February, 1920.) Annual Address. xiii 
reorganization of the Archeological Department of the Gov- 
ernment of India. In the year 1898, the Department was, to 
say the least of it, in a moribund condition. Successive heart- 
less Finance Ministers applied their shears on this—what they 
considered—a useless Department, and brought it to the verge 
of abolition. Lord Curzon came in 1899 and he took an early 
opportunity to deliver an address in this very historic hall 
reviewing the attitude of the various Governors-General 
towards the ancient monuments of India. It was a compre- 
hensive and masterly review. He dwelt on the various acts 
of Government of India from the earliest days to his time, 
instance, wanted to sell the marbles of Taj Mahal to replenish 
the exhausted treasury of the Kast India Company. Lor 
Curzon announced his intention to reorganize the Department 
in such a way that no future administration would be able to 
interfere with its steady progress. He considered the Depart- 
ment to be most useful as revealing to the present generation 
the achievements of the past. He also announced his intention 
not only to put down vandalism with a strong hand but to 
repair, rebuild and conserve such of the monuments as were 
considered masterpieces. In the course of a few months, he 
the gentleman, Mr. J. Marshall (now Sir John Marshall), did 
not know Indian conditions and Indian languages. But the 
events have justified Lord Curzon’s choice. Sir John Marshall 
really wields a magic wand, by a single touch of which shapeless 
n with grass and thistle, ruins overgrown 
with jungles, disclosed palaces, temples, monasteries, nay, whole 
towns and cities from under the earth. He has the rare gift 
of imparting the magic power to his disciples and he, by his 
own activities and those of his disciples, has brought the re- 
mains of many old cities, consigned to oblivion for scores of 
centuries, to light. The excavations undertaken by his Depart- 
ment at Sarnath, Peshawar, Taxila, Sanchi, Saheth Maheth, 
Charsada, Besnagar, Mandor, Brahmanabad, Pataliputra, Raj- . 
proving the occupation of the place in the 6th century B.C. 
by the Persians ; at Saheth Maheth, a primitive relic-casket 
