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vided energies of Europeans in India for the purposes of duty, public or 

 personal, is much opposed to that life of lettered ease, and learned quiet, 

 without which studies in antiquities and philology cannot be systemati- 

 cally and successfully carried on, the publication I edited, deprived of 

 the aid of the eminent few, took the impress of the time, and became 

 more decidedly miscellaneous in its contents than had at any previous 

 period been the case. I do not apologise, however, to my readers for the 

 alteration which the last three years has effected in the general charac- 

 ter of the Journal. The original intention of Sir William Jones, when 

 instituting the Asiatic Society, provided in the words which form the 

 motto to the Journal itself, that " its enquiries should be extended to 

 whatever is performed by man, or produced by nature in Asia." I 

 therefore did but carry out this intention. My object has been to make 

 it a Journal of General Science ; as such it has been adopted by the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal; as such will it contribute most effec- 

 tively to the great end of the diffusion of knowledge concerning the 

 land in which we sojourn ; of its thousands of tribes and peoples ; of 

 its history and languages ; of the riches of its mines ; of the resources 

 of its vegetable products ; and of all which men of science are employed 

 about within it to advance the sum of general knowledge in their seve- 

 ral departments of philosophical enquiry. I most earnestly entreat all 

 who can do so, to contribute £0 this great object, and there are few who 

 cannot ; for to observe facts does not require the possession of scientific 

 knowledge, nor is more than the will wanting to report occurrences. Let it 

 too be remembered, that to men of science, so little is India known, that 

 no information given on almost any subject relating to her local peculiari- 

 ties of circumstance can be wholly destitute of novelty. The exertions of 

 such a man as Brian Hodgson, prove the immensity of new information 

 which is derivable from an examination of the kingdom of nature in even 

 a circumscribed locality. Few, in this country, uniting the acumen of 



