402 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. 4. 



making such a request to the Government, the Society should do 

 all in its power to show the earnestness of its own views, and to 

 afford positive proof of its willingness to co-operate with the Go- 

 vernment in carrying out so important an object, and that the appli- 

 cation of the Society should consequently be accompanied by an 

 offer of the contribution of the Society's collections to form the 

 nucleus of the Public Museum. 



The Committee are aware of the strong objection that is felt by 

 many Members of the Society to parting with the collections which 

 have been accumulated under the Society's auspices and have so 

 long been preserved in the Society's house. And fully sympathizing 

 with these feelings, it is only on what they must consider to be cer- 

 tain proof of the inability of the Society to maintain and exhibit 

 those collections in a manner worthy of its reputation as a Scienti- 

 fic body, or so as to be really available for students, or to lead in any 

 way to the advancements of Science, that they make this proposal. 

 They look upon it as quite unreasonable in itself to expect that the 

 Government should keep up a Public Museum such as they have 

 advocated, and the importance of which can be contested by no lover 

 of Science, in addition to the Museum of the Society. And on mere- 

 ly scientific grounds they conceive that in the event of a really 

 good Museum being established, such as they trust may be found 

 possible, it would be most desirable that all the available collections 

 both of Natural History and Geology should be united, and that 

 the resources of the Museum, whether in reference to the contri- 

 butions of specimens, or the means required for its support in men 

 and money, should be as much concentrated as possible, and not 

 divided between separate institutions. 



The Committee would further remark that the fear expressed by 

 some Members of the Society that the separation of the Museum from 

 its immediate custody would lead to the dispersion of the Society or 

 would diminish its usefulness is, in their opinion, quite unfounded. 

 The Iloyal Society of London which, in the range of the subjects of 

 which it takes cognizance is more akin to this Society than any of the 

 other English learned Societies has never had any Museum ; among 

 those Societies possessing Museums not a few have found them 

 causes of debt and difficulty, and most prejudicial to their interest ; 



