432 Proceedings of ilie Asiatic Society. [No. 4, 



and submits at once a preliminaiy scheme, suggesting the general 

 scope of the details which it would propose in filling up the outline 

 which has been sketched out by you. The process of making a 

 reference to the Society at large is of necessity tedious ; and the 

 Council considers that it will best meet the interests of the Society 

 and the convenience of the Government, if it endeavours to obtain 

 the general approval of the Government to a scheme which it could 

 recommend to the acceptance of the Society in a complete form. In 

 this sense and with the distinct reservation, that the opinions expressed 

 in this letter are those of the Council, and cannot be held to be 

 binding on the Society, or to interfere in any way with its complete 

 liberty of action in dealing finally with the matter, the Council 

 desires me to make the following observations. 



4. The Council has understood your letter to be designed to 

 elicit from the Society an expression of its wishes as to the details of 

 the general arrangements, which it had been said must be satisfac- 

 tory to the members of the Society, before its collections could be 

 transferred to a Public Museum ; and it is with much respect that the 

 Council desires to submit for the favourable consideration of His Ex- 

 cellency the Governor-General the following scheme, which in its 

 essentials is, it thinks, quite in accordance with the proposals contain- 

 ed in your letter : — 



I. — Museum. 



I. — The Museum to be a Public Museum, the management being 

 vested in a Board of Trustees to be constituted by an Act of the 

 Legislature. 



II. — The Trustees to be fourteen in number ; the President to be 

 His Excellency the Governor-General of India ; the Vice-President 

 to be the President of the Asiatic Society ; of the remainder, six 

 to be named by the Government, and six by the Asiatic Society. 



III. — The complete management, arrangement, and disposal of 

 the Museum to be in the Trustees. 



IV. — The Museum to be open to the public under suitable rules 

 to be approved by the Government, 



V. — The rules further to provide for the continuance to the Mem- 

 bers of the Asiatic Society, in respect to the New Museum, of all 

 their existing privileges in respect to their own present Museum — in 

 regard to their rights of entering the Museum, and of examining 



