PREFACE. XI 



plete and luxurious work on the fossil osteology of the Hima- 

 layan range ; but such an undertaking should await the explo- 

 ration of the whole line, and should be made a national con- 

 cern. At present the great fear is, lest the quantity of speci- 

 mens dispersed in private collections on all sides, may deprive 

 us of many fragments requisite to work out the forms of the 

 curious new animals disinterred from this vast cemetery of the 

 ancient world. 



We have partly redeemed our promise to our meteorological 

 contributors : sufficiently so, we hope, to revive their exertions, 

 and procure us a combined series of observations in different 

 parts of India for the coming year, more extended than the 

 comparative tables we have now published. We regret having 

 been unable to supply Barometers to the numerous applicants 

 who have volunteered to use them. The duty now levied on 

 philosophical instruments, will tend still more to check their 

 importation. 



Our readers will now readily excuse the absence of articles 

 on the progress of the sciences in Europe, since that depart- 

 ment has been zealously pursued by another periodical of ex- 

 tensive circulation, in consequence partly of our neglect of it ; 

 and a third rival has recently entered the field under promis- 

 ing and powerful auspices. These have so fully made known 

 many local inventions of scientific interest, that we have less 

 regretted our inability to find space for their re-insertion. We 

 would, on no account, however, wish to confine our pages to 

 subjects more strictly Indian ; on the contrary, we shall ever 

 study to infuse into them a pleasing variety of original informa- 

 tion on all subjects, of man's performance or nature's produc- 

 tion, within the wide range prescribed to us by our allegiance to 

 the Asiatic Society. 



