494 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Jung, 



By the transfer of the Oriental publications from the Education Committee a very 

 important and responsible task has been thrown upon the Society, which it is most 

 anxious to perform with diligence and satisfaction to the increasing body of Oriental 

 scholars in Europe, who have expressed a common feeling and interest in its efficiency 

 and permanancy. 



By the transfer of the Oriental manuscripts and printed volumes from the College 

 of Fort William the Society's library has been doubled, and the charge and respon- 

 sibility of its management proportionately increased. The Society cannot be insensible 

 of the obligation of making known its contents, of encouraging and providing accom- 

 modation for copyists, and of guarding property of increasing value. Thus the exten- 

 sion of the library has been attended with consequences which are felt in various 

 matters of detail that cannot well be described. 



Literary publications have also sought the Society's auspices in greater number 

 of late than heretofore ; and the government has paid it the compliment of seeking 

 its advice and of following its suggestions in respect to many literary undertakings 

 for which the public patronage had been solicited. 



The government of France has condescended to employ the Society as the medium 

 for procuring additions to the superb Oriental library of the French nation, and many 

 distinguished Orientalists of the Continent have solicited the same favor. 



From all these sources the responsibility, the substantive existence of the Society 

 has derived strength and lustre ; but every enlargement of its connections and every 

 new field of its operations cannot but call for some additional expenditure or point 

 out some desideratum which the Society's means are uuable to provide ; and this must 

 be always more prominently felt where, from all the officers of the institution afford- 

 ing their services gratuitously, there is a reluctance in imposing new duties or ex- 

 pecting an increased devotion of their limited leisure. 



But it is particularly in the physical branch of its labours — a vast field compre- 

 hending, according to the emphatic expression of Sir William Jones, " whatever 

 is produced by nature within the geographical limits of Asia," that the Asiatic 

 Society feels itself most backward and deficient of means. 



The rapid strides that have been made in physical inquiry throughout the world in 

 the present age, have been compassed only by national efforts. By these have the 

 schools of Paris been raised to the perfection of which they now boast, and her mu- 

 seums stored with most instructive and precious collections. 



By the combinations of the wealthy, aided by a popular government is England 

 now beginning to rival her. A national museum is indeed throughout Europe become 

 an essential engine of education, instructive alike to the uninformed who admires 

 the wonders of nature through the eye alone, and to the refined student who seeks 

 in these repositories what it would be quite out of his power to procure with his own 

 means. 



The Asiatic Society, or it may be allowable to say the metropolis of British India, 

 has had the germs of a national museum as it were planted in its bosom. As at 

 Paris a new era was opened in the history of its great museum, the Jardin des 

 Plantes, through the discoveries of extinct and wondrous animal forms exhumed 

 from the rocks on which the town was built, and which required all the adjuncts of 

 comparative anatomy for their investigation even by the master-hand of the great 

 Cuvier ; so in Calcutta through the munificence of a few individuals and the deve- 

 lopment of fossil deposits in various parts of India hitherto unsuspected, we have 

 become possessed of the basis of a grand collection, and we have been driven to seek 

 recent specimens to elucidate them. Our desire has been warmly seconded by all 

 who have enjoyed the opportunity of contributing ; from China, from New South 

 Wales, from the Cape, and from every quarter of the Honorable Company's posses- 

 sions, specimens of natural history, of mineralogy, and geology, have flowed iu 

 faster than they could be accommodated, and the too little attention they have 

 received has alone prevented similar presentations from being much more numerous ; 

 for it is but reasonable to suppose thatof the stores continually dispatched to England 

 or the Continent, the Society would have received a larger share, had it done proper 

 honor to what it has received. 



In May 1835, the Society resolved to try the experiment of appointing salaried 

 officers to the charge of its museum. For two years economy in other departments 

 has enabled it to maintain this system, and the good effects of the treasure are visi- 

 ble to all who visit the rooms. Yet not befng able to purchase more than a small 

 portion of the time of a competent naturalist, the beni-tit has been comparafively 

 limited, and now at the very commencement of the experiment the state of the 

 Society's funds will compel it to withhold further support from its incipient museum 

 unless some fresh source of income be provided. 



