44 
are, no doubt, who in the proper spirit, and with no less 
self-devotion, have continued the work of the past. Such 
names as Cowell, Nassau Lees, Buehler, Burnell, need 
only be mentioned to give us hope in the future, But 
what encouragement have their efforts met with? Un- 
supported as they are by any government aid, will not 
such efforts go sadly to waste? We do not mean to 
insinuate that the State should constitute itself a “ Bureau 
de Surintendance,” for the better direction and advance- 
ment of science and learning. It may be all very well in 
its way if the “Ministére de VInstruction Publique” 
appoints a “ Commission pour l’exploration scientifique de 
l'Algérie,” but in a country of parliamentary government, 
where most things are left to individual initiative, such a 
state of things is supposed to be anomalous. A great 
deal might meanwhile be achieved if the range of know- 
ledge required of an Indian civil servant were narrowed, 
and if he were plied more amply with knowledge of more 
immediate use for his future career. Instead of being 
obliged, as now, to occupy himself de omnibus rebus et 
guibusdam aliis, let his attention be directed to such 
knowledge as will more immediately concern him, 
and which, if properly followed up, could not but add 
greatly to our acquaintance with India. Practically speak- 
ing, indeed, such a course seems to be not only ad- 
visable, but absolutely necessary. That our authority 
throughout that region is diminishing according as our 
military power is less displayed, it would be useless to deny. 
The greater, consequently, seems the necessity for drawing 
closer the bonds of union, by employing ourselves more 
fully with the concerns of the people—not in the carping 
spirit too often assumed by missionaries, but with the 
unprejudiced mind of scholars. Occasion has been given 
to these remarks by the perusal of Sir Henry Elliot’s book 
on Indian races, which, although cast in a form anything 
but grateful to the ordinary student, teems with most 
interesting information, not to be met with elsewhere in so 
condensed a form or backed up by such reliable authority. 
The work resulted from an order issued by the then 
Government to the Sudder Board of Revenue, N.W.P., 
bearing date 14th Dec., 1842, and directing them to com- 
pile a glossary of Indian terms in accordance with a 
comprehensive scheme which comprised not only terms 
relating to the revenue, but also to matters mythological, 
and to geographical nomenclature, The plan being but 
insufficiently carried out by his subordinates, Sir Henry of 
his own accord took it upon himself, in 1844, to complete 
the parts submitted to the Government, and reaching down 
to the letter J, without waiting for the completion of the 
whole—which, indeed, never seems to have been published 
—limiting his attention mainly to “tribes, customs, fiscal 
and agricultural terms.” He not only added a great many 
new headings, but enriched the whole with contributions 
from his own vast store of historical knowledge, compiled 
from Mohammedan sources, principally from the “Ayin- 
i-Akbari,” the work of the well-known Minister of the 
Emperor Akbar, who was the founder of a new era in 
Indian administration. So far as it goes, it is the nearest 
approach to an encyclopaedia of modern Hindooism we can 
think of. But to contend that it is anything more than a 
most convenient book of reference in Jractised and skil/ul 
hands, would be going beyond the mark. In spite of the 
more practical arrangement adopted by the present editor, 
NATURE 
[May 19, 1870 
one must have struggled for some time with the difficul- 
ties which haphazard transcription of native words into 
English has put in one’s way, in order to know where to 
find what is sought for, or to identify it if one has come 
across it by chance. Thisis the first attempt at a rational 
way of transcription ; but, just because it is the first, it is 
not yet so consistently carried out as might be wished. 
To the editor, for whom we have the greatest respect, 
and who, by his “Outlines of Indian Philology,” has 
shown how earnestly he goes to work in such matters, we 
in no wise wish to be unfair. The short space of two 
months, however, allotted to him for editorial work, was 
far too short to allow him to think of such a fundamental 
change as that of digesting the whole of the additional 
matter, and making it conformable with the rest. To do 
this would involve immense labour, much more, at all 
events, than one is called upon to bestow when merely 
editing another man’s work. ‘This leads to another point 
of the utmost importance for our scientific knowledge of 
India, the bewildering confusion regarding geographical 
and other names in their English garb. We have been long 
in the habit of laughing at philologists pouring showers 
of abuse on each other on the question whether a cer- 
tain letter in English transcription ought to have its dot 
over or under the line. But if we do not adopt a little of 
their pedantry, we shall see no end of confusion in scien- 
tific terminology. Since the days of Gilchrist, in 1802, 
when he made an appeal to European scholars to adopt 
a uniform system of transcription, no visible improve- 
ment has yet generally taken place. If we should not 
see the urgent necessity of such a change, he gave us the 
counterfeit of the Hindustani people spelling and pro-_ 
nouncing wdbikut for advocate, wsishtun for assistant, 
kotmasool for court-martial, etc. Nevertheless we go 
on spelling native names in all manners of ways. No 
two gazetteers, not even of India proper, agree in their 
orthography, and we may even say, not one gazetteer is 
consistent with itself. Look at the index to Allen’s map 
of India, which, after all, is still one of the best. We 
often find there, under different letters of the alphabet, 
two places, at only a few minutes’ distance from each 
other, which, if ithad not been for the strange disguise 
in which different surveyors chose to put it from the way 
in which the name struck their ear, would never have 
been put down as two, but would at once have led toa 
more accurate measurement of longitude and latitude. 
The only way to rectify these errors is now afforded, by 
comparing those maps in Hindustani and Devanagari 
character, which are issued from the Surveyor-General’s 
offices at Agra and Allahabad, with our English maps, 
and rectifying the latter in a systematical manner. We 
are no better off if we turn to botany and the phar- 
macopeeia. Mr. Watson’s index, which was lately com- 
piled with a view of collecting the material, swarms 
with the most glaring mistakes, which, it is true, will do 
no harm to the learned in these matters, but it is just for 
them that such books are zo/ published. They are in- 
tended for those who, in our busy days, have no leisure to 
settle all this detail for themselves. 
To turn back to our book. Of the hundreds of 
geographical names contained in it, there are per- 
haps not ten which one would find in this form on 
our maps of India, But after more or less experiment- 
eee 
