APPENDIX. Ixvii 



aware of the influence of astrology amongst all the natives of India, and conceiving 

 that much curious information relative to the knowledge of astronomy which they for- 

 merly possessed may be obtained from their works and opinions upon astrology, have 

 adopted measures for collecting information upon that subject from other parts of India. 

 As to the Geography of India, the Committee are about to procure several topogra- 

 phical surveys and maps of different parts of India and Asia which are in manuscript, 

 in the possession of persons who collected them while they were in India, but who 

 do not intend to publish them, and are therefore willing to give them to the Society, in 

 order that they may be preserved for the use of future geographers. Lieut.-Col. Doyle 

 has given the Society some maps of the chain of mountains in Southern India which are 

 called the Ghauts. Sir Alexander Johnston has also given a collection of maps and 

 diarts relating to the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, to the Gnlf of Manar, to the 

 coast and interior of the island of Ceylon, and particularly to the whole of the Pearl and 

 Chank Banks on the north coast of that island and the southern coast of the peninsula 

 of India, the whole of which were collected by Sir Alexander in 1809, for the purpose of 

 explaining to the late Lord Londonderry, the then secretary of slate for the colonies, the 

 manner in which the pearl and chank fisheries might be improved, and the passage 

 between the island of Manar and the island of Ceylon on the one side, and that 

 between the island of Ramisseram and the peninsula of India on the other, might be 

 deepened, so as to admit of being navigated by vessels of very considerable burthen. 



2d. The Geology and Mineralogy of India. 



As to the Geology of India, a set of instructions were drawn up some time ago by the 

 Board of Ordnance, in communication with the Geological Society in England, for the 

 purpose of enabling the officers who were engaged in the survey of Ireland to collect 

 such geological information about Ireland as might serve for a geological map of that 

 country. The Committee have, through the assistance of Dr. Fitton,'the late president of 

 the Geological Society, procured a copy of those instructions, and are about to send 

 a set of them to each of the governments in India, in order that they may obtain for 

 the Society, through their surveyors and other civil and military officers, such geological 

 information as may in time afford materials for forming a geological map of the whole 

 of British India. 



As to the Mineralogy of India, the Committee have amongst other things directed 

 the attention of their correspondents in India to the various minerals which are found 

 in India, and particularly to the coals, the iron, and the copper, to the aqua marines 

 upon the southern peninsula of India, and to the different descriptions of precious 

 stones in Ceylon. 



3</. TJie Botany of India. 



The Committee hope to receive from Dr. Wallich a set of instructions upon this sub- 

 ject; they have in the meantime instituted inquiries into the nature of the different 

 descriptions of woods which are in general use throughout India, and into that of the 

 different descriptions of vegetables which are considered by the natives of the country 



is 



