8 E. E. Bayne—Iie7?iains of Old Furt William. [Jan., 



in the buildings of the date of the capture of the Fort viz.^ 1756, one oi 

 a subsequent date, 1' 5" above that, then the level of the Custom House 

 sheds demolished to make way for the E. I. Railways, l%" above the last, 

 and now the floors of the ground rooms of this building, the last 4^9'' 

 above the first, the growth in level of a century and a quarter. 



Similarly the river bank has gone westward, probably by accretion in 

 the end of the last or commencement of this century, and by reclamation, 

 as we know, between 1847 and 1882. The river wall in 1756 being about 

 75 feet west of the first curtain, in 1847 it was about 625 feet and now the 

 jetty edge is 800 feet west of the same point. 



At the N. E. corner of the E. I. liailvvay offices will be found record- 

 ed in the pavement two raking lines indicating the salient of the N. E. 

 bastion. 



What has now been found of the fort walls clearly shows that the site 

 of the Port Commissioner's Office was, in 1756, if not in the river, on the 

 river bank and quite outside the Fort enceinte or even its river wall. At 

 the time it was built it was stated that tlie foundations discovered were 

 portions of Fort William : we now know this was a mistake. 



There is an interesting old piece of artillery in the Fort, dug up in the 

 course of some excavations in the Custom House, used as a corner spur- 

 stone, well worth preservation, an old wrought iron ring gun, about 1^ in. 

 bore, fast going to decay with corrosion, 



Mr. Bayne hoped that the Government of Bengal would sanction a 

 search, now that so much was known to start with, for the actual site of 

 the Blackhole. A few more excavations at a small expense would suffice 

 to render the sites quite distinct. 



This paper will be published in full, with Plates, in the Journal, Pt. I. 

 The Chairman said he had hoped His Excellency the Commander-in- 

 Chief would have spoken, and taken charge of the old Fort as he has of the 

 present one, and not have left it to a layman, but as His Excellency would 

 not, he, the Chairman, begged to propose a vote of thanks to Mr. Bayne 

 for his interesting paper on the old fort, and the famous Black Hole of 

 Calcutta. A little book by Dr. Busteed had lately been published by 

 Messrs. Thacker, Spink & Co., entitled "Echoes of Old Calcutta," in the 

 first article of which was an account of this, to all Englishmen, most inter- 

 esting spot, and the writer alluded to the great difficulty of now pointing 

 out the place and the necessity of putting up some tablet to mark where it 

 was supposed to be. He, the Chairman, thought that Mr. Bayne's able 

 paper had removed all reasonable doubt from the matter by his having, by 

 actual excavation in many places and measurements and comparison with 

 former maps and plans, proved where the old walls and bastions had stood, 

 and now appeared to be the time to mark the places. He had from 



