1859.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 259 



The report was as follows : — • 



Your Committee have taken the proposition conveyed in Dr. 

 Haidinger's letter to the Secretary, into careful consideration, and 

 beg to report on the question referred to them as follows. 



It appears to your Committee highly desirable that the Asiatic So- 

 ciety of Bengal should, to the utmost of their power, reciprocate the 

 friendly feeling and desire for co-operation evinced by the Imperial 

 Cabinet of Mineralogy at Vienna. The collection of Meteorites in 

 that establishment has for years past had a world-wide reputation, 

 as being the most complete and valuable in existence, and has been 

 long known to investigators of such interesting specimens by the 

 valuable descriptions, &c. of Herr Partsch. Under the able superin- 

 tendence of Dr. Homes this collection is steadily increasing in num- 

 ber. Your Committee think it not only a duty to endeavour to con- 

 tribute towards bringing such a collection more nearly to complete- 

 ness, but that the Society will also feel a pleasure in adding to so 

 numerous and valuable a series which amounts at the present time 

 to 137 varieties. 



Under these impressions your Committee have carefully gone over 

 all the specimens now in the possession of the Society. On the 1st 

 January, 1845, Mr. Piddington gave a list of those at that time in 

 the Society's collections, amounting altogether to 10 (Jour. As. 

 Society Bengal Vol. XIII. p. 885.) One of these, the so-called 

 Lightning stone of Nepal (" not examined, but may be meteoric" as 

 described by Mr. Piddington) your Committee have agreed in think- 

 ing decidedly not meteoric. It is a fragment of stone very similar to 

 those so well known in Great Britain, Norway, &c. to collectors of 

 antiquities, as celts (or commonly called thunderbolts) or of a ful- 

 ling stone used by weavers for the preparation of their cloth. 



To the number as given by Mr. Piddington in 1845 six varieties 

 have since been added. A complete list therefore of those now in 

 the possession of the Society would be as follows. 



No. 1. Fell at Moradabad in 1808, procured from Captain Her- 

 ring, 3 fragments. The total weight of these fragments is 2\ ounces. 



No. 2. Aerolite which fell at Allahabad, sent by Dr. Tytler, of 

 this there are three pieces of good size. 



2 l 2 



