6 
THE INDIAN MUSEUM: 1814-1914. 
The Government of India, though fully ready to recog¬ 
nize its duty to establish in the Metropolis an Imperial 
Museum for the collection and exposition of specimens of 
Natural History in all its branches and of other objects of 
interest, physical, economical and historical, declined to 
entertain the project on financial grounds. At the same 
time, the Government of India renewed its offer to relieve 
the Society by taking over the geological and palaeontological 
collections. 
The members of the Society, however, were insistent 
and decided to memorialize the Secretary of State for India 
in Council. The effort was successful, and, in May, 1862 the 
Government of India announced that, in their opinion, the 
time had arrived when the foundation of a public Museum 
in Calcutta, which had been generally accepted as a duty of 
the Government, might be taken into consideration with 
regard to its practical realization. Negotiations which now 
followed between the Government of India and the Asiatic 
Society were protracted till the middle of the year 1865, 
when it was arranged that the Society should make over to 
the Board of Trustees for the proposed Museum the zoologi¬ 
cal, geological^ and archaeological collections, and the 
Government should provide suitable accommodation for the 
Society in the Museum building, the portion allotted to the 
Society to be in their exclusive occupation and control. 
Legislative sanction was accorded to these conditions by the 
Indian Museum Act of 1866, and the valuable collections of 
the Society, accumulated during half a century by a long 
succession of enthusiastic members, Avere formally transferred 
to a Board of Trustees of which Sir Barnes Peacock, then 
Chief Justice of' Bengal, was appointed President. The 
members included the Bishop of Calcutta, the Vice-Chancel¬ 
lor of the University and the President and three other 
representatives of the Asiatic Society. But although the 
negotiations had been carried on smoothly and harmoniously 
and had received legislative sanction, difficulties of a grave 
1 The geological collections were not transferred actually to the 
Trustees but to the Geological Survey. 
