414 General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris. [No. 125. 



more increasing political importance of Asia must naturally claim the 

 serious attention of the European nations ; but for the present, the liter- 

 ary progress in the small number of places where it has been developed, 

 has been retarded. The presses of Constantinople, Teheran, Cairo and 

 Canton, have produced nothing worthy of remark, and those of India, 

 though not altogether unemployed, have been less active than formerly. 



The Asiatic Societies have everywhere continued in their efforts to 

 make known the discoveries in the languages and histories of the East. 

 The Asiatic Journal commenced by the late Mr. J. Prinsep, is now edited 

 by Mr. (Henry) Torrens, who conducts it with great zeal and ability. The 

 Society of Madras continued its Journal with much regularity. The Ger- 

 man Oriental Journal commences a new series, and the excellent Journal 

 of the Geographic Society of London, becomes more and more a powerful 

 ally to the collections, specially designed for the East. The number of 

 these collections has been augmented by the Orientalia, published by 

 Messrs. Juynbull, Roorda and Weijers. The first volume of these collec- 

 tions has appeared in Amsterdam ; its destination is to become the organ 

 of the excellent school of Leyden, which displays in its Asiatic studies, 

 the same spirit of learning and of conscientious research, which has for 

 so long a time distinguished the classic Philology of Holland. The Orien- 

 talia do not exclude any department of research concerning Asia, but 

 they are more especially destined for the Semitic languages and litera- 

 ture. The first volume contains a Posthumous Memoir on the collective 

 Nouns of the Arabs by Hamaker, and a Poem not previously published, 

 of Montanebbi, edited and translated by Juynbull, and a continuation 

 of the Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts of the Library at Leyden, by 

 M. Weijers. I should perhaps mention also as a new Asiatic Journal, 

 the one published by the Society of Jesu in Lyon, under the title of " Let- 

 tres du Madure," of which six numbers have appeared. 1 It is com- 

 posed of Letters of the Missionaries of this order in the South of India. 

 Though its chief end is to give an account of the state of that mission, 

 yet it contains a mass of details on the customs of the Hindoos, and 

 would undoubtedly find its place in the libraries of the learned, if the 

 Society were to allow the sale of it. 



Two new Asiatic Societies have been established during the past 

 year, one in Paris, " La Societe Orientale," whose principal object is 



J. Lettres cles nouvelles Missions du Madure. Lyon, 1840, in 8vo. Vols. I. and II. 



