JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



JVb. 8.— August, 1832. 



I. — Progress of Indian Maritime Surveys. 

 Amongst the events of scientific interest which have recently been 

 announced in India, is the institution in England of a new Society, 

 having for its object tbe promotion of Geographical Science, and called 

 tbe Royal Geographical Society. Mr. Barrow, the reputed author of 

 many valuable articles in the Quarterly Review, illustrative of the 

 Geography of various parts of the world, and the adviser of those ex- 

 peditions into the Arctic Seas, from the success of whicb in exploring 

 the northern coasts of the American continent, so mucb credit has 

 redounded to the British nation, is tbe President of this Society ; and 

 certainly, since the death of our own Major Rennell, there is no one 

 whose reputation stands so bigh in this department of science, or 

 whose zeal, acuteness, and rare tact in the discrimination of the value 

 of materials promise more for the success of an association devoted to 

 sucb objects. There has been issued already one number, containing 

 the first fruits of the Society's labours ; and the interesting papers it 

 contains, added to the style of elegance and correctness in which the 

 maps are executed, make us wish anxiously to see the continuation. 

 There is no branch of science so proper as geography to be taken 

 up by an Association of this kind, because there is none in advancing 

 which pure study and literary research can do so little, and the pro- 

 gress of which depends so much upon the accidental circumstances 

 in which men of various attainments happen to find themselves placed. 

 For nearly all that has been done, and for most that is still doing in geo- 

 graphy, by land or by sea, we are indebted to the exertions of practical 

 unpretending individuals, who finding the maps and charts they are using 

 incorrect, or lighting by chance on new objects not laid down, employ a 



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