GEOLOGICAL SECTION. 
53 
1848, are preserved among the records of the Department; 
Dr. Andrew Fleming in the Punjab Salt Range; Sir Joseph 
Hooker in Sikkim; Dr. Carter, who in 1857 published a 
“ Summary of the Geology of India between the Ganges, 
Indus, and Cape Comorin” ; and lastly, Dr. McClelland, who 
immediately preceded Dr. Oldham and the regular Survey, 
and continued Mr. Williams’ work in the coal-fields. It is 
recorded that when Dr. Oldham came out to this country 
in 1851, he found that the whole staff of the Survey consisted 
of one peon and one writer, and that all records were kept in 
a single box at the Surveyor-General’s office. 
In 1855 a house was taken on a three years’ lease by 
Government, at a rent of Rs. 370 a month, at No 1, 
Hastings Street, and was fitted up as a Museum and Office 
for the Geological Survey. Correspondence between Dr. Old¬ 
ham and the Council of the Asiatic Society, who refused at 
that time to allow their own collections to be moved to the 
new building, because they thought that by doing so the 
proposal for a national Museum would be indefinitely post¬ 
poned, will be found in the Proceedings of the Society for 
August 1856. The Museum was thrown open to the public 
on the 1st January 1857. In a note on the new departure 
inserted in the first volume of the Memoirs of the Geological 
Survey, Dr. Oldham defines the objects of the Museum, and 
it appears incidentally from this that it was proposed to 
house the institution later on in the new buildings of the 
Calcutta University. A set of rules for the admission of the 
public is added, and as the first of these states that visitors 
are requested to enter their names and number of party in a 
book provided for that purpose, it may be conjectured that 
no great influx of the native population, such as is now to be 
seen any day in the Imperial Museum, was looked for. The 
attendants were also strictly forbidden even to speak to 
visitors—rather a drawback, one would think, to people of 
an inquiring turn of mind. 
Dr. Oldham’s note and the rules referred to are quoted 
below :— 
