54 President's Address. [Feb. 



all his unequalled collection of these records. It may be noticed as a curious 

 illustration of the value of such, even when apparently so placed that they 

 must be tolerably known, that an inscription, which records a king in Bengal 

 hitherto entirely unknown, was brought from the well known town of Kalnah 

 on the Hooghly, where it must have been seen by thousands of visitors, none 

 of whom ever thought of deciphering or taking a rubbing of the inscription ! 

 A rich store of facts, both historical and chronological, will doubtless be 

 opened up by the careful examination of such inscriptions, and in no one's 

 hands could the task have been placed with higher prospects of success than 

 hi those of Mr. Blochmann. 



Under the garb of a small School Manual published by the School 

 Book Society, Mr. Blochmann has also given to the public one of the best 

 and most complete Manuals of the Geography and geographical statistics of 

 India, which has yet appeared. The information is derived from the most 

 recent sources, and is not a mere reprint or compilation of the obsolete state- 

 ments of Thornton and others, and in the small space of a little pocket volume, 

 it contains an immense amount of condensed information bearing on the 

 area, position, population, antiquities, history and general relations of all the 

 divisions of the country. 



If we turn our attention now to the division of our sciences represented 

 by the second part of the Journal, I am justly able to congratulate the 

 Society on a most fruitful and successful year. Dr. Day has continued his 

 admirable Catalogue of the Indian Cyprinidae, of which this year has given 

 us three fasciculi. He has also described the fish collected in Kach'h by 

 Dr. Stoliczka and discussed the relation of some of the genera of the 

 Siluroid group. 



The Mollusca of India have been illustrated by an excellent monograph 

 of the Indian Clausiliae by Mr. W. Blanford and Dr. Stoliczka. The land 

 shells of Penang, and of Burma and Arrakan, have been well illustrated 

 and described. 



Dr. Dobson has continued his able and careful researches on the Bats 

 of India and adjoining countries, describing several new and most important 

 forms. I greatly wish we could hope to see from Dr. Dobson's accurate pen, 

 a well illustrated monograph of Indian Bats. He must have already brought 

 together nearly all the facts requisite for such a detailed catalogue, and the 

 needful illustrations could readily be obtained in this country. I have no 

 doubt that such a work would at once meet with all the support requisite 

 to secure its success. There is a vast amount of information bearing on the 

 Natural History of India already published, but published in such a scat- 

 tered way, single papers here and there, in different journals and in different 

 languages, that ordinary students, under the conditions of Indian life, have 



