RECENT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES ON THE ISLANDS 
OF BALI AND LOMBOK. 
The 21st Volume of the Transactions of the Batavian Society of 
Arts and Sciences, which we received by the February Steamer, con¬ 
tains a highly interesting report upon the operations of the Society 
by its learned and indefatigable President Dr. W. R. Baron Van 
Hoevell, which was read at the last general meeting. As we cannot 
at present make room for the whole, we translate the portion which 
relates to the means taken by the Society to avail itself ot the late 
expedition to Bali for the attainment of a more accurate and com¬ 
plete knowledge of that remarkable island. 
When the report began to be confirmed that an expedition against 
the King of B’liling, on the Island of Ball, was about to be under¬ 
taken, the attention of the Direction of the Batavian Society of Arts 
and Sciences was strongly attracted to that Island so important in 
relation to the philology of this Archipelago, and it appeared to 
them that it would lead to results of great value to science if this 
opportunity was seized to make antiquarian, historical, ethnological 
and linguistic investigations’. In consequence of this the President 
of the Direction waited on his Excellency the Minister of State, Go¬ 
vernor General of Netherlands India, with the following address. 
Batavia 2 9th. February 184G. 
We find amongst the natives of the Archipelago over whom the 
Netherlands has exercised sovereign authority for about two centu¬ 
ries and a half, four different civilzations, viz., 
1st. An original Polynesian or Malayan ; 
2nd. A Hindu civilization which followed on the Malayan, but 
which basso united itself with the more polished nations of these Is¬ 
lands (above all the proper Malay and Javanese) that, in language, 
manners, usages, letters and remains of religion, they bear a general 
clearly recognizable Hindu character. 
3rd. An Arabian Mahomedan civilization, which however, ex- 
