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



dated the 8th October last, submitting, on behalf of 

 Home Dept. the Council of the Asiatic Society for the consider- 

 ation of the Government of India, a proposal to found 

 in Calcutta an Imperial Museum to which the whole of the Society's 

 collections, except the Library, should be transferred on such terms 

 as might prove satisfactory to the Members of the Society. 



2. The Council appear to incline to the notion that the Univer- 

 sity of Calcutta, the Asiatic Society, and the proposed Imperial 

 Museum, should all be located in one building, namely, the house 

 belonging to and occupied by the Society, and that the Museum 

 should be controlled by a Board selected from among the members 

 of the University and of the Society. 



3. It is apparently contemplated that the whole of the expense 

 of the Museum, involving not only the maintenance and preserva- 

 tion of Natural History and other collections now belonging to the 

 Society, but also their further extension should fall upon the Go- 

 vernment, and that the Society's Funds should be charged only 

 with the expense of the Library and perhaps the repairs of the build- 

 ing. The liability of the Government on this understanding would 

 be indefinite or rather limited only hy the amount it might choose 

 to assign for the purpose. It is evident that some considerable 

 additional expense would have to be incurred at once, as the funds 

 of the Society, aided as they are by a monthly grant of Rupees 300 

 from Government, are insufficient for the proper maintenance and 

 display of the specimens now in the Society's possession. 



4. The President in Council without at all committing the 

 Government to an approval of the scheme sketched out by the 

 Council, recognizes it as a duty of the Government to establish in 

 the Metropolis an Imperial Museum for the collection and exhibi- 

 tion of specimens of Natural History in all its branches, and of 

 other objects of interest, physical, economical, and historical, when 

 the existing pressure on the public finances shall have been relieved. 

 At present the project is not one that can be entertained unless the 

 Society can show that it may be adopted without incurring any 

 considerable expense, and in that case many modifications would be 

 necessary before it could be favourably received. 



5. Meanwhile if it would be any convenience to the Society to 



