1837.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, 401 



The Government of Bombay presented 5 copies of Lieutenant T. S. 

 Carless' Survey Report of the Indus navigation below Hyderabad. 



The Right Honorable the Governor General forwarded a copy of Pro- 

 fessor Wheweli/s Researches on the Tides, 6th series : with a request that 

 the Society would undertake to promote inquiries on the Indian coasts to 

 complete the theory of cotidal lines for the Bay of Bengal, towards which 

 the Government would be happy to contribute its aid. 



This sixth series of Professor Whewlll's researches gives the results of an 

 extensive system of combined observations in Europe and America in June 18.'i;">, 

 which have produced a very material improvement in the map of the cotidal lines 

 before published. 



The most curious and important branch of the investigation is that for deter- 

 mination of the diurnal inequality, or difference between the day and uight 

 tide, which depends on the declination of the moon north or south of the equator. 

 The existence of this inequality has long been known, but its laws have been 

 misunderstood, and it has never been attended to in tide tables, though of ma- 

 terial importance in the navigation of river mouths and shallow seas. 



It was resolved that a circular should be addressed to members and corre- 

 spondents of the Society residing on the coast stations, requesting their aid in 

 procuring data for the tides of the Indian Ocean, and furnishing a copy of 

 Professor Whewei.l's instructions, printed in the Journal in 1833. 



Mr. W. H. Macnaghten presented two works in the Marhatta and 

 Hindi languages: the Siddhdnta Siromani prakasn by Subha'jI Ba'pu, and 

 the Bhugola saro Hkhyate, by Sri Unkara Bhat Joshi, written for the pur- 

 pose of explaining the correct system of astronomy to their countrymen. 



Mr. Macnaghten also exhibited to the meeting two handsome silver em- 

 blematical inkstands, representing a jotishi pandit seated between two globes, ex- 

 pounding their use from the Siddhantas — and around the stand, richly em- 

 bossed, the twelve signs of the zodiac — a Sanskrit couplet on each expressing that 

 it was presented by the Governor General in Council in token of approbation of 

 the astronomical learning and zealous endeavours of the pandits to enlighten their 

 countrymen. The following extract of a letter from Mr. Wilkinson, Governor 

 General's Agent at Bhilsa, describes what they bad done to deserve so high a 

 compliment. 



" I bad shortly before entertained in my private service a Siddhanti who pos- 

 sessed a higher degree of knowledge of his profession, and having had an oppor- 

 tunity of making myself whilst at Kota in some degree acquainted with the Hin- 

 du astronomical books, 1 had communicated a knowledge of them to my own 

 Shastri, by name Subha'ji' Ba'pu, a man of wonderful acuteness, and intelli- 

 gence, and sound judgment, and to Unkara Bhat, one of the principal Joshis 

 of this part of Malwa. The arguments by which I had for the previous eight years 

 of our connexion in vain endeavored to impress on Subha'ji' Ba'pu a convic- 

 tion of the truth of the real size and shape of the earth and of other important 

 physical facts, now carried to his mind the clearest conviction when shewn to be 

 precisely the same as those of their own astronomical authors. His was the 

 master mind ; and it exercised its influence over the minds of all the other pan- 

 dits. He was lost in admiration when be came fully to comprehend all the facts 

 resulting from the spherical form of the earth, and when the retrogressions 

 of the planets were shewn to be so naturally to be accounted for on the 

 theory of the earth's annual motion, and when he reflected on the vastly 

 superior simplicity and credibility of the supposition that the earth had 

 a diurnal motion, than that the sun and all the stars daily revolve round the 

 earth, he became a zealous defender of the system of Copernicus. He lamented 

 that his life had been spent in maintaining foolish fancies, and spoke with a bitter 

 indignation against all those of his predecessors who had contributed to the wil- 

 ful concealment of the truths that once had been acknowledged in the land. 



*' Subha'ji' Ba'pu's first care was how he was to enlighten the people of 

 Chanda and Nagpore, the land of his birth. At Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, 

 and at Dchli and Agra, and here also, the truth he said must spread, but how will 

 the mid-land of Nagpore, visited by no travellers from foreign countries, accessi- 



