xx Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. QFeb. 1844. 



Mr. J. Dodd of the Mint, offers for sale a collection of 200 specimens of the fossils of the older 

 Fossiliferous Rocks, which he procured recently from Berlin for his own researches in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Agra, but does not now require. I have examined these, both with reference to the 

 specimens themselves and to the prices usually charged by dealers at home, and should strongly 

 recommend their purchase, as they are really much wanted for reference. We have nothing of the 

 kind in the Museum, and the price asked by Mr. Dodd, 95 Rs., is not more than the cost and charges 

 of such a series from respectable dealers. 



To the Secretary to the Asiatic Society. 

 Dear Sir,— Last year when in the Upper Provinces, I ordered from Berlin a collection of Fossils 

 found in the lower Fossiliferous Rocks, for the purpose of comparison with any I might obtain from 

 the neighbourhood of Agra. The collection has just arrived, and as I have now no opportunity for 

 applying it to the object I intended, I beg leave to offer it to the Asiatic Society for the sum it has 

 cost me. The collection comprises 200 specimens, and the charge is 95 Rupees. I shall be very 

 happy to send the specimens to the Society's Rooms, if you think it will be disposed to take them 

 off my hands. 



Yours obediently, 

 December 23, 1843. J as. Dodd. 



I may notice here, for it belongs specially to the department, the reception of a continuation of 

 Lieut. Baird Smith's paper on Earthquakes for the Journal, and it is to be hoped, that from the wide 

 circulation which these valuable papers will obtain, we shall be able to draw attention to these 

 singular and often awful phenomena, with which, no doubt, so many of the changes of our globe 

 are connected. 



Museum of Economic Geology.— Ca.pt. Hannay, Assam L. I., has contributed nine specimens of 

 clays from the banks of the Dikho River in that country. 



In searching through our Cabinets for other matters, I have met with a specimen of the 

 beautiful green Jade, (axe-stone,) of New Zealand, to which I referred at the meeting of October. 

 It is fortunately also marked with the name and locality, " Bigge, Suddiya," so we know that it is 

 from Assam, and though only a pebble from the river, it is to be hoped we may find the vein or mass 

 of it. Our zealous member, Captain Hannay, promises me to use his best endeavours to procure 

 us specimens, as also of some very fine precious serpentine, which he says is to be obtained in very 

 large blocks there. If these stones could reach Calcutta cheaply, they would be much prized, and 

 probably valuable as exports to China, as the New Zealand Jade already is. 



Mr. Hodgson, late Resident at Kathmandoo, has obliged us with a bottle of the water of the 

 Gossainthan spring at 24.500 feet of elevation in the Himalayas. Upon a hasty examination I find 

 it is of a light inky colour, and highly fetid smell, but no peculiarly disagreeable taste beyond that of 

 the sulphuretted hydrogen, and that it contains sulphuretted hydrogen in considerable quantity, and 

 traces of carbonic acid. A black flakey deposit is forming in it, probably bitumen and sulphur ? 



It gives no trace of iron or lime, muriates, or sulphates, and is thus probably a mere solution of 

 bituminous and sulphureous matters. It is evidently decomposing, and this with its entire inacces- 

 sibility to us, render it not worth while to analyze it minutely, but I shall not fail to examine the 

 deposit 



Mr. Greenlaw, Secretary to the Superintendent of Marine, has obliged us with a few specimens of 

 the copper ore, and another of the argentiferous lead ore of Adelaide, Australia. 



