6 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIX. 



China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society ; Asiatic Society of 

 Japan ; Asiatic Society of Bengal ; Bombay Branch of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society ; John Hopkins University, Baltimore, 

 United States of America ; Bureau of American Ethnology ; the 

 Royal Colonial Institute, London ; the Royal Society of Victoria ; 

 Musee Guimet, Paris. 



ACCOMMOD ATION. 



The Council notes with pleasure that the plans for the Colombo 

 Museum extension have been finally passed unanimously by the 

 Museum Committee. It trusts that the additional buildings will 

 soon be constructed so as to afford much-needed relief for the 

 congested state of the Library and Museum. 



Journals. 



One number of the Journal, Vol. XVIII., No. 55, was pub- 

 lished during the year. It contains, in addition to the Proceedings 

 of the Council and General Meetings, the following Papers : — 



(1) "A Note on the Palaeography of Ceylon," by Mr. C. M. 

 Fernando, M.A., LL.M. 



(2) " Correspondence between Raja Sinha II. and the Dutch," 

 by Mr. Donald Ferguson. 



(3) " Alakeswara : His Life and Times," by Mr. Edward W, 

 Perera, Advocate. 



(4) " Francois Caron and the French East India Company," 

 by Mr. F. H. de Vos, Barrister -at-Law. 



Archaeology. 



Mr. H. C. P. Bell, Archaeological Commissioner, has kindly 

 supplied the following summary of research carried out by the 

 Archaeological Survey during 1905 : — 



Archceological Work, 1905. 



With a vote temporarily much reduced, and with but half of 

 the normal labour force available, the Archaeological Survey had, 

 in 1905, to confine itself almost entirely to " harking back " to 

 field work done during the past fifteen years. 



Owing to the heavy rains of successive monsoons, the incursion 

 of herds of cattle, and the prodigality of nature itself, most of the 

 ruins in the extensive areas excavated at Anuradhapura between 

 1890 and 1903 — and at Polonnaruwa since 1900 — had become 

 washed, silted, and hardly recognizable. The very outlines were 

 in places obscured, whilst details of mouldings and sculpture 

 had been greatly hidden by the insidious grasp of ficus and other 

 overwhelming roots. It was most desirable — indeed essential — 

 to partially re-dig the majority of the ruins already exhumed, lest 

 the labour of years should be rendered entirely nugatory. 



