1066 Asiatic Society. [Dec. 



ral History from the Museum. Why, it was only at the last meeting'of the British 

 Association, that Dr. Buckland announced the intention of Messrs. Hutton and Hen- 

 slow to continue the fossil flora of Great Britain, and of their requiring " the loan of 

 specimens from the Geological Society, which would be carefully returned after draw- 

 ings had been made of them." 



10. Again, the Committee require that all correspondence connected with the 

 Museum should pass through the Secretaries office, " in conformity with the practice of 

 all similar institutions." Here the Committee no doubt evince the same intimate 

 knowledge of the practice of other institutions, as in the instances already referred to. 



It does not appear to have occurred to the Committee, that the Curator being a 

 naturalist, can have little correspondence not connected with the Museum, so that to 

 comply with this rule, he should require his friends to address him through the Secre- 

 tary. 



11. The Committee say, "our collection of minerals is an utter chaos," a statement 

 which is not the fact, for they are all arranged ; a Committee that would lay down rules 

 for the direction of a Curator ought to know the difference between minerals and rocks. 

 " Though rich," say this Committee, in " anonymous specimens valuable in themselves 

 as illustrations of abstract mineralogy, but devoid of interest in a geological or geo- 

 graphical light, owing to the neglect with which they have been treated, &c." We 

 can easily understand that the Committee may have been ignorant of the names of 

 many minerals in the collection, especially as they do not seem to know the difference 

 between minerals and rocks, but it does not follow that such minerals are "anonymous •;" 

 in fact the use of the term, as the Committee have applied it, evinces a total want of 

 information on the subject ; a mineral is not anonymous because it is without a label, 

 any more than a man would be so when without a card in his pocket, with his name 

 written on it. A person acquainted with either minerals or men will always know them' 

 whether labelled or not.* Yet this is the Committee who are ready to take the manage- 

 ment of the Museum into their own hands, and as they say themselves, examine the 

 claims of such candidates as may offer for the Curatorship within a period of three 

 months. 



12. " It appears," they say, " that the first object of the Society in remodelling the 

 Museum, should be to form a grand collection of minerals and fossils, illustrative of 

 the geology, geography, and palaeontology of our British Indian possessions." This 

 sounds well, but we are at a loss to know how minerals and fossils could illustrate 

 geograjjky, and had always supposed that palaeontology was merely a branch of 

 geology ; but perhaps the Committee intend to remodel the Sciences as well as the 

 Museum. " Afew existing minerals" (could there be any other kind) ? This is the 

 report of a Committee of Papei's of a learned Society, claiming an authority quite 

 unprecedented over the labours of others, it is therefore of importance before their 

 claims be sanctioned, to see how far the scientific character of the Society would be 

 safe in their hands) " and some superb fossils in our Museum are available for this 



* This passage is quite explanatory of the views on which the writer acts, and of those 

 by which the Committee of Papers are led. — As Dr. M'Clelland knows every mineral 

 a glance, he thinks that quite sufficient. The Committee desire the novice to be sup- 

 plied with the means of acquiring a little of their Curator's knowledge. As to the 

 quibble regarding rocks and minerals, if Dr. M'Clelland knew the difference betweon 

 a class and an order, he would be aware that every rock is a mineral, though every 

 mineral is not a rock. — Eds. 



