1868.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 25 



completion of that which he had begun. He ought indeed to have 

 ceased at that time from all labour, but he could not reconcile himself 

 to inactivity ; and the consequence was, that he fell a victim to one of 

 those terrible accidents by which an overwrought brain sometimes 

 revenges itself on those who deny it necessary rest." 



M. Reinaud was President of the Societe Asiatique for 20 years, 

 and he discharged the duties of that office with extraordinary exacti- 

 tude. It was his perseverance in all he undertook, that enabled him 

 to attain to the high position he held. It was by slow but incessant 

 labour, and by being careful never for a moment to lose sight of the 

 object he had in view, that he was enabled to render his talents so 

 profitable. For his high attainments in Arabic literature, he was 

 elected an honorary member of this Society in March, 1840. 



It is not only in Philology that our loss has been heavy, we have 

 also to deplore the death of a Physicist of great distinction, one 

 whose fame too had been acquired in India. The death of Sir 

 George Everest would have been noticed at the last annual meet- 

 ing, had not the news reached us somewhat late for that occasion. 

 This eminent Surveyor and Geographer was born at Gwerndale, 

 Brecon, on 4th July, 1790, and entered the Bengal Artillery in 1806. 

 Almost from his arrival in India, his scientific career may be said to 

 have commenced. Having been selected for the duty by Sir Stamford 

 Raffles, he made a reconnaissance survey of Java, during the British 

 occupation of that Island from 1814 to 1816. His next work of im- 

 portance on his return to India, was in connection with Engineering, 

 and particularly on the Telegraph between Benares and Calcutta. 



In 1818 he entered the great Trigonometrical Survey as an assistant, 

 and his first employment in this new Department was in the Nizam's 

 dominions. Here the climate so much affected his health, that he was 

 obliged to go to the Cape for change ; and during this period he wrote 

 i a paper, which was published in the proceedings of the Astronomical 

 iSociety, on the circumstances appertaining to the Abbe de la Caille's 

 arc. 



In 1823, on the death of Colonel Lambton, Captain Everest be- 

 came Superintendent of the Survey, and he worked with so much 

 ardour in this new office, that he was compelled to go to England for 

 rest and change. He returned to India well supplied with Geodetical 



