x APPENDIX. 
Bucuanan Hamixron: in those respecting the geology of India, by M. Jacgutmonr, one 
of their foreign members; and by Lord Wi1114M Bentinck, towhom they have forwarded 
a copy recently given to them by Dr. Firron, the late President of the Geological 
Society, of the instructions which were originally prepared by that eminent geologist, 
for the use of the officers who were employed in the survey of Ireland: in those respect- 
ing the languages of Siam, Laos, Pegu, Burmah, and Cambodia, by a paper written by 
the protestant missionary, the Rev. Mr. Gurzzarr, and presented by me to the Society. 
In those respecting the language of Thibet by the Oriental Translation Committee, 
who, on my proposal have offered to purchase the Grammar and the Dictionary com- 
piled by Mr. Csoma pr Kéros, a native of Hungary, who has been for some time on his 
travels through different parts of Asia. 
It is of use to Parliament, at a time when they are deliberating upon the advantage of 
framing a separate code of laws for British India, to be acquainted with all the 
different modifications of the laws and usages, which at present prevail amongst all the 
different classes of inhabitants throughout that immense empire. The Committee have 
therefore, with a view to the third question, directed their researches to the laws and 
usages of all the different natives who live under the British authority in India, 
Aware of the great influence which the right of property and the laws of inheritance 
have had in all ages and in all nations, in leading human society to its highest improve- 
ments, they have particularly examined those laws and usages in India, which are 
directly or indirectly calculated to secure the right and to regulate the inheritance of 
property of every description. They have traced the origin and the different modifica- 
tions of all the different laws of inheritance, as well those according to which pro- 
perty descends in certain proportions both to males and females, as those according to 
which it, in some provinces, and amongst some classes of people, descends only to females : 
the various rights of children by birth, and those of children by adoption. The 
difference between the rule of law, which applies to the property which a person 
inherits from his ancestors, and that which applies to the property which he acquires 
by his own industry and talents. They have considered the moral and the political 
effect of all these laws and usages upon the character of the people, and the prosperity 
of the country; they have derived much valuable information upon the subject from the 
memoir of the late General Warxer, and they expect to derive still more from the 
appendixes which will in future be attached to each case, which is brought in appeal 
from the Courts of Sadder Addlat at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, before the 
King in Council in this country.* 
* The circumstances which led to the addition of an appendix of this description to each case in appeal, shew 
the great benefit which the natives of India, and the government of Great Britain, may derive from the labours of this 
Society. Sir ALEXANDER JOHNSTON, about five years ago, while engaged as Chairman of the Committee of Corres- 
pondence, in researches relative to the ancient history and laws of the Rajés of Ramnad, discovered that a case 
involving the right of succession to the Zemindary of Ramnad, and forty-nine other cases, involving questions of 
Hindi and Muhammedan law of great importance, had been in appeal, from the Courts of Sadder Adalat in 
India, before the King in Council, for a great many years, and that they had not been heard in consequence of the 
