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ss PREFACE, ix 
counts have been inserted : catalogues of woods, medicinal plants and 
drugs : experiments on materials, wood, iron, cement ;—Statistical 
reports ;—descriptions of newly explored countries and people :—in fact, 
it would be difficult to open a number of the Journat without finding 
some information which must possess value in the eyes of a govern- 
ment. Contributions of a more exclusively scientific nature have, in 
the mean time, continued to multiply, and the objects pointed out as 
desiderata at home in the geography, meteorology, geology, and 
natural history of this country, are in the course of rapid and syste- 
matic elucidation. So numerous for instance have been the registers 
of the weather offered for publication, that space could only be found 
for abstracts of many. There has hardly been time for the collection 
of materials regarding the tides of the Indian coasts, suggested in the 
Rev. Professor WHEWELL’s circular, (inserted in page 151,) but the 
attention of those who have opportunities of eliciting the information 
required, is again solicited to this object. 
As aproof of the benefit conferred on science by the free and extensive 
circulation of a periodical devoted to such objects, the Editor feels pride 
in alluding to the ardour which his plates of ancient coins have in- 
spired in many active collectors, and above all to the reward bestowed 
ou himself by the munificence of General VenTuRA, the most successful 
pursuer of antiquarian research in the Panjab, who has presented to 
him all the coins and relics discovered on opening the celebrated 
Tope of Manikyala. They are now on their way to Calcutta. 
That extracts and analyses of European science have not been more 
frequent must be attributed once more to want of space and want 
of leisure. The Editor would recommend all who seek for knowledge 
of the progress of science in Europe to procure acopy of the Reports of 
the British Association for 1832, in which they will find every branch 
discussed by the philosopher best able to give it illustration. To at- 
tempt to shorten those admirable essays would be mutilation rather 
than abridgment; yet unfortunately most of them are too long for the 
pages of a monthly journal. 
On the subject of orthography of native words, the Editor is driven 
to make one concession, for which he fears the learned Societies at home 
Z 
