O 
PREFAC E. 
This book has been prepared in commemoration of the 
hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Asiatic 
Society’s Museum, which subsequently developed into the 
Indian Museum as it now exists. 
Different chapters have been written by different authors, 
all intimately connected with the whole or parts of the 
Museum, and no attempt has been made to produce uniformity 
between the chapters. If the work and constitution of the 
Indian Museum are to be understood it must be realized 
that it is not a single homogeneous organism, but rather an 
association of scientific and artistic sections bound together by 
a common aim in so far as the public galleries are concerned, 
but otherwise with different functions and even dependent 
financially on different departments of the Government of 
India. 
Thus the geological collections are for the most part the 
property of the Geological Survey of India, for which the 
Trustees (who have but recently assumed even visiting powers 
in the geological galleries) are bound bj/ Act to provide accom¬ 
modation, and the Geological Survey is subordinate to 
the Imperial Department of Commerce and Industry. The 
archaeological collections have been lent by the Trustees to 
the Director General of Archaeology in India, who makes his 
own financial arrangements for their preservation and display 
in the Museum with the Education Department of the Govern¬ 
ment of India, tlie Trustees again exercising mere visiting 
powers in the galleries in which the collections are shown to 
the public. A similar arrangement has been made in respect 
to the Industrial Section with the Director of the Botanical 
Survey of India, an officer of the Imperial Department of 
Revenue and Agriculture; while the Art Section, which 
