General Meeting, May 15th, 1852. xiii. 



those incidents which give a charm and an interest to the 

 records of a nation's career, and also because those gentlemen 

 who have treated the subject hitherto, have substituted com- 

 pilation and narrative for history, and have failed to advance 

 those philosophical views, without which, it will not satisfy 

 the requirements of the present age. Your Committee would 

 also be happy to see more papers on Statistics ; on the adapta- 

 tion of the Island for Railroads ; on the best mode of arranging 

 Electric Telegraphs ; on the advantages of introducing malle- 

 able iron in the construction of Bridges, as has recently been 

 done in England with so great economy and success ; these, 

 and many other subjects of great practical importance might, 

 it is believed by your Committee, be most appropriately 

 received into such a Journal as the Society wish to establish. 

 Again, in reference to the treatment of purely Oriental subjects, 

 your Committee, seeing the attention of the Parent Society 

 so much and so successfully devoted to the subject of Bud- 

 hism (vide Major Cunningham and Captain Chapman's papers 

 in the last number of the Journal), cannot overlook how much 

 that subject might be elucidated by systematic and active 

 enquiries on the spot ; nor can your Committee deem it pro- 

 bable that such enquiries, when superintended by the great 

 erudition of the Eev. Mr. Gogerly, the Rev. Mr. Palm, Mr. 

 De Zoysa, and other Oriental scholars, would fail of attaining 

 the most complete success. This view of the case has been 

 confirmed by the receipt by last mail of a letter from Captain 

 Chapman, marked B., and attached to this Report, in which 

 that indefatigable Orientalist invites the attention of the So- 

 ciety to specific points of importance, and requests answers 

 to various questions. Your Committee are of opinion, that a 

 correspondence such as that commenced by Captain Chapman, 

 could only be continued through the instrumentality of small 

 Committees of two, three, or four members each, and speci- 

 ally charged with the duties peculiar to the department of 

 knowledge or enquiry over which they respectively preside, 



