cvi Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Oct. 1845 



or Society of Ararat," I have the honor, by the desire of the members, to address you this 

 letter, and to request the favor of your presenting gratis to them all the Journals of the 

 Asiatic Society from its commencement, and to continue the same throughout, for which 

 they shall feel highly obliged. 



Our object in requesting this favor is to translate the useful productions they contain 

 into the Armenian language, and publish them in our Society's Weekly Journal, the 

 " Patriot," for the perusal and information of those of our countrymen, who are unac- 

 quainted with the English language, both here and at other places. The first number 

 of the said publication, I beg leave to forward you herewith. 



Trusting that this application will meet with the favorable consideration of yourself, and 

 the members of your Society generally, 



I remain, &c. 



P. J. Sarkies, 



Calcutta, 22nd August, 1845. Secretary to the Society of Ararat. 



Ordered that the Society of Ararat be presented with the Journal 

 from January, 1845, and in future as published. 



Read the following correspondence which was approved and ordered 

 to be published. 



To the Secretary of the Asiatic Society. 



Sir,-— I have the honor to submit through you, to the Committee of Papers, the appear- 

 ance of a memorandum in the Society's Journal tending, in a most serious manner, to 

 implicate my character and reputation in the eyes of my scientific co-labourers, as deliber- 

 ately advising a measure which is stigmatized in that memorandum with the name of 

 " scientific fraud." 



The memorandum in question appeared in the Proceedings of the Society for October, 

 1844, published in the 154th number of the Journal ; and the paragraph to which I would 

 draw the particular attention of the Committee is No. 6 (misprinted as No. 5). 



I freely admit that upon more than one occasion, when the subject of Burnes's drawings 

 was mooted in conversation, and also I think once in an unofficial note to yourself I 

 objected to the extreme rudeness and inaccuracy of certain of those drawings, and recom- 

 mended that if such had to be lithographed, it would be better to correct the outlines 

 where these were obviously erroneous, by putting such joints and muscles into the limbs 

 of mammalia as they must necessarily possess, and even improving the attitudes in some 

 instances, especially as Burnes's own specimens supply materials for the purpose to a 

 considerable extent:— but most assuredly I never proposed that such alterations should 

 be made without due notice being taken of the same, and can only express my astonish- 

 ment that it should have been thought necessary to place the matter before the world in 

 the light in which it has appeared. 



The purport of my non-official recommendation will be best understood if I adduce 

 two or three instances ; and these, to the best of my recollection, shall be the very instances 

 to which my remarks (in conversation) referred. 



1. The figure of the Hyena of Cabool (now lithographed) will, in my opinion, dis- 

 grace the Society's ' Researches,' if it appears in them : but as the animal is perfectly 

 well known, I believe I recommended that a proper figure of a striped Hyena should be 

 designed, and the markings filled up from the drawing supplied by Bumes. 



