VI PREFACE. 



termitted supply of valuable papers and memoirs which there 

 would now be a degree of culpability in withholding from imme- 

 diate publication ! 



The tenor of the chief publications of the past year has been 

 turned aside from the objects of natural science to which it was 

 supposed future Indian researches would principally be confined, 

 by a train of antiquarian discovery of an unexpected and highly 

 interesting nature in the classical field of ancient Bactriana. 

 Every endeavour has been made to bring to notice the novelties 

 and facts, as they have been discovered ; and this has in some 

 cases caused confusion in the recital, imperfect investigation, and 

 some contradiction in results too hastily announced. It is hoped, 

 however, that these inconveniences, incident to a periodical 

 appearing at short intervals, will be more than counterbalanced 

 by the speedy and faithful publication of the circumstances as 

 they have been brought to light. The Index will serve in 

 some degree to connect the detached notices of one subject into 

 a continuous narrative. Thus, the present volume comprises 

 all that has been hitherto discovered in the various topes of 

 Manikyala. Much however remains to be brought to notice 

 regarding the Bactrian coins, and what has been learnt from the 

 specimens furnished by Dr. Gerard, and by Shekh Keramat 

 Ali, has been purposely kept back to be incorporated with the 

 facts developed by the collection of General Ventura, now on 

 its way to France under charge of the Chevalier Allard. 



Of inscriptions and antiquities, more purely Indian, the present 

 volume furnishes an abundant store ; nor have they been with- 

 held until interpretations could be furnished. Every care has 

 been taken to render the plates accurate, and extra copies have 

 in all cases been struck off for circulation where aid may be 

 expected in decyphering them. 



If the past year has been fortunate in antiquarian research, it 

 has also been eminently so in fossil geology. The several notices 

 in the Proceedings of the Society will bear out this assertion. 

 Besides further discoveries in the Nerbada valley, a new fossil 

 field has been opened in the Sewalik range of the Himalaya, and 

 already museums are being filled with its gigantic spoils. 



Several geographical notices in this volume will be read with 

 interest ; and none more so than the extract from an Arabic 



