146 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 



yearly reports, I conceive, would answer every useful purpose, and give 

 less trouble. Let the Committee of Papers be a Committee of Manage- 

 ment, and by frequent visits to the Museum obviate any tendency to 

 inaction on the part of the Curator. Srdly. The non-removal, under 

 any circumstances, of articles from the Museum, would impose a tanta- 

 lizing restriction. A Museum, especially in India, is not the most 

 favourable place for making minute observations, or recording results 

 and circumstances. There may be several articles that the Curator 

 would like occasionally to carry home to examine quietly in the pri- 

 vacy of his own study, and I should be sorry to cramp any Curator's 

 convenience, by depriving him of this indulgence. To insist upon it, 

 would be like the rule that holds in some libraries, that books should 

 be looked at only on the premises. That rule may be a very proper one 

 in Europe, but I do not think it at present applicable here. Apply the 

 same rule to Numismatology, and it would be found very prejudicial. 

 Had it been strictly acted upon in that branch, I question whether 

 Dr. Wilson and Mr. James Prinsep, (the latter especially), would have 

 effected such splendid results. Neither would I pay our Curator the 

 bad compliment of implying by such a restriction, that he would not 

 take proper care of specimens. Instead of this, I would permit him to 

 carry away what specimens he required, for a reasonable time, the 

 vacant space being occupied with a card or half sheet of paper, 

 bearing the number and character of the article, and the date at which 

 it was borrowed, with the words "Taken by Curator." 



Quite concurring in that part of the Report, which states that the 

 Curator's great object, should be generalization of several subjects, and 

 not special devotion to minute observation of a sub-division, yet as I 

 conceive that the two objects are perfectly reconcilable, I have no 

 doubt that Dr. M'Clelland would pay due attention to both. Neither 

 do I imagine that the claims of speedy and effectual mechanical ar- 

 rangement would at all suffer in the hands of Dr. M'Clelland, or take 

 up so much time as the proposal to tie down that gentleman's passing 

 two hours daily in the Museum would seem to indicate. In conclusion — 

 as far preferable to the plan of sending in three months to Europe for 

 a Curator, and procuring one who after his arrival in India would very 

 likely become discontented at finding himself tied down for five years 

 upon a salary which may sound imposing in Europe, but would be only 

 a pittance for a man of education in India, and scarcely on a par with 

 the pay of some mechanics, I would prefer closing for a twelvemonth* 



* The objection to holding the office except on a permanent and independent 

 footing is, that after accomplishing the first step in bringing the collection into order, 

 the office would then hold out so much stronger inducements to those who are fond 

 of sinecures, that a man who relied merely on fitness, might find himself no longer 

 required. Witness the indifference of the Committee of Papers to the Museum as 

 long as the Society had not the means to pay : but no sooner did the Government 

 come forward with funds, than persons whose names had never before been heard 



