cxliv Proceedings of the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal. [N.S., XVII. . 
Pamir Boundary Commission accompanied by A. W. Alcock 
(1896)! and J. Stanley Gardiner’s expeditions to the Maldives and 
Laccadives in 1899-1900" and to the Indian Ocean under the 
Percy Sladen Trust Fund in 1905.2 But I must not detain you 
further regardingthem. It must suffice to point out that an ac- 
count of the biological work of the Marine Survey of India 
forms the eigth chapter of the Indian Museum Centenary Volume 
already referred to; and that an account of a number of expedi- 
tions ‘os be found in the seventh chapter of the same volume. 
uch for the past. What of the present and the future ? 
We 2 are met this year in a city which, if it cannot claim to 
have been the home of the first Indian Zoologist, has yet an 
unbroken record of Zoological work going back for nearly a 
century—or indeed for over a century if we can disregard the 
short gap between Bryan Hodgson A Hamilton-Buchanan— 
a record which I venture to think could not be parallelled by 
many cities other than those Western ones, among whose ancient 
Universities modern science first arose. We see around us 
well stocked libraries and other facilities for research, and may 
even feel something of that “ scientific atmosphere ” for which 
ore than one Zoologist in this country has been known to 
pine. No wonder Zoology flourishes here! What could not 
each of us do with like equipments ! 
To whom, then, is the provision — this 2 gal due? 
To individuals: not unlike ourselves, or to Government ? ag 
doubtedly it is in some measure due both but primarily I 
think to individuals filled with a keen desire to learn all they 
could about the country in which they were living and to inves- 
tigate the unknown, not merely to gratify their personal curio- 
sity, but in order to add, for the benefit of all, to the sum total 
of human knowledge. Except in the limited field known as 
Applied Science, where a money standard can to some extent 
_ be used, it is impossible to determine the value of such inves- 
tigations. Gradually their results become absorbed into our 
ia a Geneiee it more nearly into accord with the 
must lie not with an impersonal Government, but with indi- 
vidual persons. 
us Knox and Russel, the earliest Zoologists in Ceylon 
“ Re eport on = Natural History Results of the Pamir Boundary 
Commission . mh eae: , 1898 
fa a Gocgniee of the Maldive and Laccadive Archi- 
i (Cambridge, 1901-1906 ). 
& * The ras de Sladen Trust Expedition to the Indian a: in 1906 
under the le hip of Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner, M.A., ans. Linn. 
London (2 wake ) ‘xX-XVIL, 1907 prema dy 
