42! Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [March, 



The following extract of a letter from Mr. Oldham, offered as a 

 correction of his remarks reported in the Proceedings for December 

 18 04, was read. 



" Mr. Oldham said. ' As I was not at the last meeting of the Society, 

 the proceedings of which have just been confirmed, I would take this 

 opportunity of correcting a statement then made. I am represented to 

 have said, in some discussion relative to the Spiti Fossils last year, 

 that Dr. Gerard's collection of those fossils which was sent to Dr. 

 Buckland had been despatched before this Society had received its 

 collection from the same place, and from the same collection. This 

 was not what I stated. What I said was, that the collection sent to 

 Dr. Buckland by the Gerards had been despatched and received by 

 him, before the collection sent by the Society, or the Society's collec- 

 tion had been despatched and received (not by the Society in Calcutta 

 but) in London. There were two collections of these Spiti Fossils 

 sent home, one by Dr. Gerard or Capt. Gerard, to Dr. Buckland which 

 collection is now in the Oxford Museum, and a second by this Society 

 not to Dr. Buckland but to Mr. Sowerby, which collection was returned 

 and is now in this Society's Cabinets. The two were quite indepen- 

 dent, sent by different parties to different persons, and with different 

 objects : and what I said was that Dr. Gerard's collection had been 

 received in England months before the Society's collection had been 

 received. The note from Professor Phillips, which is expressed with 

 his characteristic caution, so entirely leaves the only point at issue 

 untouched, that I will not occupy the Society's time by any remarks 

 upon it.' " 



Also 



" Mr. Oldham replied [to Mr. Blanford's suggestion, see Proceed- 

 ings, December 1864,] that he declined to give these dates because 

 as dates of entirely independent facts, they had nothing whatever to do 

 with the points at issue and would only complicate the question." 



The following letter from Professor Agassiz with the resolution of 

 the Council thereon was then read. 



Cambridge, December 18th, 1864. 

 Dear Sir, — A great problem, bearing upon the history of the pro- 

 gress of civilization, still awaits a solution at the hands of the Natur- 



