90 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [March, 



best they could and selling them under false pretences, knowing them 

 to be of low caste, to other Brahmanas and Kshatryas who were often 

 relatives of their own, in view to marriage. The offspring of these mar- 

 riages would of course pass as pure ; and yet it was popularly known 

 that the parentage of the thus- obtained mothers was enveloped in 

 obscurity if not something worse. 



We have then, on the one hand, the ancient chiefs of the land 

 marrying into families of known impurity of origin, and we have, on 

 the other hand, the clansmen buying their wives, of whose origin they 

 know absolutely nothing ; and the more I think over these things, 

 the more does the question with which I began this letter press 

 itself on my astonished vision, viz. " What is Caste?" 



Any light that can be thrown upon the above interesting subject 

 by yourself, or any other enlightened member of the Society, will be 

 thankfully received by 



P. Carnegy. 



The Secretary also read the following from Lieut. Sale. 



Near Ber sip or Khabiir village on the road from Laiping to Assaloo, 

 north Cachar, about six miles from Saiping, in a rice field, there 

 are found a considerable number of hollow, irregularly shaped 

 spheres formed of grey sandstone. These spheres are more finished in 

 the upper than in the lower hemispheres and are roughly hollowed out ; 

 the aperture being always uppermost and varying with the size of the 

 vessel. 



The vessels themselves vary from 5 to 2 feet in horizontal diameter, 

 (the shape being that of a flattened sphere) and are extremely massive : 

 the sandstone, out of which they are hewn, is covered with a number 

 of small holes or depressions as if the vessels had been exposed to the 

 attacks of some rock-boring insect. 



The natives of Bersip village say that large numbers of these vessels 

 are scattered over the hills between N. lat. 25° 15' — 25° 30' and 

 E. long. 92° 40' — 92° 50' and, according to their story, they were 

 made by a rajah named Sazar who lived in some very remote age, 

 and that he made them " nam hi waste" 



They are said to exist in great quantities in a hill termed Golsazar 



