Anniversay-y Address of the President, 149 



return from the East, may be considered as a model for all monographs 

 of the history, languages, customs, and statistics of a particular 

 nation. He subseqifently published a Malay dictionary of great autho- 

 rity and value ; and in many separate memoirs, one of which appeared 

 the year before his death, he traced with great learning and research 

 the general characters and analogies of the East Insular and Poly- 

 nesian languages, and proposed an alphabet for their uniform and 

 intelligible transcription. Mr. Marsden was the author of four papers 

 in our Transactions on some remarkable natural phaenomena in the 

 island of Sumatra, on the Mahometan sera of the Hejira, and on the 

 chronological periods of the Hindoos ; the two last of which show a 

 very extensive acquaintance with Arabian and Hindoo literature. He 

 published very elaborate catalogues of his fine collections of voca- 

 bularies and grammars, and also of his oriental coins ; the first of 

 which he presented in his life-time to King's College, London, and 

 the second to the British Museum. Mr. Marsden returned to En- 

 gland from the East at an early age, and was Secretary to the Ad- 

 miralty during the most eventful period of the late war. He con- 

 tinued to enjoy to an extreme old age, extraordinary vigour both 

 of mind and body, equally respected and beloved for his great learn- 

 ing and very varied acquirements, for his independent and disin- 

 terested character, and for his many social and domestic virtues. 



Captain James Horsburgh entered the sea service of the East India 

 Company at a very early age, and in a very humble capacity, and 

 raised himself by his perseverance, good conduct, and strong natural 

 talents to the command of a ship, in which he was employed, for a 

 considerable time, in a hydrographical survey of many of the coasts 

 and islands of the Indian and Chinese seas. It was soon after his 

 return to Europe in 1805, that he communicated to this Society, 

 through Mr. Cavendish, his very remarkable observations of the 

 equatropical motions of the mercury in the barometer when at sea* ; 

 and contributed along with Captain Flinders, both by these observa- 

 tions and by other directions which he subsequently published, to 

 make more fully known the importance of barometrical observations 

 at sea, as affording indications of great or sudden atmospheric 

 changes. Captain Horsburgh was soon afterwards appointed Hydro- 

 grapher to the East India Company, with the usual judgement^ and 

 discrimination of the Directors of that Body, in the selection and 

 rewarding of their officers ; and it was in this capacity that he pub- 

 lished not merely a great number of charts, but also " the East India 

 Sailing Directory," the result of the unremitting labour of many 

 years, and founded partly upon his own observations, and partly 

 upon a very accurate examination and reduction of the vast hy- 

 drographical records which are in the possession of the East India 

 Company ; forming altogether one of the most valuable contributions 

 that was ever made by the labours of one man to the interests of 

 navigation. Captain Horsburgh was the author of other works con- 

 nected with his favourite science, and he continued to devote him- 



[* Capt. Horsburgh 's paper here referred to was reprinted in Phil. Mag., 

 First Series, vol. xxiii, p. 289. — Edit.] 



