sufficed for the necessary observations here, and then, having packed the observing instrument in its waggon, back went the operators to Golspie, thence on to "Beinn loch Eas na Cairoch" near that place, and from there instrument and camping paraphernalia were sent off to Tarbat Ness station. Here the work of observing ran a week or ten days into October, the weather daily becoming wetter and stormier, and the surrounding hills taking on their first winter mantle of snow. Nothing remained but to declare the "trig" field-season of 1819 to be at an end: and for officers and men to eat the festive farewell camp-dinner together, and drink with a hearty goodwill "Success to the Trig," after the accustomed manner of these breaking-up occasions.
"Such," writes Colonel Dawson, "had been Colby's course of life for many years before I joined the Survey." Nor, if any method had been sought wherewithal to train Colby and his military comrades for the possible work of active campaigning of another sort that might any day devolve upon them, could there have been devised, in the whole range of peace duties, a better schooling to that end than a life like this on the great National Survey.
When, in the summer of the year following that in which took place the stirring incidents we have just glanced at, the death of General Mudge deprived the Survey at once of its chief and of a distinguished scientific officer, the reins fell for the moment into Colby's hands, pending the selection by the authorities of a new director. The selection lay with the Master-General of the Ordnance, who at this time was the illustrious soldier-Duke, and who, with characteristic sagacity, took time to consult some of the leaders of science – among them Professor Hutton, of mathematical celebrity – before coming to a decision. Colby, meanwhile, wisely forbore from any kind of attempt to make interest in the matter; but on receiving, in due course, the official announcement that the appointment had been conferred upon him, thus made reply to the Great Duke. "I beg leave," he writes from the Ordnance Map Office at the Tower of London, under date 14th July 1820, "most respectfully to express my best thanks for the very high honour your Grace has been pleased to confer on me by the appointment to the superintendence of the Trigonometrical Survey. I am fully aware of the heavy public responsibility which attaches to that situation; and I feel most keenly the disadvantage under which I labour from my character being unknown to your Grace, and the little confidence I can expect at the commencement of my very arduous task. However, I trust the continuance of my best exertions will produce such results as may hereafter prove me not altogether unworthy of the honourable situation with which I have been favoured." He then proceeds to ask for two additional Engineer officers as assistants – "As your Grace will perceive the absolute necessity of the assistants being officers of Engineers, on whom I can place the most complete reliance, from my personal knowledge of their mathematical and other attainments, and their capability and willingness to go through the laborious computations and other fatigues and hardships incident to the diligent performance of their duties. ..." It was like the man to write
