INTRODUCTION. 



iii 



our countrymen in the East, over so large a portion of the surface of the 

 earth as yet unexplored by science, the most common observer can hardly 

 fail to notice phenomena that may be important for the purpose of Physi- 

 cal Research ; " observationes liunt spectando id quod natura perse ipsam 

 sponte exhibet." Boscovich. Few apparently as are the labourers in this 

 vast field, it seems but little understood how competent those few are to 

 make the most valuable additions to our knowledge. The Physical 

 Class hopes to encourage the spirit of enquiry by the assurance that the 

 labours of the observer will be no longer in vain. In order to assist 

 persons unpractised in Geology, the Physical Class are about to 

 republish Dr. Fitton's instructions for collecting Geological specimens 

 with additional directions, which they are anxious to distribute as 

 extensively as possible to all who have an opportunity of collecting speci- 

 mens and forwarding them to the Society. It is with sincere gratification 

 that the Members of this Class are enabled to state, that although a year 

 and a few months have scarcely elapsed since its re-establishment, 

 communications have been received, affording ample materials for a conti- 

 nuation of these Transactions, and that they have lost no time in placing a 

 second part in the hands of their Printers. 



It may be necessary to add a few words upon the mode adopted in 

 the following pages of expressing native names in Roman characters, es- 

 pecially as they are mostly the names of places, which often assume a 

 very different character in the text or maps of the present publication, from 

 that which they wear in the most improved maps of Arrowsmith or other 

 Geographers. The system here adopted is that which is described by 

 Sir William Jones, in the first volume of the Asiatic Researches, and 

 which has been followed with very few exceptions in all the subsequent 

 volumes, as well as in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society and 

 of the Literary Society of Bombay. The orthography of the common maps 



