550 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. 6. 



3d. Bringing to the notice of the meeting the wishes of Lieut. 

 Maury of the National Observatory, Washington, as explained in the 

 following extracts from the letters to Dr. Buist, Secretary to the Bom- 

 bay Geographical Society, through whom copies of Lieut. M.'s 

 Wind and Current Charts were lately presented to the Society. 



"I am very much in want of materials for my charts relating # to 

 your seas — and this occurs to me. If you can gain access to any 

 number of old log-books, which contain the direction of the wind once 

 for every eight hours, and which give daily the temperature of air and 

 water, though this last shall not be a sine qua non, I will pay for 

 abstracts therefrom at the rate of two cents the day, i. e. suppose the 

 copyist makes the abstract from the log of a vessel that has been 100 

 days at sea, he will receive therefore £2. 



" The tracks which I want on these terms relate to the Indian 

 Ocean only, calling that the Indian Ocean, which extends south from 

 Asia between Africa and New Holland, and which is to the westward 

 of a line drawn from New Guinea to China. This is the region as to 

 which I am most lame of materials, and for abstracts of which I will 

 agree to pay as above, if you deem it expedient to employ one or more 

 copyist on these terms. I have employed copyists at the rate of 2 

 cents per log, for other parts of the ocean, and a quick writer can easi- 

 ly earn dollars 6, or dollars 8 a day." 



* * * * 



" I am very desirous to obtain some account of the Infusoria in the 

 rain-dust ; can you not help me to it V 



Resolved that the Society offer to receive and communicate to Lieut. 

 Maury any information which may be elicited by the publication of 

 the above extracts. 



The President then addressed the meeting as follows : — 



" I need hardly remind you that since our last meeting, the Society 

 has sustained a great loss by the death of one of its most distinguished 

 and accomplished members, Mr. Henry Torrens. 



" On the morning of the day on which we last met, I fully expected 

 to have the pleasure of bringing him hither with me in the evening ; 

 you are all probably aware that in the course of that very day he was 

 brought to my house dangerously ill, and that iu less than a fortnight 

 he was numbered with the dead. 



