272 Royal Society, 



whatever quarter of the globe they may be stationed ; the Astrono- 

 mer Royal has determined the species of observations to be made, 

 and the character and construction of the instruments to be used ; 

 and the Lords of the Treasury have placed at the disposal of the 

 Royal Society the requisite funds for their purchase. I have felt 

 it my duty, Gentlemen, to bring these circumstances under your 

 notice, not merely as forming an important part of the proceedings 

 of the Council of the Royal Society during the last year, but as 

 an encouraging and instructive example of the facility with which 

 extensive co-operation and assistance may be obtained in the execu- 

 tion of any scientific object, however extensive it may be, when the 

 practical means for performing it are distinctly and clearly de- 

 fined. 



The Society has lost during the last year twenty-nine Members 

 on the Home, and two on the Foreign List, and I shall now pro- 

 ceed to notice some of the most distinguished names which appear 

 amongst them. 



Henry Thomas Colebrooke was the son of Sir George Cole- 

 brooke, an eminent Director of the East India Company, under 

 whose auspices he proceeded to India, as a writer, in 1782. Though 

 a severe student in youth, and strongly disposed to follow a learned 

 profession at home, he gave no indications for many years after his 

 arrival in India of those tastes for severe and abstract studies for 

 which he was afterwards so celebrated ; and we consequently find 

 that, whilst resident at Purneah, he devoted much of his time to the 

 wild and animating field-sports of the East, for which he long re- 

 tained a passionate fondness. He made his first appearance as an 

 author in 1792, in a Treatise on the Agriculture and Commerce of 

 Bengal ; and it was about this period that he began, with all the 

 ardour and energy which distinguished his character, the study of 

 the Sanscrit language, chijefly with a view to acquire a knowledge 

 of the Lilawati and other Sanscrit treatises on Algebra and Astro- 

 nomy, which the somewhat extravagant speculations of Bailly and 

 others had begun to bring into notice. He subsequently undertook 

 the translation of the Digest of the Hindu Laws of Contracts and 

 Successions, which had been compiled under the direction of Sir 

 William Jones, a most laborious and difficult task, which he com- 

 pleted in less than two years. It was during his engagement on 

 this work that he was appointed to a judicial situation at Mirza- 

 pore, a position singularly suited to his tastes and pursuits, from its 

 vicinity to Benares, the great repository of the ancient treasures of 

 the literature of Hindostan, and the place of residence of its most 

 learned expounders. 



In the year 1800 he was removed to Calcutta, and raised to 

 the highest judicial situation in the native courts of India, at the 

 same time that he was made President of the Board of Revenue, 

 Member of the Supreme Council, and Honorary Professor of San- 

 scrit in the College of Fort William. But the important official 

 duties which he was thus called upon to discharge seem rather to 

 have stimulated, than to have checked, his labours and investiga- 



