ii 



INTRODUCTION. 



existence, and for the same purposes as formerly, exclusive of Medicine, 

 for which a distinct Institution had already been established. Resolutions 

 were, at the same time passed, empowering the Committee to elect its 

 own officers, to frame its own rules, and to publish its proceedings as a 

 distinct portion of the Asiatic Researches. 



Upon the organization of the Committee, communications were in- 

 vited from various parts of Hindustafi, and the Papers consequently re- 

 ceived, are now offered to the public. They are pi*inted in the same form 

 and type as the Asiatic Researches, of which they are an integral por- 

 tion ; but they are so far distinct that they need not be necessarily incor- 

 porated with the Literary Transactions of the Society. By giving them 

 a detached and separate existence, it has been thought that they would 

 be more likely to attract the attention of the readers to whom they are 

 chiefly addressed, or individuals engaged in scientific pursuits, than if 

 they were associated with matters which are more especially addressed 

 to literary men, or to the general reader. 



The subjects to which the attention of the Physical Class of the Asia- 

 tic Society is principally directed, are the Zoology, Meteorology, Miner- 

 alogy, and Geology of Hindustan. To acquire an accurate knowledge of 

 facts by observation and experiment, and to apply those facts to a synthe- 

 tical explanation of particular phenomena, is the object of all Physical 

 science. In those branches to which the attention of this class is particu- 

 larly directed, facts may be accurately recorded even by the unscientific 

 enquirer ; the connection of these facts and the deducing therefrom general 

 conclusions, must be left to those whose habits of scientific combination 

 and accuracy have qualified them for carrying on this last step in the process 

 of induction. It was principally with the hope of collecting and recording 

 with precision, facts, that this Class has been established. Scattered as are 



