THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SECTION. 
33 
entered in the registers and numbered; but descriptions, label¬ 
ling or fresh arrangement was impossible. In 1892, the 
Trustees appointed the late Babu Puma Chandra Mukherji 
as temporary archaeologist to the Museum. Puma Babu 
was mostly employed in collecting sculptures. In the same 
year the late Mr. C J. Rodgers, Honorary Numismatist to 
the Government of India, began a catalogue of the coins in 
the Museum, which was finally published in four parts. At 
this time the coin cabinet of the Museum contained no more 
than forty-two varieties. 
At this period of the Museum’s existence Dr. A. F. R. 
Hoernle, Philological Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Ben¬ 
gal, generally directed the policy of the Trustees in antiqua¬ 
rian matters^ and took great interest in the archaeological 
collections. He revised and corrected Cunningham’s readings 
of the numerous votive inscriptions on the railing of the 
Bharhut stupa, which were published in a series of articles in 
the Indian Antiquary. 
In the following year the Government of Bengal decided 
to transfer the contents of the Museum founded by Mr. 
A. M. Broadley in Bihar to Calcutta, and Babu P. C. Mukherji 
was instructed to supervise their removal The entire col¬ 
lection of the Bihar Museum was added to that of the Indian 
Museum, and the material thus collected formed the basis of 
M. Foucher’s excellent treatises on Indian Buddhist icono¬ 
graphy. Even now the Indian Museum is the only museum 
in India where Buddhist iconography can be studied in detail. 
The Bihar collection also contained a large number of unique 
Hindu images; and if any one takes up the study of Hindu 
iconography seriously, he will have to rely mainly on the 
Bihar specimens in the Indian Museum. 
In June, 1894, the services of Babu P. C. Mukherji were 
dispensed with. Since his appointment the work done by 
him chiefly consisted of collection of specimens; very little 
was done towards their classification or rearrangement. 
In 1895 the Government of Bengal spent a large amount 
of money in preparing casts of all the known inscriptions of 
Asoka, for the Indian Museum, and in securing for it a large 
number of Gandhara sculptures from a place called Loriyan- 
