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PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL,

FOR JANUARY, 1867.

The Annual General meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal was held on Wednesday the 16th January, 1867.

E. C. Bayley, Esq., President, in the chair.
The Secretary read the Council's Report.

ANNUAL REPORT.

In accordance with the custom of this Society the Council submit their annual report on the present condition of the Society and on the progress of its labours during the past year. With the single exception of Finance, which, owing to temporary causes presently to be explained, is in a less favourable condition than it has been for some years past, the Council believe that in every respect the state of the Society is most satisfactory. The Member-roll, which shewed a slight diminution last year, now re-exhibits a marked increase, the loss of ordinary members by resignation and death being 24 only, while 39 new members have joined the Society. It now counts 391 members against 376 at the close of the last year, and has received therefore a net increase of 15 members. The comparative lists of paying and absent members, shew a still more marked improvement. Last year, there was a decrease of the former by not less than 21, but in the year just concluded, this deficiency has been more than made up, and 38 paying members have been added to the roll. The total number is now 305, of whom 146 are residents. The following table shews the number of members for each of the past ten years.

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The losses by death (5 in all) include an unusual number of members whose labours have rendered them well known to the world at large or in the body of our Society. Foremost among them, we have to deplore the sudden and untimely death of the late Bishop of Calcutta, a man whose pre-eminent worth and rare liberality of spirit have made his decease felt as a public loss, not alone by the clergy whom he ruled and by the members of the church he so nobly represented, but by those of every creed, whose object, like his, is the common welfare of men.

Dr. Roer was connected with the Society for very many years, as an associate from 1839 to 1852, and as an ordinary member from 1853 to the time of his decease. In 1841 he was placed in charge of the Society's Library, and in 1847 was appointed Editor of the Bibliotheca Indica and Secretary to the Philological Committee. In these different capacities, he took an active part in the affairs of the Society and rendered it most valuable service. In him the Society has to deplore the loss of an oriental scholar of high attainments, and a frequent contributor to its Journal and the Bibliotheca Indica.

Mr. Joseph G. Medlicott is another member, whose loss is deeply regretted by very many of our body. In his public capacity, he was well known as one of the earliest and most energetic members of the Geological Survey of India, on the staff of which he worked for upwards of ten years, and contributed in no small degree to the development of that orderly knowledge of Indian geology which we now possess, and which we owe almost entirely to the steady labours of the officers of the Survey. Arriving in India in 1851, already an

experienced geologist, he was engaged, during the ten years of his connection with the survey, in the Khasia hills, in the Rajmahal hills, and other parts of Bengal and Central India; but his chief and best known publication is that on the geology of the Pachmari hills and the upper vallies of the Soane and Nurbudda, much of which country he surveyed under the peculiar difficulty of having to form his own topographical map pari passu with the survey of the geological details. In 1861, when, owing to the outbreak of the civil war in America, the cotton production of India suddenly became an object of the highest importance to the manufacturers of Europe, Mr. Medlicott was commissioned by Government to draw up a handbook on the cotton production of Bengal, a work whick gained for him a high reputation among those best able to appreciate its value. In 1862 he joined the Educational Department of Bengal, and up to the time of his decease in May of the past year, he continued to discharge the responsible duties of his post, earning by the liberality and catholicity of his views, not less than by the geniality of his spirit, the respect and confidence of all with whom he had to deal. His minor writings were numerous; chiefly contributions to the Calcutta Review and other periodicals. One of these, his review of Mr. Darwin's well known work on the origin of species, may be mentioned as having been noticed by the eminent author of the original work, as the most appreciative of all the numerous reviews that that remarkable book had drawn forth.

Mr. Obbard was for some years a member of the Society's Council, and especially took an active part in the meteorological discussion of two or three years since. His devotion to this science ceased only with his death, which occurred shortly after his arrival in England, whither he had proceeded in March last.

Two corresponding members have been elected during the past year, viz., Professor Emil von Schlagint weit, well known by his valuable work on Thibetan Buddhism, and the Rev. M. A. Sherring, to whom, in connection with Mr. Horne, the Society is indebted for several valuable contributions to the Journal on the subject of the Buddhist antiquities of Benares.

MUSEUM.

In May last, the long contemplated transfer of the Society's collections to Government concluded the negotiations which have been pending since 1857, and the progressive steps of which have been from time to time reported to the Society. Before making the transfer, the Society had incurred a very large expenditure upon the Museum, in order that it might pass from their hands in a condition worthy of the many eminent men by whose exertions it had been formed. To Dr. J. Anderson, as a member of their own body, the Society are indebted for superintending the restoration and re-arrangement which the long absence of any qualified curator had rendered necessary, and they believe that all qualified to judge will pronounce the Museum in its present condition to be one of which the Society may be proud. The collections will remain in the Society's house until the completion of the new Museum Building. This, it is expected, will be ready to receive them within about three years from the present time.

The Museum is now in charge of the thirteen trustees appointed under the Act (XVI. of 1866,) four of whom, viz. Dr. Partridge, Dr. Fayrer, Mr. Atkinson, and Mr. H. F. Blanford, are nominated by the Council of the Society.

FINANCE.

The heavy outlay on the Museum during the past year, following closely upon that incurred for the restoration of the building, and accompanied by a large increase in the publications of the Society, has temporarily reduced the finances of the Society to an unusually low ebb. On the other hand, unrealized assets, consisting of sums due by members and subscribers to the Journal have increased greatly. Indeed the Council cannot but think that these arrears would have been very much greater than they are, had it not been for the active exertions of the Honorary Treasurer of the Society, who has succeeded by dint of untiring exertions in realizing a considerable portion of the debts outstanding at the end of the last year. Owing to these causes, the Council have had to dispose of not less than 3000 Rs. worth of Government Securities in excess of the sale provided for in the Budget of the last year; as is shewn in the following table of the income and expenditure, as estimated at the beginning of the last year, and as actually received or expended.

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