1839.] Asiatic Society. 1065 



drive me out of office, or reduce the situation to a state of dependance quite incom- 

 patible with the responsibility attached to it, 



It is also to be recollected, that the very first intimation I had of the liberality of 

 the Government, in granting an allowance for the situation I held, was accompanied 

 with a proposition to provide another in my place. 



4. As the report proposes to have framed the duties of the office to which such new 

 pecuniary interest is attached, on the established usage of other Museums, I must be 

 permitted to point out the error into which the Rapporteur seems to have fallen. 



5. The Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London is placed under a 

 Board of Curators, over which the Members of the College have no authority. I allude 

 to this Museum as one in which the Government have an interest, and in all other 

 Museums to the support of which the Government contribute, the Curators are equally 

 independent. This Board may not only cut and dissect the specimens in such manner 

 as may be deemed essential, but may send them to lapidaries and others to do the 

 same ; and Mr. Clift as well as Mr. Owen may make use of the results, the same as if 

 they had been derived from their own private specimens. 



6. The Museum at the India House is placed entirely, I believe, in the hands of its 

 keeper, who may not only make such use of his descriptions of the objects contained in 

 it as he conceives most likely to promote the ends of science, but exhibit those objects 

 when necessary to the Societies of the metropolis. 



7. Can the Committee of Papers reconcile this, with the stipulations they require 

 from their Curator? e. g. " that all memoirs ox papers* drawn up by the Curator for 

 publication, as well as plates, models, &c. on subjects he may have investigated in the 

 discharge of his duties, should, in the first instance, be placed at the disposal of the 

 Committee of Papers ; also, that all proofs of such papers pass through the inspection 

 of the same body." The reason assigned for this very modest stipulation is perfectly 

 ludicrous, and shows how unfit the Committee is to legislate in such matters, namely, 

 that of a "fly-leaf having been prefixed without their knowledge or sanction to the 

 last volume of Transactions. Although containing nothing from which the Committee 

 would dissent, the precedent is one they are desirous of avoiding." 



8. The Committee of Papers should surely have been aware that it is the Secretary, 

 and not the Curator, who must be held answerable for irregularities of this kind, and 

 yet the odd remedy they would apply is, that of depriving the Curator of the literary 

 property that every one has a right to enjoy in his own free labours. How that could 

 keep " fly leaves" out of the Transactions, I am quite at a loss to know.f 



9. As the Committee do not profess to think much of "the elaborate investigation of 

 a group or family," we cannot be surprised that they should not be disposed to encourage 

 such a waste of time ; and hence the clause preventing the removal of objects of Natu- 



* The only literary work a Curator is expected to perform in the execution of his 

 duty is the preparation of a catalogue of the collection under his charge. Whether 

 that be a memoir or a paper I must leave to the legal learning of those who would draw 

 the distinction. Even with regard to a catalogue, I would advise the Committee to 

 imitate the Council of the Zoological Society of London, and declare, that they do not 

 " hold themselves responsible for the nomenclature, and opinions expressed in this 

 publication," i. e. the catalogue. (Dr. M'Clelland's note.) 



f The proof of the very unusual " fly leaf" alluded to, and which contained a glow- 

 ing panegyric on the Bishop's College printing Press, was never sent to the 

 Secretaries for inspection. — Eds. 



