cxliv Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [Nov.. 1916. 



The following two gentlemen were elected Ordinary Mem- 

 bers during the recess in accordance with Rule 7 : — 



Rev. W. S. Sutherland, D.D. 

 Rev. Hilarion Basdekas. 



The following gentleman was proposed as an Honorary 



Fellow : — I 



Dr. G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., LL.D., British Museum. 



He is universally acknowledged as the greatest living 

 authority on reptiles and has written one of the most valuable 

 volumes*m the " Fauna of British India"— it appeared 26 years 

 ago, and he is still contributing papers to Indian Journals of 

 Zoology. 



The following gentleman was balloted for as an Ordinary 



Member 



Mr. Adar Chandra Mitra, B.L., Law Publishing Press, Cal- 

 cutta, proposed by Mahamahopadvaya Satis Chandra Vidya- 

 bhusana, seconded by Mahamahopadhyaya I [araprasad Shastri. 



Rev. H. Hosten, S.J., exhibited two pictures showing 

 Akbar with a Christian girl, whose name is given as Maryam 

 Zamani Begam. 



Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri exhibited a palm- 

 leaf manuscript in Valte-lu-ttu character. 



The manuscript belonged to the family collection of Sir 

 Sankaram Nair, the Education member of the Viceregal Council. 

 It is written in Valte-lu-ttu character, which is a very rare 

 kind of writing. Only one other document in this script is 

 known to the antiquarian, and that is a document dated in the 

 eighth century. It confers on a Jew named lussuf Rabbani a 

 principality in Cochin. The language in which the work is 

 written, is old Tamil, like that of the Cochin document, but the 

 numerals in which the leaves of the MSS. are marked belong to 

 a later date, viz. fifteenth or sixteenth century. There are 

 about a hundred leaves consecutively marked. There is a blank 

 space on the reverse side of leaf 13. 



The word Valte-lu-ttu means roun 1 hand as opposed to 

 Kore-lu-ttu or the square hand. It is not known when the 

 round hand went out of currency. A Nambubari Brahman 

 at Benares says that it ceased to be a current character more 

 than a hundred years ago. Dr. Busnell says it went out in the 

 seventeenth century. Perhaps this is one of the last MS. 

 written in that character. The Kore-lu-ttu, or square hand, is 

 still current. 



The following papers were read : 



