1879.] 
President's Address. 
33 35 
by Dr. Anderson, tbe superintendent, and by bis staff of assistants, espe¬ 
cially by the taxidermists’ department under Mr. Fraser, in the course of 
the last year. To the members of the Society it must be a source of 
gratification to see the superb collections made by themselves and their 
predecessors fairly exhibited in well-lighted galleries, instead of being hid¬ 
den in small rooms, as they formerly were, and the value of the collections 
can be much better appreciated since it has been possible to see and examine 
them. 
The geological galleries at the Museum, which were finally opened to 
the public from the 1st of January, 1878, had been ready for exhibition 
for some time before, and even temporarily thrown open, but they required 
much less preparation, and more superintendence was available, amongst the 
officers of the Geological Survey, for the important work of arrangement. 
Although the Society’s specimens form a much smaller element of the 
geological than of the zoological, archaeological, and ethnological collections, 
no unimportant part, both of the fossils and minerals, was the property 
of our association, the most valuable amongst the specimens derived from 
the Asiatic Society being probably the Siwalik mammalian remains, and 
the series of meteorites, both of which occupy a conspicuous position 
in the new galleries. 
The Zoological Gardens of Calcutta continue to flourish, and although, 
like other gardens of the same class, they are rather adapted for recreation 
than for study, it is a question whether this is not an advantage, for the 
number of students is so limited in India, that education is needed more 
than opportunities for original investigation. Several rare Indian animals 
have already been exhibited, and it is to be hoped that the number will be 
increased. 
Passing now from the more local subjects of interest and turning to 
those of wider scope ; first and foremost of all research in India, as the 
ground-work upon which so many other sciences depend, is our knowledge 
of the topography of the country and of neighbouring regions. The first 
branch of enquiry progresses satisfactorily in the hands of General Walker, 
and his able assistants of the trigonometrical and topographical surveys, 
and if the second is still far from what we could desire, some advance has 
been made, thanks to the officers of the same survey. Some important pro¬ 
gress, to which I will refer presently, has been achieved in trans-frontier 
exploration, and almost the only scientific use hitherto made of the Afghan 
expedition has been the. extension of geographical surveying. 
But it is impossible not to regret that our present information is not 
wider. It is difficult to cast a glance over the map of India and not be 
struck by the hard sharp line that divides, on so many of our frontiers, the 
known from the unknown. Desprte the new treaty with China, Tibet 
