BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXXVil 



Sewalik fossils had been presented to the Museum of the 

 Edinburgh University by Colonel Colvin, and to the Oxford 

 University by Mr. Walter Ewer. The bulk of the specimens 

 in the British Museum were still iinarranged and embedded 

 in matrix. In July 1844, a memorial, signed by the Presidents 

 of the various Scientific Societies,' was presented to the 

 Court of Directors of the Hon. East India Company, point- 

 ing out the desirability of having the specimens in the 

 ISTational Collection pre^^ared, arranged, and displayed, and 

 also of publishing an illustrated work, which would ' convey 

 to men of science in both hemispheres a knowledge of the 

 contents of the Sewalik HiUs,' and suggesting Dr. Falconer 

 as the person most fitted to superintend the preparation 

 and arrangement of the specimens and to edit the work. 

 At the meeting of the British Association held at York 

 in the following October, a committee, consisting of the 

 President of the Association with the President of the 

 Eoyal and Geological Societies, &c., was appointed to me- 

 morialize Her Majesty's Government with the same object. 

 Sir Eobert Peel, then at the head of the Government, res- 

 ponded to this appeal by making a grant of 1,000L to 

 prepare the materials in the British Museum for exhibition 

 in the Palseontological Gallery. Falconer was in December, 

 1844, entrusted with the superintendence of the work, and 

 rooms were temporarily assigned to him by the Trustees of 

 the British Museum. The Court of Directors also of the East 

 India Company liberally employed him on duty, on the footing 

 of service in India ; and at his instance they caused to be 

 prepared a series of coloured casts of the most remarkable of 

 the Sewalik fossil forms, sets of which were presented to the 

 principal Museums of Great Britain and Europe.^ Under 

 the patronage of the Government and of the East India 

 Company, each of which subscribed for forty copies, an illus- 

 trated work was also brought out, entitled ' Fauna Antiqua 

 Sivalensis.' The work was to have appeared in twelve parts, 

 and six years were calculated as the time necessary for its 



' The Marquis of Northampton, Pre- 

 sident of the Eoyal Society ; Lord Auck- 

 land, President of the Asiatic Society ; 



Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and 

 Edinburgh; Trinity College, Dublin; the 

 Royal College of Surgeons; Paris, St. 



Henry Warburton, Esq., M.P., President ' Petersburgh, Copenhagen, Stockholm, 

 of the Geological Society ; Mr. (now Sir 1 Vienna, Berlin, Bonn, Munich, Florence, 

 Roderick) Mnrchisoii, President of the i Rome, Lcyden, Brussels, Calcutta, and. 

 Geographical Society ; Dr. Buckland, &c. ' Bombay. 

 - The Museums were those of the , 



