il APPENDIX. 
First, Baron Witt1am Humso1pt, the great philosophical grammarian, whose letter 
to Sir ALEXANDER Jounston, on the most useful method of inquiring into Oriental 
languages, has been published in the Transactions of the Society, is at present engaged 
in an investigation of the affinities between the different languages which prevail 
amongst the islanders inhabiting the islands that extend from the Pacific Ocean east, 
to Madagascar west; and with a view of ascertaining whether these different 
languages are all modifications of one language, is anxious to obtain from - the 
sland of Madagascar specimens of the several languages which are spoken by the 
different people who are settled upon that island, conceiving from the resemblance which 
appears between these languages and those which prevail in the other islands, that 
such specimens will enable him to come to a satisfactory conclusion upon the subject. 
Sir Cuartes Cotvitte, the Governor of the Mauritius, has therefore, at the request of 
the Committee of Correspondence, obtained for him a great many different specimens 
of the languages of Madagascar, printed at the Missionary Press in that island, with 
some very interesting observations by the Rev. Mr. Freeman, one of the Protestant 
missionaries on the island. 
Secondly, Professor Herren, the Professor of Oriental History at Gottingen, who is 
so distinguished all over Europe for his researches into the history of the intercourse 
which subsisted in ancient times between Asia and Europe, being anxious to avail him- 
self of the influence of the Royal Asiatic Society, in prosecuting his inquiries, has sent 
the Committee instructions for their guidance in collecting information upon the subject, 
and they will direct their researches into the history of the people settled in ancient 
times along the coasts of Egypt and Syria, along those of the Red Sea from Suez to 
Bab-el-Mandel, along those of Abyssinia, along those of the Persian Gulf from 
Bussorah to Bushire, along those of Coromandel and Malabar, along the banks of the 
Ganges and Brahmaputra, and particularly along the north-west coast of Ceylon, and 
the south-east coast of the peninsula of India, which are close to the two passages 
called the Paumbum and Manar pass, and which are contiguous to the pearl fisheries 
so celebrated of old as the great emporiums of trade between the eastern and 
western divisions of the world. The Committee expect to derive information upon this 
part of history from the manuscripts and other ancient documents in the libraries at 
Cordova, Seville, Genoa, Venice, and Constantinople, and from the Asiatic Committees 
established at St. Petersburgh and Odessa. 
Thirdly, Amongst other institutions in India, the Committee have directed their 
attention particularly to those of property and marriage, conceiving that they are the 
two institutions which in India, as in every other part of the world, are those which 
have the greatest influence upon the moral and the political state of the inhabitants of the 
country, whose freedom and prosperity must depend in a great measure upon the 
wisdom of the laws and customs by which these two institutions are regulated and 
protected amongst them. In investigating the state of property in India, the Committee 
have considered it under two heads :—lIst, As it relates to property in slaves. 2dly, 
As it relates to property inland. Upon the first they have derived much valuable 
