S04 Proceedhrgs of the Mad. Lit. Society 



[No. 



will do me tlie favor of laying before the Madras Literary Society the ac- 

 companying Prospectus for subscriptions, which has been circulated here 

 to the Members of our Society. The Bengal Journal which was mad^ 

 by Prinsep so successful a medium for encouraging and diffusing a taste 

 for Oriental Reseai'ch in all its tranches now contains little beyond statis- 

 tical papers and some subjects of Natural History, and the time seems 

 now favourable for combining the efforts of all in India, interested in pro- 

 secuting Oriental inquiries. Few have more successfully devoted theii- 

 leisure time to such inquiries than you yourself have done, and I am sure 

 you have not yet exhausted the store of yom- knowledge, and are still ca- 

 pable of giving us valuable aid in this way. 



I heard of our friend Shaw from Cannanore, and Mrs. S- wrote me to 

 say he was much better. 



Believe me, &c. 



(Signed) James Bird. 



N. B.— Is Major Felix at Madras or Simla ? 



(Signed) J. B. 



Quarterly Journal of the Bombay Branch Royal Asiatic Society, 

 edited by the Secretary. 



The Committee of the Society, appointed at the Meeting of the 12th 

 December last, to audit the accounts and for other financial objects hav- 

 ing reported that the expenses of the Quarterly Journal can be no longer 

 debited to the current income of the Society, but must be liquidated from 

 special subscriptions to this individual object ; the Secretary begs leave to 

 intimate his willingness to carry on this publication under the auspices of 

 the Society, provided nearly sufficient subscriptions, among the Resident, 

 non-Resident Members of the Society and others, are obtained for de- 

 fraying the expenses of publication. Situated so favorably as we are in 

 "Western India for investigating and illustrating peculiar and particular 

 objects of research relative to Hindu Mythology, Philology and History, 

 we are in possession of exclusive advantages for acquiring novel and use- 

 ful information on the Ethnography of the various Asiatic races, and re- 

 garding the Geography and Natural History of the neighbouring coun- 

 tries, and on the Paleography and arts of their inhabitants, placed as we 

 •find ourselves between Arabia, Persia and Tartary on the one hand, and 

 Egypt, Ethiopia and Africa on the other. With such advantages of loca- 

 lity it seems incumbent on us and the Society to diffuse and make known 

 that information, on various subjects of Oriental research which many, 

 the Editor has found, are willing to collect and communicate. No exer- 

 tion of his shall be spared to make the Journal as extensively useful and 

 interesting, on aU subjects, as the advantages of the locality naturally 

 promise ; and he is sanguine, from the assistance hitherto given, that the 



