warmest attachment to my own corps, as a body of scientific officers, for it is only as such that it can ever hope to maintain its high position, and with the sincerest respect for the able officer who presides over it as Inspector General, I have never been able to think that the change in the character of the Survey Department was a judicious one; and I sincerely hope that it will now regain its independence, and enlist in its service the most able officers, whether of the Artillery, of the Engineers, or of the Line (for there is now no separate Ordnance Department) which can be found; and should there be any difficulty in effecting this restoration without still further change, let officers and men be classed together as Staff or Topographical Engineers, with rank and pay commensurate with the importance of their duties and let the superintendent or chief be selected, as in former times, without reference to his peculiar corps, on the simple ground of recognized abilities, thorough knowledge of the science of geodesy, and fitness of character as regards energy and judgment, to conduct so great a work. I doubt not that my brother officers will generally attain this high prize of intellectual and moral eminence ; but it is only as being deserving of it that I can wish to see them obtain it.

In the preceding pages I have, perhaps, said enough to pourtray the frank simplicity, the genuine, as being unostentatious, hospitality, the silent charity of General Colby, who, dreading the charge of weakness, gave secretly what he denied

openly but I am now enabled, from the following anecdote communicated to me by Lieutenant-Colonel James, R.E., the present Superintendent of the survey, to show that General Colby was also capable of exhibiting a noble munificence in his generosity. Whilst examining the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and selecting amongst them stations for the triangulation of the United Kingdom and for fixing the northern extremity of the British arc of meridian, as detailed in the first part of this Memoir, he was necessarily indebted to Lieutenant Thomas, R.N., then in charge of the hydrographical survey of those islands, in whose vessel he was conveyed from island to island, for most valuable assistance and for the greatest attention and hospitality. Services such as these, in a country so dreary, and in an ocean so stormy, were not only personally agreeable, but were essential to the successful performance of an arduous duty; and so deeply were they felt and valued by General Colby, that he presented Mrs. Thomas with the sum of £500 to assist her husband in the prosecution of a lawsuit in which General Colby had heard that he was then engaged. Lieutenant Thomas, on learning the circumstance from Mrs. Thomas, insisted on returning the money to General (then Captain) Colby; but he did not the less appreciate the noble spirit which had dictated the gift, nor fail to hand down the memory of it to his son, the present Lieutenant Thomas, R.N., who is now, in succession to his father, employed in the North and East of Scotland, and by whom the

knowledge of this interesting fact was communicated to Lieutenant-Colonel James.

In the preceding narrative, General Colby has been generally, though not always, spoken of according to the rank which he held at the time of the event or act recorded; and it is therefore necessary to give a brief statement of the successive changes in his military position, in order to link together the several parts of the Memoir. His entrance into the Engineers, as Second Lieutenant, was in December, 1801; he attained the rank of First Lieutenant in 1802, that of Second Captain in 1807, and that of Captain in 1812; he became Major (by Brevet) in 1821; in 1825 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, in 1837 to that of Colonel, and in 1846 to that of Major General. During the time thus passed over in review, several changes took place in General Colby's residence at first he continued to reside at the Ordnance Map office in the Tower, having appointed a local Director to represent him in Dublin, but it soon became evident that the new work required his personal presence more than the old; he therefore assumed the command in person, in Ireland, in 1828, and for ten years steadily directed the operations of the survey, from the Head Quarter Office, at Mountjoy House, in the Phoenix Park, the organization of which he had, with his usual forethought and judgment, confided to Lieutenant Larcom (now Lieut.-Colonel), whom he had taken over with him for that purpose.

In 1828 he married Elizabeth, daughter of the late Mr. Boyd, of Londonderry, for many years the highly respected Treasurer of that county, and took a house in Merrion Square, where, being received as an inmate, after the Hill season of 1829, I had an ample opportunity of seeing him at his own fireside, and recognizing in him those domestic qualities which made every one happy and at ease about him; and I may add also that in Elizabeth Boyd he found a helpmate worthy of him; one, indeed, who, by her simple and unaffected kindness, proved that she entered fully into her husband's feelings, and made his friends her own. General Colby then took on lease Knockmaroon Lodge, close to the gate of the Phoenix Park, and at the distance of a short walk from the office. Here, again, I was a visitor at his house, and saw the virtues of a warm heart still further expanded, as the General had then become a father. My friend Lieut.-Colonel Larcom has said that though General Colby was like a rock, immoveable in a determination on points of duty when he had once decided, he was as gentle and kind as a father or brother when personally communicating with his officers and men; but to see and appreciate those qualities in the highest degree, it was necessary to study them in his own house, where the steady calm reasoner of one moment became, in the next, almost the giddy boy, when playing joyously and without restraint with his children; for, in truth, his greatest happiness was found in the quiet enjoyment of his own home.

It was during this residence in Ireland that he endeavoured to renew the project of a complete HillDrawing Department, for which purpose he availed himself of the unrivalled skill in that branch of work of Lieutenant (now Lieut.-Colonel) Dawson. The object appeared to have been fully gained, when, at the moment of success, Lieutenant Dawson was, as in the cases of Drummond and Murphy, removed from the survey, and appointed to an office of great responsibility in England, first in connection with the Reform Commission, and then with that for regulating the Tithes. This department was, however, re-modelled, and rendered even more effective by the introduction of the system of In 1838, General Colby returned to England as the development of the Scotch Survey then began to require his more immediate attention, and in 1846, just at the moment when the map of the last Irish county had been given to the public, he quitted the direction of the work and retired into private life.

contours.

In respect to his connection with learned Societies, he was one of the original Fellows of the Astronomical Society, having assisted in framing the rules for its government at the period of its formation in 1820, and he succeeded General Mudge as a Member of the Government Board of Longitude. He was a Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; and of the Geological, Geographical, and Statistical Societies of London; a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and of the Geological and