired 18 years ago and settled in the Shevarvy Hills in Madras. Mentions Fermor, Tipper and Annadale and the bad music at St. Johns church where "found myself practically the only bass"
12th March mentions a visit from Bruce Foote who (by his two marriages) has five daughters the last of which is to be married in August.
23 March Avice's birthday today
25 March Darjeeling Describes the narrow gauge railway and its slow pace without views as being uncomfortable.
"I heard today that Major Bruce of the 5th Gurkas, a well known climber in the Himalayas, is coming up here early in April and is going to try and get up to Mt. Everest. I should like to meet him very much and want to get back before he leaves. I fancy he would be a very interesting man to meet and I want to have a talk with him about glaciers. I wish he had come up a bit later and then we might have made several marches together."
28 March heads for the field with porters etc. News of Harry's death (married to Edith and estranged from her- he had complained of her frequent headaches in previous years which Nancy and LaTouche considered most unseemly criticism with its implication of frigidity)
26 April Camp Dikchu Mentions several times Mr Pellew Harvey the Australian mining expert who has been paid £1000 for consulting for the Copper mines in the region. (Wishes he could get such a commission when he retires).
4th May 09 Kalingpong
The next few letters discuss looking at potential copper and coal deposits in Sikkim with Mr. Kemp. Steep climbs and tents on steep hillsides. Views of Kanchenjunga. The letters continue in the snows and passes around the mountain where he maps glaciers etc. until June.
Gangtok
29 June 1909 La Touche discusses
retirement. Letter from Holland (written 16 June in Simla) indicating that he will recommend him to be
Acting Director when Holland takes leave in August 1909, and pointing out the
pro and cons of retiring, or not,
at age 55, which he attains 30 Oct 1910. The pension would be Rs5000. La Touche
thanks him and indicates that he intends to retire in 1910. Holland indicates that he will recommend LaTouche for his position when he retires in Nov or Dec 1910 but that Govt. will not accept it unless he indicates he will retire at age 55 in which case they will probably appoint him Acting Director.
8 July Calcutta More rumours about the directorship and how he would not like to stay on under Middlemiss. Mention of Fermor (28) marrying a country bred girl (19) with red hair. He thinks Fermor childish and in need of someone mature enough to look after him sensibly. She was engaged at 18 and turned the man down for Fermor.
Calcutta 24 July 1909 I have been entertaining two of our young men Mr Heron and Mr Jones at the Club. Neither of them are very interesting and they haven't much to say for themselves.
30 July 1909 A department photo was taken. This would be the last with Holland as director.
C258/82 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Aug 1909-Apr 1910
Calcutta 2 Aug 1909 his first day as Director.13th Elected member of the board of trustees of the India Museum
Calcutta 25 October 1909 We are expecting Mr. Oldham at the end of the week. I think I told you he was coming out to prospect for oil for a firm in Burma. I don't know how he can expect to find any as we have had 3 or 4 men, and the Burma Oil Co. 5 or 6, hard at work looking for new oil fields for years without any success. I hope he is making them give good fees
United Service Club Calcutta 29 October 1909 I had a telegram today from Mr Oldham from Bombay coming across by the mail special train so I suppose he will here about 11 o'clock at night
31st August 1909 When I got back from Mr Hayden last night I found Mr Oldham here and sat down to have a talk with him, so it was all hours before I got to bed, too late to write. Mr Oldham is looking younger and and better than when he retired and is in good spirits. He is staying with us till Friday when he goes to Burma.
1 Nov 1909 It is very late my dear - nearly 12. Messrs Middlemiss, Hayden and Vredenburg have been dining with us to meet Mr Oldham, and have only just gone. Mr V gave us two or three pieces on the piano in his usually brilliant style
4th Nov 1909 Mr O and I are going to dine with Mr Pilgrim tonight, a bachelor dinner as his wife has not yet come back I don't fancy it will be very lively.
5th Nov 1909 I have been sitting up chatting with Mr O who is off to Burma tomorrow.
6th Nov 1909 I have just had a tete-a-tete with Mr Oldham who is going to Burma early in the morning, I think he has enjoyed his stay here very much, anyhow he says so. We talked about what I was to do when my time came to retire next year, but he seems to think that Govt. will offer me an extension of service.
Next letter 12th
25th Nov 1909 Mr Oldham has just been wiring to me to try and get a dhobi for him & just as Anwar had found a man he wires to say that he doesn't want him. He could easily have got a Burman to do the work, but he is very funny in some ways. He would have had to pay a Calcutta man at least 30/- a month
10th Dec 1909 I had a letter this morning from Mr Oldham, who doesn't seem to be having a very good time in Burma. He says the weather has been very muggy with almost constant rain, and that the roads are impassable with mud.
17th Dec 1909 I have spent most of the day going through letters that have been lying in the drawers of the Directors table since Mr Griesbach's time and making extracts from some of them. Holland told me when he left he always intended to do this and never had the time.
5th Jan 1910 Just back from a lecture at As. Soc. from Dr Ross, a Hungarian whose real name was Csoma de Koros on Bhuddist literature of Tibet "a queer fish as he seems never to have changed his clothes, day or night"
14 Jan 1910 I have turned up the diaries of the first man who surveyed the Raniganj coal field in Bengal, a Mr Williams, in 1845, and I think they would be worth publishing. Anyhow I mean to propose it to the Ass Soc. I do like that kind of work and I should not be very much displeased if I could get some of it to do after I retire. Perhaps Rennel's Journal will help me to it. I had a letter form Mr Oldham who is still in Burma and seems to be getting on all right. He complains that one of the Govt. maps is all wrong, but so far as I can see there is not much the matter with it. He will be coming this way in March on his way home
Middlemiss tells me that his eldest girl Eileen … [ Eileen eventually married a Mr. Forward and looked after Middlemiss in his last years in 1945]
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C258/83 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. May 1910-Oct 1910
C258/83 1910 La Touche is now acting Director and president of the Asiatic Society
8 May 1910 Simla Strawberry hill Mss Eur C258/83
describes journey and death of the King, which cancels amusements in Simla. Describes his "pupil" Coggin Brown's magnificent work in Yunnan, visiting places where no man has ever been, bringing back much politically valuable material and working under grat difficulties .
13 May 1910 Calcutta Mss Eur C258/83
Correcting the Rennel proofs and finishing the Artesian Well paper. Hallowes back from Burma is " a very flabby individual with a terrible conceit of himself and cannot put his ideas into a concise form on paper. "
18 May 1910 Calcutta Mss Eur C258/83
Mr Middlemiss has been giving us a lecture on Esperanto at the As. Soc. About 30 people attended.
20 May 1910 Calcutta Mss Eur C258/83
Everyone in frock coats and top hats in hot weather for the memorial survice for the King. All trains stopped for 15 minutes. Wrote a preface for the Rennel work, then the index. Had a good view of the comet "but it is not a very striking object", but a full moon dilutes its visibility. His discussion on the glacial period printed in Geol Mag. Coggin Brown back from Yunnan with lots of gossip about the Mandarins
27 May 1910 Calcutta Mss Eur C258/83
Spent the day at the As Soc "verifying references in Rennel's journal" Billiards with Tipper. Trys going teetotal for 2 weeks, looses weight, and starts moderate drinking again and now feels "perfectly fit". discusses the possibility of visiting Kashmir one last time to inspect Middlemiss's work
16 June 1910 Describes how the Board of Scientific Advice was set up by Curzon to prevent overlap between departments but is largely unsuccessful and is seen only as an excuse to visit Simla at Govt. expense. Proofs of Rennel arrive.
17 June 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
"I wonder how Mr Hayden will get on as director. I hardly think he is old enough to make other men respect him." Starting to add a new wing to the Museum
Calcutta 24 June 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
"We are rather anxious about Mr Vredenburg whose ship, the Trieste, is four days overdue at Bombay, There has been a big cyclone in the Arabian Sea. They had over 13 inches of rain at Bombay the day before yesterday. She is said to have been sighted off the coast of Muscat, flying signals of distress. If they are driven ashore on the Muscat coast they may have a bad time of it with the Arabs. A gunboat has been sent out from Aden to look for her." Films of the Kings funeral
Calcutta 4 Jul 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
I had a telegram from Mr Vredenburg this morning saying that he landed safely this morning and will be here on Wednesday. The story of their rescue is in the papers and it is most exciting. They were towed in by a tramp steamer but the sea was so bad that it was 7 days before they were able to get a hawser on board, and the rescuers lost one man and had several injured. The seem to have behavied most pluckily and I hope they will get a good reward soon as salvage money.
22 July 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
finishing his memoir - typing it!
3 Aug 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
mentions Gait from Assam, now its commissioner
8th Aug 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
correcting final proofs of Rennel
19 August 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
Doctor complements him on his healthy organs and clear, unwrinkled skin.
24th Aug 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
finally takes out a life insurance policy for £3276 .
2 Sept 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
gets the last proofs of Rennel off
6 Oct 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
Middlemiss back from Kashmir having avoided the cholera. Middlemiss needs to go home next year to look after his family. Handed over his memoir to Hayden who is ill. but who is to be the next Director. "It is rather hard on Mr Middlemiss, who is superceded, but I don't think he really cares for the job, and it is to a great extent his own fault as he has never shown the slightest interest in economic questions.
A tribute (a poem by K. A. Knight Hallowes) appears in the Englishman which elicits scorn from La Touche, as did the one Hallowes wrote for Holland.
La Touche, great work for India hast thou done
As man of Science opening up the Past:
By hammer, map and pen thou has amassed
Knowledge that nature had unveiled to none
The mountain spirits glist'ning in the sun
Glaciers and racks have unto thee unfurled
The dim, forgotten secrets of the world
And thou hast made them clear to "those that run"
Now, as thou bidst farewell to India's land,
Thy colleagues gather round to grasp thy hand;
Leader and friend, great is our loss of thee.
Mayst thou a well earned rest in England find-
Rest in this recollection of thy mind,
That thou hast widened Sciences boundary.
La Touche remarks to Nancy that luckily for Mr Hallowes he is on leave or he would have had "a piece of my mind. Did you ever see such stuff!! "
21 October 1910 Mss Eur C258/83
He bids fairwell at the As Soc and leaves India via Ajmere and Bombay
writes from Red Sea and Marseilles
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c258/84 Letters to Anna La Touche from her husband Thomas. Feb-May 1911
Stokesay 14 Feb 1911 Mss Eur C258/84
Speaks of attempting to be a consulting geologist but nobody needs them here. Ludlow is dull. Dog fell off the roof but recovered.
London 12 May 1911 Mss Eur C258/84
In London going to India Office and then to 15 Madingley Road Cambridge
Cambridge 13 May 1911Mss Eur C258/84
off to the Sedgwick Museum and next day meets Hughes, Teall and Hatch, Harker, Bonny, Lister Anderson.
Cambridge 16th May 1911 Mss Eur C258/84
In this, his last letter, he states that he is advised by Cambridge people that there is not much chance of an opening there even though there seem to him to be many openings.