and submits at once a preliminary scheme, suggesting the general scope of the details which it would propose in filling up the outline which has been sketched out by you. The process of making a reference to the Society at large is of necessity tedious; and the Council considers that it will best meet the interests of the Society and the convenience of the Government, if it endeavours to obtain the general approval of the Government to a scheme which it could recommend to the acceptance of the Society in a complete form. In this sense and with the distinct reservation, that the opinions expressed in this letter are those of the Council, and cannot be held to be binding on the Society, or to interfere in any way with its complete liberty of action in dealing finally with the matter, the Council desires me to make the following observations.

4. The Council has understood your letter to be designed to elicit from the Society an expression of its wishes as to the details of the general arrangements, which it had been said must be satisfactory to the members of the Society, before its collections could be transferred to a Public Museum; and it is with much respect that the Council desires to submit for the favourable consideration of His Excellency the Governor-General the following scheme, which in its essentials is, it thinks, quite in accordance with the proposals contained in your letter:

I. MUSEUM.

I. The Museum to be a Public Museum, the management being vested in a Board of Trustees to be constituted by an Act of the Legislature.

II. The Trustees to be fourteen in number; the President to be His Excellency the Governor-General of India; the Vice-President to be the President of the Asiatic Society; of the remainder, six to be named by the Government, and six by the Asiatic Society.

III. The complete management, arrangement, and disposal of the Museum to be in the Trustees.

IV. The Museum to be open to the public under suitable rules to be approved by the Government.

V. The rules further to provide for the continuance to the Members of the Asiatic Society, in respect to the New Museum, of all their existing privileges in respect to their own present Museum-in regard to their rights of entering the Museum, and of examining

or taking out specimens from it-subject to such modifications as shall be made by the Trustees from time to time in communication with the Council of the Asiatic Society.

VI. Suitable clauses to be introduced into the Act of Incorporation to provide for the restoration to the Asiatic Society of its contributions to the Museum, if the Trust shall hereafter be dissolved; and for enabling the Society to mark by a special label its donations to the Museum, and to keep a separate Catalogue of all specimens so contributed by it.

VII.-The Council understands it to be the intention of the Government to endow and maintain the Museum on a scale suitable to the importance of the object for which it is founded, and corresponding with the great value of the contributions to be made to it by the Society.

VIII. The locality suggested for the Museum, the site of the present Small Cause Court, appears to the Council to be excellent.

IX.-Regarding the name to be given to the Museum, the Council would desire to abstain from offering any present opinion; a decision on this point is obviously not pressing.

X.-Under the foregoing stipulations, the Council would recommend to the Society to agree to the complete transfer of all its collections to the new Museum; the Library and Manuscripts, Pictures, Busts, and other miscellaneous objects to be specified hereafter, to be reserved by the Society.

II.-ASIATIC SOCIETY.

XI.-The Asiatic Society to remain constituted exactly as at present, having the complete management and disposal of its own. affairs.

XII.-The Council considers that the Society would be desirous of receiving accommodation in juxta-position with the new Museum building.

XIII. The house for the Society should provide a Meeting Room; an Ante-room; a Library; two Reading-rooms or Study Rooms; a Room for the Librarian and Clerks; and other ordinary subsidiary minor accommodation.

5. There is only one point on which the Council would desire to suggest to the Government any important modification of the proposals that have been made in your letter. It has reference to the

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disposal of the Society's present house, which, for the following reasons, the Council would submit, may with justice be left in the hands of the Society, and not be transferred to the Government in return for the accommodation offered in juxta-position with the new Museum. The Council has nothing further from its intentions than to enter into negotiations with the Government on this subject in anything approaching a spirit of self-aggrandisement or of barter. The object which the Government and the Society alike have in view in this matter is the furtherance of Science and of true knowledge, and there is no room for the intrusion of any questionable motive on either side. But the Council feels strongly the great value, not only in a scientific sense, but in a pecuniary sense also, of the collections which it offers to hand over to the new Museum. These collections have been brought together after long years of patient labour, and at great expense to the Society; and the Council rejoices that the Society has so bestowed its means, and that it is now placed in a position to give still greater effect to its past work by bestowing its Museum on an Institution which promises to fulfil all its aspirations in this direction. And having this feeling, the Council thinks that it may fairly and frankly suggest to the Government that, in return for the very extensive collections thus to be presented to the public by the Society-collections of which the money value must be estimated at many thousand pounds-the State might, without for a moment considering that it conferred a favour in so doing, provide the Society with the accommodation it would need near the new Museum, and leave to the Society the disposal of its existing house, for the purpose of reinforcing the very restricted pecuniary means now at its disposal. If proof be needed that these means will in the future be well applied, the Council is satisfied that it will be completely given in the past history of the Society; and it appeals confidently to the manner in which the Society's Museum has been got together, and to the present proposals regarding its future disposal, to show the spirit in which the Society may be expected to perform its functions. The objects of the Society will be, as they ever have been, the advancement of knowledge. But from the very nature of the case, the numbers of the Society being small, and the contributions of its Members limited, the want of pecuniary means has always greatly restricted the sphere of the Society's usefulness,

and, under any imaginable circumstances, no doubt will still continue to do so. The Council therefore trusts that the Government will see in this suggestion nothing but the indication on their part of what appears to them an equitable and practicable way of making the present arrangements as conducive as possible to the usefulness of the Society, without making any serious or undue claim on the Government.

6. Should His Excellency the Governor-General in Council be disposed to meet the views that have thus been expressed by the Council, the Council trusts that the Society would ratify an arrangement on such a basis.

I have the honor to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

W. S. ATKINSON,

Secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

The following gentlemen duly proposed at the last meeting were balloted for, and elected ordinary members:

A. M. Monteath, Esq., C. S.; Hon'ble T. J. H. Thurlow; J. Gordon, Esq., C. S.; Captain H. Hyde, Bengal Engineers; Baboo Bhola Nauth Mullick.

The Hon'ble Major General Sir R. Napier, K. C. B.; Major Allen Johnson, Bengal Staff Corps.

The following Gentlemen were named for ballot at the next meeting:

H. Beverley, Esq., C. S., proposed by Dr. Duka, seconded by the President.

Captain J. P. Basevi, Bengal Engineers, proposed by LieutenantColonel Thuillier, seconded by Major Walker.

J. W. S. Wyllie, Esq., proposed by Mr. Bayley, seconded by the President.

W. L. Heeley, Esq. C. S., proposed by Mr. Atkinson, seconded by the President.

Col. Vincent Eyre, proposed by Archdeacon Pratt, seconded by Col. R. Strachey.

Communications were received

Frem Rev. A. Brandt through Major Dalton, a copy of a Phonetic table of the Alphabet prepared by a Philologer of Finland,

2. From Baboo Gopee Nauth Sein, Abstracts of Meteorological Observations taken at the Surveyor General's Office, Calcutta, for March and April last.

3. From Mr. E. C. Bayley, some remarks on certain coins recently procured for the Society from Captain Stubbs.

Mr. Bayley remarked that the whole collection obtained from Captain Stubbs had not as yet been fully examined, but that he would make some observations on a few of them which appeared to him especially worthy of notice.

Two of these were gold coins of Malwa, the first a fine one of Mahomed Shah, the son of Hoshung Shah.

It bore on the obverse the titles of that King "al Sultan ul Azim —Taj ud dunia wa uddin Abul Mozuffer;" on the reverse, “Mohamud Shah bin Hushung Shah ul sultan" and round the margin the name of the coin "al Sikah," the mint Shadiabad or Mandoo, and the date 840.

As to the latter it was curious that Ferishtah quoting the Tarikhi Alfi in two places gives dates which place the death of this sovereign about two months before the close of 839, A. H. This point is given with much circumstantiality and detail, so as to show that it is no mere clerical error.

The other coin which was somewhat similar in its reverse appearance is of considerably later date.

The obverse inscription ran thus: "ul Sultan ul Azim bin Ghieas uddunia wa uddin Khilji" (bin ?), Abul Mozuffer Mahmood Shah Khuld Allah Khalafalu.

The reverse contained (imitating the coins of Alaudin Khilji of Dehli) "Sekunder ul Sani Yamin ul Khalafat Nasir Amir ul mominin.” The reverse margin gives the same legend as the other coin, but the date which was imperfect was either 908 or 909.

The next three coins were coins of the earlier Khalifs.

No. I. was a coin of the Abbaside Khalif al Mahdi and was struck at Bagdad in 162 A. H. It is described and figured as No. XXIII. in Marsden's Numismata Orientalia.

The others were both apparently of Haroun al Rashid, dated respectively 19? and 192. The date on the first named coin, however, was somewhat rubbed and dubious, and the name of the mint was also unfortunately imperfect. This was the more to be regretted as the name of the mint seemed to be a new one.