1863. ] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 181 
10. From the British Museum, through Mr. N. 8. Maskelyne, 
a small collection of meteoric stones and irons, and a fine series of 
models of aerolites which have fallen in India. 
Mr. Oldham thought the fact of these beautiful casts of Indian 
aerolites being on the table, rendered this a desirable opportunity for 
the Society to take cognizance of the hearty co-operation and aid 
they had received from Mr. Maskelyne, the chief of the Mineral 
Department of the British Museum. He presumed that a formal 
acknowledgement would as a matter of course be sent to the Trustees 
of the British Museum for the specimens sent in acknowledgement 
of the valuable series which the Society had sent to London. But 
he thought the Society would fail in its duty, if it did not also 
acknowledge the obligations it was under to Mr. Maskelyne for the 
zealous and hearty care he had devoted to the examination and 
preparation of the specimens. 
It would be in the recollection of the Society that some time back, 
they had sent to the Vienna Imperial Mineral Cabinet some speci- 
mens of aerolites, duplicates of their collection, and that subsequently 
they had sent to the British Museum all their meteorites to be cute 
and portions retained in the National collection. They were now in 
possession of the specimens sent by both those Institutions, in return 
for the Indian series. 
The first collection forwarded from Vienna was unfortunately lost 
by the wreck of the ship in which it had been despatched. To replace 
this a second had been made, which, although necessarily not quite so 
valuable as that first sent, was still an excellent series. It contained 
eight varieties of meteoric stones, and ten of meteoric irons. 
The series selected by Mr. Maskelyne of the British Museum 
eontained fifteen varieties of stone meteorites, and nine of irons. 
The two together made a total of 23 varieties of stones and 19 of 
irons. But in these two series there were duplicates of eight falls, 
so that deducting those, the Society now possessed in addition to its 
own original series of the Indian meteorites, and to the very beauti- 
ful casts of other Indian stones now on the table, good typical 
specimens of twenty meteoric stones and 14 of meteoric irons. 
He might add that the Geological Museum possessed about 45 
different varieties of meteorites, so that the Caleutta collections, if 
aggregated, contained about 95 good specimens of meteorites. This 
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