RENNELL, ren'el, James, English geog grapher : b. Chudleigh, Devonshire, 3 Dec. 1742; d. London, 29 March 1830. At 13 he entered the navy as midshipman and was present at the siege of Pondicherry. In 1763 he entered the East India Company's sea service; the next year was appointed surveyor-general of the East India Company's dominions in Bengal and re mained in the service for 13 years. Returning to England in 1777, he published his 'Bengal Atlas' (1779), a work of the highest import ance for administrative and strategical purposes. This was followed by the earliest approximately correct map of India, with a memoir (1783). The Royal Society, of which he had been a fellow for 10 years, gave him the Copley medal in 1791. His attention was thereafter directed to comparative geography, and in pursuance of his scheme for a great work on western Asia he published 'Geographical System of Herod otus Explained' (1800) ; 'Observations on the Topography of the Plain of Troy) (1814), and 'Illustrations of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand> (1816). Finally came 'A Treatise on the Comparative Geography of Western Asia' (1831). He contributed much to the
field of African geography, constructing a map of northern Africa for the African Association, and determining the routes taken by Hanno and his own day by Mungo Park. Throughout his life he had been interested when not per sonally occupied in marine surveying and had collected an immense mass of data which he began to reduce to a system about 1810. He completed current-charts of the Atlantic which were published after his death; and the name of 'Rennell's Current' was given to the current to the southward of the Scilly Islands whose occasional northward set he was the first to explain. He published papers on the ruins of Babylon, the identity of Jerash, the shipwreck of Saint Paul and the landing of Cesar. In 1801 he was made an associate of the Institute of France, and in 1825 received the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Consult Mark 'Major James Rennell and the Rise of M.. ern English Geography' (1895).