286 On the Adaptation of the Roman Alphabet [June, 



effectually corrected this error ; and what is more, the maps, constructed 

 by the officers employed in this department, are capable of being con- 

 verted with confidence into any character, without each name being as 

 at present, an object of separate inquiry and research, whenever it is 

 desired to publish a map in the Persian, the Hindee, or in any other 

 character of the country. 



But to return to our subject : the Record Committees, wheresoever 

 they were established, succeeded entirely in reforming the orthography 

 of names in the zila dufturs. That they did not do more, but after 

 involving considerable expence, failed to provide the desired land 

 registers, was owing to many causes, which need not be discussed 

 here. The effect of these institutions in confirming the use of the 

 Gilchristian system is all we have now to do with : that effect will we 

 presume not be denied. The leaning had been to this system for 

 thirty years before, but at last the act of Government, and the specific 

 exertions of all public officers throughout the country, continued for 

 nearly eight years consecutively while the Committees lasted, fixed and 

 established this system of Gilchrist, as the orthography of office and of 

 business. Even though there were not in it any innate inherent supe- 

 riority or grounds for preference, even were it the inferior system of the 

 two, still this fact ought, one would think, to secure it from any hasty 

 attempt at change. Except there be some obvious apparent defects 

 pointed out, the undoubted ascertainment of which has been the result 

 of actual experience, would it not be madness to think of discarding 

 what had been so established ? What then is to be thought of this new 

 attempt of Mr. Trevelyan, to set up again the rejected alphabet of Sir 

 Wlliam Jones, and by the gratuitous circulation of thousands of copies 

 to diffuse and disseminate, as if from authority, a system fully and form- 

 ally tried and found wanting ? 



The Journal of the Asiatic Society, being a work of science, conducted 

 under the special countenance and support of that Society, will always 

 be respected for the matter it contains ; and it signifies little in what 

 garb it may choose to present its Asiatic names. Allowance will 

 be made for the consistency of the Society's adherence to the system of 

 its venerable founder, and all that read its proceedings know well what 

 they have to expect, and are prepared to encounter familiar letters 

 applied to strange uses after the manner practised by this Society for 

 half a century. But now that the Gilchristian method of writing has 

 been so long established for record, for surveys, and for making fami- 

 liar to the uninitiated public, the sounds and names of Hindoostan, 

 every official man and every man of sense must protest against the 

 present attempt to introduce once more the discarded system, one 



