JOURNAL 
OF THE 
ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 
Part I.—HISTORY, LITERATURE, &e. 
No. I.—1894. 
Note on a Chinese inscribed slab lately dug out of St. John's Churchyard , 
Calcutta.—By The Rev. H. B. Hyde, M. A. 
[Read, December, 1893.] 
The Chinese inscription, of which I exhibit a transcription, and also 
a paper-rubbing, occurs on a slab of agglomerate lava in St. John’s 
Churchyard. Mr. T. H. Holland, a.r.c.s., f.g.s., of the Geological 
Survey, has lately read a paper to us upon this piece of stone, 1 geologi¬ 
cally considered, and tells us that it belongs to a formation found in the 
neighbourhood of the Corea, and elsewhere on the Chinese coast. The 
slab measures 2 ft. 8f in. by 2 ft. 5 inches, and is 6 in. thick. It was 
recently dug out of the ground on excavating the earth around the 
Speke monument. 
I am informed by the Verger of St. John’s that he had seen the 
slab before its present discovery. In the year 1886, in the process, he 
thinks, of preparing flower-beds at a spot on the north side of the Church, 
within the limits of the old burying-ground, four brick graves were 
1 Vide Journal , Vol. LXII, Part II, p. 164. 
J. I. 1 
