30 Proceedings of the Asiatie Society. [No. 1, 
may hereafter be complied with. The state of the border countries 
is at present somewhat disturbed, and I understand that the Gover- 
nor-General thinks that it would be better, at all events, to defer 
giving the leave till a more favorable opportunity offers. 
At our March meeting was read the correspondence which had 
been sent to us by the Government of India regarding the appoint- 
ment of Colonel Cunningham as Archeological Surveyor, and which 
enclosed a memorable Minute by the late Governor-General. It 
must have been cheering indeed to the few among us who have per- 
severed, in spite of every difficulty, in the study of mouldy coins and 
in the decipherment of imperfect inscriptions, to find the head of the 
Government acknowledging its past neglect of the services which 
they have rendered to the ‘ early history of Hngland’s great depen- 
dency,’ and declaring its intention to neglect this duty no more. 
As bearing on those pursuits of our Society in which it was so deeply 
occupied a quarter of a century ago, and which earned for it the high 
compliment which was paid to it by Professor Lassen in the dedication 
of his great work on Indian archeology, I regard this declaration as 
the most important communication which has been made to us since 
my connexion with the Society. One of its results we may expect 
every day tosee in Colonel Cunningham’s first yearly report, and the 
grant which has recently been made by the North-Western Govern- 
ment towards pushing the excavations at Muttra, is probably another. 
More than one paper which has appeared in ovr Journal during 
the last year will be read with interest by European scholars who 
have not, like ourselves, access to those remains of which we are the 
custodians. But more especially will they hail the proofs of continued 
_ activity on the part of their learned co-labourers in this country which 
are given in the long list of additions made during the year to both 
series, old and new, of our Bibliotheca Indica. 
With no pretensions myself to being a scholar, I can well appre- 
ciate the importance attached at home to the labours of the Philologi- 
eal Committee of our Council, and the heartiness of the welcome with 
which European Orientalists must receive each printed text of a 
MS. rescued from possible oblivion. The thirty-two Fasciculi of 
different works, which the report mentions as having been published 
during the year at the charge of the Oriental Fund represent 
portions of works, which have hitherto been accessible in MS. 
