1892.] Address. 31 



The Report having been read the President invited the meeting 

 to put any questions or to offer any remarks which any member might 

 think necessary in connection therewith. 



No remarks having been offered the President moved the adoption 

 of the report, and proposed a vote of thanks to the Honorary Secre- 

 taries and Treasurer for their exertions in behalf of the Society. 



The motion was carried unanimously. 



The President then addressed the meeting. 



Address. 



The Report of the Council which has just been read supplies full 

 t • + f tot -K information as to the working of the Society 



in 1891, and I think it may be regarded as 

 fairly satisfactory. Compared with the previous six years, the figures 

 for the last six show, it is true, a steadily downward tendency in 

 the number of paying members ; but this decline seems for the present 

 to have been arrested, as the average number for the three years 1889 

 to 1891 is at any rate slightly higher than that of the previous three. 

 However much this decline in the number of members from decade to 

 decade may be regretted, it need cause us no surprise. The strain 

 and pressure of official duties in India increase year by year ; and the 

 majority of public servants in this country find little leisure for the 

 cultivation of those sciences and the pursuit of those researches which 

 it is the object of this Society specially to foster. There is happily 

 no diminution in the supply of papers read before the Society, or in 

 their interest and value ; but a Society constituted as this is lives 

 not only by the papers read but by the subscriptions paid ; and it is 

 vitally affected by any cause that tends to reduce the number of 

 those who, feeling a general interest in what has been performed by 

 man or produced by nature within the continent of India, would 

 naturally seek admission to our Society if fuller opportunities for 

 stimulating that interest were afforded them in their daily life and work. 

 But this is an old complaint, and one which it is beyond our power 

 to mend. 



The Society has lost several valued mem- 

 uary. k erg ^ d ea th during the past year. 



Raja Rajendralala Mitra, c. i. e., was a scholar of European 

 fame. His connexion with this Society extended over a period of nearly 

 half a century. Entering it, when a young man, as Assistant Secretary and 

 Librarian, his commanding abilities and untiring industry soon brought 

 him into prominence ; and while we may congratulate ourselves that it 



