1871.) Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 85 
highly probable that the overflow of the traps produced a great 
change in the climate of India, particularly in the less elevated 
country, and that this climate was more favorable to the develop- 
ment of African than of Malayan forms. 
2. On somEoLtp DutTcH RECORDS OF THE SETTLEMENT OF CHINsURA 3 
by E. Lethbridge, Esq., M. A. 
A short time ago I accidentally discovered that some of the old 
records of the Danish settlement of Serampore, or Frederiksnagar, 
and some of those of the Dutch settlement of Chinsura, were pre- 
served amongst the archives of the Judge’s Court at Hooghly. By 
the permission of the Judge of Hooghly, I was allowed to examine 
these records; and I expected to open up a rich mine of antiqua- 
rian wealth, for Dutch records, at all events the European ones, 
are generally considered to be more full and detailed than any 
others, except Venetian records. The documents still preserved at 
Hooghly are contained ina large almira, and are covered with 
the dust of years. As I believe is the case with all the record re- 
positories in India, there are absolutely no modern scientific ap- 
pliances for the preservation of these papers; and consequently 
most of them are worm-eaten and decaying, and many are ina 
state of inseparable cohesion. I was somewhat disappointed to 
find that most of the Dutch papers which I examined were of only 
local importance ; a large number were merely protocoles or re- 
gisters of the wills of the old Dutch residents, and hardly any of 
them of any general scientific value at all, Fortunately, however, 
the records of the Court supplied me with a very good explana- 
tion of this fact; I found that in 1853 all the Dutch records 
of any historical and scientific value had been handed over 
bodily, and without even any proposal to retain copies of them in 
this country, by the Government of India, to the Government of the 
Netherlands’ India ; and by the latter had been doubtless at once 
transferred to the Royal Archives at the Hague. I have been 
fortunate enough to discover the list of these documents, made by 
the order of Mr. Torrens (the then Judge of Hooghly) at the time 
of the transfer ; and a copy of this list I beg to be allowed to sub- 
mit to the notice of the Society, (vide Appendix, p. 89). 
