cxxvi Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XII, 



power of steering during the glide. Movements in anticipation of seizing 

 prey may have been connected with the origin of steering movements. 

 Flapping probably originated from a repetition of certain control move- 

 ments. 



In flying lizards ribs have been enlarged to carry the membrane that 



functions as a wing. In flying squirrels the limbs with the omission of 

 the hands support the membrane or patagium. In such animals the 

 power of flight could not develop very far as the complicated hand 

 moving mechanism was not available for adaptation to purposes of flight. 

 A description was given of the elbow and wrist joints of the larger 

 pterodactyl. Their structure is such as to prove that they were capable 

 of a number of interrelated movements : both in this and in other charac- 

 ters the pterodactyl appears to have been far more specialised for flight 

 than any other animal of which we have knowledge. A study of the 

 anatomy of the different joints of the arm shows that these animals could 

 not walk as quadrupeds. It is difficult to understand how they could 

 have walked as bipeds as they were unable to furl their wings. It is con- 

 sidered that after alighting on their hind feet they fell over on to their 

 stomachs and pushed themselves along laboriously somewhat after the 

 manner of a penguin. Reasons were adduced for believing that they 

 could not hang from the branch of a tree by their hind legs as do flying 

 foxes. It is very difficult to know how they caught their prey. It has 

 long been held that they were fish-eaters. But they were unable to 

 plunge into the water to catch a fish after the manner of fish-eating birds 

 as so doing would be likely to break their wings and if they escaped this 

 danger and caught the fish it is improbable that they would ever have 

 been able to leave the water and regain the air. It was suggested that 

 possibly they caught flying fishes. But if so they must have had a power 

 of soaring flight as superior to that of the albatross as that of the alba- 

 tross is to that of the sea-gull. Apart from the question of how they 

 caught their food there are strong reasons for believing that they habitu- 

 ally used soaring as distinguished from flapping flight. The remarkably 

 complicated movements of which their wrist joints are capable, which 

 were certainly adapted and specialised for the purposes of their flight, 

 furnish a proof that the phenomenon of soaring flight is one which is 

 quite inexplicable in the light of our present knowledge. 



Prof. Neoui's Lecture on " Manufacture of Iron in Ancient 



India." 



Prof. Xeogi showed photographs of the Delhi pillar, Dhar pillar, and 

 Mount Abu pillar as well as the gigantic iron beams of Pari, Kanarak 

 and Bhubaneswar temples and the enormous iron gun* of the Moghuls — in 

 fact, remarkable specimens of iron manufacture from the earliest time 

 down to the 17th century. Various analyses of the specimens reveal the 

 fact that the iron used was pure wrought iron " with low sulphur and 

 manganese and high phosphorus." Prof Neogi was of opinion that 

 the pillars and beams were constructed by forging and then welding 

 mall blooms of wrought iron and that the chemical constitution of these 

 iron specimens was responsible for their remarkable corrosion -resisting 

 capacity. 



He next dwelt upon Indian steel or woots which was the material 

 from which the famous Damascus blades were made. A remarkable 

 specimen of ancient Indian steel, dated as early as b.c. 150, has recently 

 been discovered in Gwalior and analysed by Sir Robert Hadfield. The 

 description of as many as more than 100 kinds of surgical instruments in 

 the great Sanskrit surgical treatise Sushruta, the edge of many of which 

 was such that they ** could bisect a hair longitudinally " shows the know- 

 ledge of the use of steel (Sanskrit M tikhna" or sharp) as early as 3rd 

 centurv B.C. 



