464 



Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 



[No. 4, 



From E. C. Bayley, Esq., Secretary to the Government of India, 

 To H. F. Blaneobd, Esq., Secy, to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 



Bated Simla, the 8th July, 1864. 

 Sie, — I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, No. 

 Home Department. 177, dated the 5th of April last, and to state 

 that the question of the proposed transfer of the Asiatic Society's 

 Museum to the Government of India, with the view of forming an 

 Imperial Museum, has been submitted for the final sanction of Her 

 Majesty's Grovernment. 



2. The Secretary of State has been solicited to select and send out 

 a Curator during the ensuing cold season. The Governor-General in 

 Council is of opinion that until the arrival of that officer in Calcutta, 

 nothing will be gained by the transfer of the Society's collections to 

 Government. The present grant from Government being continued, 

 the Society should make intermediately the best arrangements possible 

 for the preservation of their collections. The exhibition of these 

 should for the present be quite a secondary object. 



3. The appointment of Trustees under the contemplated Act will 

 be made on the arrival of the Curator. 



4. The necessary steps will be taken in the Public Works Depart- 

 . ment for the construction of a suitable building for the Imperial 



Museum. Endeavours will be made to ensure that the building shall 

 be commenced in 1865, and it will, it is hoped, be completed within 

 two or three years. 



I have, &c, 

 (Sd.) E. C. Bayley, 



Secy, to the Govt, of India. 

 The report of the Council appointing Messrs. J. Straehey and 

 J. Geoghegan, members of their body, was confirmed. 

 The Chairman then rose and said— 



" It is my pleasing duty to announce to the Society this evening 

 the completion of another volume of the very valuable Persian series 

 we are now publishing in the Bibliotheca Indica, and as some account 

 of our progress, and the plan that has been sketched out for us to 

 follow, will be interesting not only to the Society but to Oriental 

 scholars in Europe, I have prepared chiefly from a minute in the 

 Philological Committee, a short memorandum on the subject. 



