and in particular to geology, which at that time formed a part of them, till 1843, when Colonel Colby recommended Captain James for the appointment of Local Superintendent of the Geological Survey of Ireland under Sir Henry de la Beche as General Director for the Geology of the United Kingdom. This post he held for some time, but was afterwards transferred to the Superintendence of the Admiralty Constructional Works at Portsmouth Dockyard. In 1850, James returned to the Survey, and had his divisional headquarters in Edinburgh, where, like some of his predecessors, he made acquaintance with many scientific celebrities and congenial friends. Four years later, lie was selected to succeed Colonel Hall in the directorate of the department, causing thereby the withdrawal from the Survey of a first-rate officer already spoken of, Tucker, on account of his seniority to Major James in the service; Yolland, also, being transferred to the Board of Trade about the same time.
On the assumption of his command by the new chief, the great "battle of the scales," as it has been termed, was still in activity; and in regard of anything like settled orders, fixity of plan, or steadiness in the annual grants of money, the National Survey had been for a considerable time past at sixes and sevens, and was destined for yet a few years more to be tossed about in troublous waters. One set of experts had advised this, another that; but out of it all had at last emerged a Treasury order to adopt on the British survey the French cadastral scale of 1/2500, which had been fathered by Laplace and Delambre at the beginning of the century, strenuously urged by Dawson, R.E., in 1837, and pressed home to the attention of European States by the Brussels Statistical Conference in 1853. At such a time as this, no fitter or stouter arm could have been put to the helm than that of James. Notwithstanding the decision of Government in favour of the large scale for the future Ordnance maps, its opponents were many and vigorous, and they returned to the charge in Parliament off and on during the next three years, ultimately carrying their point by a small majority in June 1857. The effect of this was the stoppage for a time of the supplies voted for the large-scale surveys, and the appointment of a Royal Commission in the following year to go all over the old ground again. Now, as may be imagined, all these inquiries and vexed questions kept the chief of the Survey continually on the qui vive. He was perpetually running up to London and going about from one Government office to another, or dancing attendance on this committee or that; while the lives of the unfortunate clerks and subordinate officers at Southampton were made a burden to them from the multiplicity of statistics they had to collect, and the special returns or estimates they were called upon to prepare. James was just the man to carry this sort of thing through, and do it well. It was not enough to be possessed of scientific knowledge of the Survey work. What was wanted was some one with his knowledge handy, able to give a ready answer, to stand cross-questioning, and to give back on occasions to an inconvenient or hostile querist a Rowland for an Oliver. The pages and pages of Sir H. James's evidence before the parliamentary tribunals which examined him are proof enough that he was the right man in the right
