1884.] Election of Officers. 37 



Major J. Waterhouse, B. S. C. 

 Alex. Pedler, Esq., F. C. S. 

 A. W. Croft, Esq., M. A. 



Mr. J. Westland and Major J. Waterhouse were appointed to audit 

 the annual accounts. 



The Chairman said that the meeting would now resolve itself into 

 the ordinary monthly meeting, and that it accordingly devolved upon 

 him to vacate the chair which the kindness of the Society had permitted 

 him to occupy for nearly two years. In laying down his office, he 

 begged again to express his heart-felt sense of the honour the Society 

 had done him in electing him to be their President. He wished to add 

 an expression of his acknowledgments to his colleagues of the Council 

 for the assistance and support which he had uniformly received from 

 them in the discharge of his duties. He now called upon the President, 

 Mr. H. F. Blanford, to take the chair. 



The meeting was then resolved into the Ordinary Monthly General 

 Meeting. 



H. F. Blanford, Esq., F. R. S., President, in the Chair. 



The President on taking the chair said : — 



I am deeply sensible of the great honour conferred on me by the 

 Society, in electing me to this high office, an honour for which I was 

 entirely unprepared. It was indeed a great, though nattering, surprise, 

 when, a few weeks ago at Gauhati 2 I received the printed list of nominees 

 for the offices of the Society during the ensuing year, to find the list 

 headed by my own name. Had I been present in Calcutta, it would 

 have been my duty to point out to the Council that my prolonged absence 

 from the Presidency is likely seriously to restrict my ability to take an 

 active part in the management of the Society's affairs, and to suggest 

 the advisability of a different selection. I can indeed lay claim to some- 

 what lengthened experience in the affairs of the Society, but I certainly 

 could have wished, as President, to give them less interrupted attention. 

 The main facts are, however, well known to you all, and I have no fear 

 that the well-being of the Society will in any way suffer from the 

 absence of the President, as it will be watched over and guarded by the 

 able and experienced officers whom you have elected as Yice-Presidents 

 and Secretaries. I thank you, Gentlemen, very cordially for this honour- 

 able distinction. 



The minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. 



The following presentations were announced : 



1. From the Authors and Translators, — (1) Etude sur le Patois 

 Creole Mauricien, by C. Baissac ; (2) Sanskrit Text of the Siksha-Patrl 



