18 Annual Address. [Jan. & Feb. 



liberal pecuniary aid from the Government. The Society has also a 

 large collection of coins of great interest to the numismatist. The 

 transfer of this collection to the Indian Museum has been suggested, 

 but ifc is a question which will demand thorough consideration. Credit is 

 especially due to the Society for the discovery of keys to the ancient 

 Indian alphabets, for the early investigations in the languages of 

 Ancient India, including Pali, for the light which has been thrown on 

 the history of India and of the adjacent countries on the North- West 

 by the labours of the great numismatists who have been among its 

 members, and for the development of the study of the Indian verna- 

 culars. 



This, gentlemen, is the brief record of the Society's work. It is a 

 record on which we may well look with pride, and which the world of 

 learning and of science will acknowledge to be worthy of the aspirations 

 of the distinguished men to whom the Society owes its birth. Have we 

 cause to fear that the Society has not still before it a long career of use- 

 fulness on its present basis ? I think not. The era of great discoveries 

 in India itself may have passed. No undiscovered Asoka pillars, Bud- 

 dhist Topes and Buddhist caves, no undeciphered inscriptions and coins 

 of an unknown language and an unknown epoch, and no great unpub- 

 lished work in the Sanskritic and Semitic classics may remain to win 

 for antiquarians and scholars the reputation of a William Jones, a 

 Horace Hayman Wilson, a James Prinsep, an Alexander Cunningham 

 and a Blochmann, to mention but a few of our distinguished past mem- 

 bers, but a large field is yet open for valuable, if minor, work in the ex- 

 ploration of great ruins and historical sites, and in the editing and trans- 

 lating of unpublished works of interest and repute. And discoveries, 

 though not so great as in the past, will doubtless be made in various 

 parts of India. Beyond India, Central Asia and Mongolia, the ancient 

 realm of Jenghis Khan aud Tamerlane, now opened by the construc- 

 tion of the great Russian railway, present an immense region for re- 

 search ; and the ruins of Cambodia, notably the ancient city of Angkor, 

 are already engaging the attention of the French Oriental Society of 

 Cochin-China, to whose Congress last December our members were court- 

 eously invited. Our Journals have been always open to papers 

 relating to Asiatic countries other than India, and not a few such con- 

 tributions will be found in their pages. 



In archaeology, philology, and anthropology, in particular, much 

 remains to be done in India. The conservation of ancient monuments is 

 an organized department of the Government, and Archaeological Surveyors 

 are attached to the Provinces. Archaeological enquiry is a special duty 

 of these gentlemen, but there is still room for private workers in the 



