n 
Proceedings of Societies. 
[March, 
menes to build him a fleet. A few lines at the beginning of the thirty-seventh 
Book, correctly express Hindu sentiments. The Indians, says Nonnus, burnt their 
dead with tearless eyes, considering that the deceased had escaped the bonds of life, 
and the spirit had returned to its circular revolution, to the goal from ivhence it 
first set out. In the thirty-ninth and fortieth Books, the Rhadamanes, or Arabs, 
enter the Hydaspes with their fleet, which is encountered, under the walls of Deris, 
by the Indian flotilla, commanded by Deriaden and Morrheus. A sanguinary con- 
flict ensues — and the war is terminated by the triumph of Bacchus. On the whole, 
Mr. Wilson observes, that it is clear the Dionysiacs have nothing in common with 
the Ramayana, and little more with the Mahabharat ; although they no doubt offer 
some analogies in the names of persons and places. 
There can be no doubt, that an active intercourse subsisted between India and Egypt 
in the early ages of Christianity, by way of the Red Sea, carried on by both Arab and 
Indian vessels. The ancient fictions, and, it may be added, laws of the Hindus— and 
the vestiges of their race, language, and religion, found in distant countries, particu- 
larly in the Eastern Archipelago, prove that there was a time when they were enter- 
prising navigators, and that they were, as Nonnus asserts, accustomed to naval tactics. 
That they should visit Egypt — that some of them, probably many, were to be found at 
Alexandria and other cities of that, country, is therefore nothing unaccountable; and 
from them Nonnus, himself an Egyptian, might easily have collected much more 
valuable accessions to his long and elaborate composition, than those which it actually 
affords. 
Class of Natural History and Physics. 
Friday, March 11 th, 1831. 
Sir Edward Ryan in the chair. 
1— Letters were read from the Secretaries of the Royal Asiatic and the Geolo- 
gical Societies, acknowledging the receipt of the first volume of the Physical De- 
partment, Asiatic Researches. 
2.— A letter from the Secretary to the Asiatic Society communicated & Resolution 
of the last meeting of the Society, granting a further assignment of Rupees One 
Thousand towards the experimental borings in Fort William. 
f he Annals of the Lyceeum of Natural History at New York, and some Other 
Scientific American publications, were presented on the part of that Institution. 
Some discussion here occurred on the propriety of the distribution of the Trans- 
actions of the Class, in return for compliments of this nature, which led to remarks 
on the general subject of the publication of papers read at the Meetings. The Class 
adopted the opinion of their Committee of Papers, that many communications with 
which they were favored more particularly those of ephemeral interest, might be 
appropriately disposed of by publication in the Gleanings hi Science, a monthly 
without ifii i , by a Me “i7 1 ° f - the Societ y : they would thus appear in print, 
without the delay unavoidable in completing the volume of Transactions and by 
would be emuTed G ftT® l° T ^ the Class > their immediate circulation 
discretion m all matters connected with this subject ’ 
4- — A letter was read from G. Swinton ~ 
transmitting a specimen of the Ava Platina^ in eci etary to Government, 
Burney. Blatma, m grains, received from Major 
on A the Kimn^uen C ri ve ^ teh^is^tv Mineral COmes from a place called Kannee, 
liop^oon ^ Munnipoor, we may 
of Ava. ^qmunted with the localities of the Platina mines 
of the *HimmaW S The ShTOmS the U® ° f She11 ^ 
stratum of black slatev schist minm 1 ^ ^ mo ’ were mostly found in a loose 
between thirteen and fifteen thousand 7 feft™^ 
Speetee and upon the outward correspond ini !i P ° n th( r declivity of the 
also occurred in the soil of the Welds ' ind nnnn In’* ° r ' C ' n,ir ? lna) rocks - The ? 
hollow between the limestone rocks,’ which cont^ined^f 6 ° f Tf 8 tra r‘ s ’ in * 
other shells imbedded • thev ire never f contained the profusion of pectens and 
but abound in TeVose sol » d a« somet' “ * l,e “*5?™. she11 itSe '. f ’ 
schist. Tlie ammonites occur in the sands 1™“ Se ™r adhering- to, or imbedded m 
rocks above-mentioned, at an elevation «f °“t the summit of the calcareous 
, ai an elevation of fifteen thousand feet. One cliff, rising 
