are accompanied abundantly with a species of Cerithium (or Turritella?) The locality is about four miles south of Subathoo. I had previously found some indistinct remains of either a Chelonian or Crocodilean character close to my own house. They were firmly imbedded in an intensely hard pudding stone. But my last discovery has placed the matter beyond all doubt.

The limestone beds (near Subathoo) are of little thickness, alternating with, and subordinate to, immense beds of a fissured and friable clay slate, which often contains calcareous matter, derived doubtless from the disintegration of shells originally imbedded in it, and of which the indistinct remains are often apparent; the slate often passes gradually into the limestone, and at such points only are casts of Fossils procurable. The central portion of the limestone beds is intensely hard, and although abounding in fossil remains, nothing can be individually detached.

In many places the limestone beds seem to be wholly composed of Ostreæ, but so firmly cemented together, that as yet I have been unable to obtain an entire specimen. In other beds casts of an Astarte like bivalve are most abundant, sparingly accompanied with Turritella and a few other spinal shells; specimens 'capable of identification are rare, although individuals are sufficiently abundant; the number of genera and species as far as I have yet noticed are few. Ostrea seems to be the only shell retaining a portion of its calcareous matter, all the others are casts. The bones are completely petrified, not a particle of animal matter remaining, and it is impossible to dislodge them entire. Part of a lower jaw showing six alveoli with broken off teeth, and a scapula, are among the most perfect I have been able as yet to disengage from the rock. I mean shortly to revisit the place and to renew my efforts to obtain good specimens.

Subathoo, 20th Nov. 1847.

W. VICARY.

The Council communicated a letter from the most Reverend Dr. Carew, Archbishop of Edessa, offering, in reply to an application from the Society, his suggestions and cordial co-operation in forwarding to His Holiness the Pope, the works once belonging to the Roman Catholic Mission in Thibet, and which Mr. Hodgson has procured from the Grand Lama for presentation to Pope Pius IX. The thanks of the Society were unanimously voted to IIis Grace the Archbishop, whose suggestions as to the mode of transmitting the books, were directed to be adopted; and a complete set of the Society's Oriental publications, Researches and Journal, to be forwarded at the same time for presentation to the Library of the Vatican.

Also extracts from a letter received by Dr. O'Shaughnessy from Professor Wilson, announcing the progress actually made in the home

edition of the Vedas, and offering his advice as to the Oriental wor which the Society should undertake.

*

*

*

*

* We have begun the printing of the Rig Veda, Oxford, the Court having most liberally engaged to defray the cost. The Acade of St. Petersburgh proposes to print the Yajur, and a Dr. Weber has been here veral months collating MSS.; a Dr. Benfey is about to print the text of the S Veda. Still there will be plenty of work for the Society if they have any memb qualified to conduct it. There are many and very extensive supplementary portion which it would be desirable to have printed, but nothing should be printed witho commentary. The Satapatha Brahmana for instance, would be an excellent subjecti their money and their industry. There can be little doubt I think if the grant be 1: withdrawn, the Society will be expected to apply it strictly to the objects for which: was sanctioned, and to furnish regular accounts of its appropriation. Natural His tory is unquestionable a legitimate subject of the Society's researches, but it mus not be the exclusive one. Man must claim his share of attention as well as birds a reptiles. I hope better things from the future.

East India House, Sept. 17, 1817.

H. H. WILSON.

Further, a letter from Dr. Roer, declining, under the circumstances stated by Dr. Wilson, to proceed any further with the edition of th Veda on which he has been engaged, and proposing to follow Dr. Wilson's valuable suggestions.

To DR. W. B. O'SHAUGHNESSY,

Senior Secretary, Asiatic Society, Bengal.

Dated Asiatic Society, 8th Nov. 184

SIR,-Having perceived from a letter of Professor Wilson, that the printing ci the Rig Veda has been actually commenced upon at Oxford, I consider it my duty to propose to the Council, that the Society should discontinue their edition of this Véda.

From the letter above alluded to it also appears, that the Yajur Véda is to be published in Russia, and the Sáma Véda in Germany.

Under these circumstances I would suggest, in accordance with the wish of Professor Wilson, as the most appropriate application of the Oriental fund, the printing of Sanskrit works, connected with the Védas; first of all of the Satapath: Brahmana, as proposed by Professor Wilson, Yáskas Nirukta and Nighanta, & &c. As, however, our Library contains a few portions only of this Brahmana, and as it will take a long time to collect the MSS. for this purpose, I propose in the meantime to publish an edition of the ten Upanishads (as they are called kar ¿Çox or the philosophical part of the Védas. This work, as the foundation of the Védanta and the most ancient record of philosophy that has been handed down to us, is

ally worthy of the patronage of the Society. Some Upanishads have been pubshed before, but neither a complete edition of this appeared nor one equal to the ubject. The Asiatic Society possesses some splendid MSS. of the text, with he commentary of Sankaracharya and a gloss of Ananda Giri. The edition should ;ive the text with English translation, the commentary complete, and such portions of the gloss as illustrate passages not sufficiently explained by the commentary, or is establish another view of the text.

It will be some satisfaction to me, and I believe also to the Society, if the part of the Rig Véda which has been completed, be laid before the public, and I therefore propose to print it on my own responsibility by subscription, if the Society enables me to do so by subscribing to a certain number of copies. I venture to hope, that this proposition will meet with the approval of the Society, which will, I am convinced, sympathize with my disappointment in having laboured many months for an undertaking which must now be abandoned.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

E. ROER,

Co-Secretary, Asiatic Society.

The Council proposed with reference to these communications, that the Oriental Section be solicited to report upon the subject to the January meeting, and that the portion of the Veda already edited by Dr. Roer, be published with the Journal, as a specimen of the contemplated Bengal edition, and at the expense of the Oriental Fund. This proposal was unanimously adopted.

Mr. Piddington read a notice of the rolled balls of coal found in the Burdwan mines, (to be inserted in the Journal.) He also exhibited specimens of Galena presented by Capt. Sherwill from the south of Bhagulpore, and a model of a large diamond in the possession of the Nizam, a notice of which will appear in an early number of the Journal.

Report of the Curator Museum of Economic Geology for the Month of November. Geology and Minerology.-I have put into the form of a paper for the Journal the results of the examination of a specimen of Ball coal from the Burdwan Mines which we obtained with the series of specimens from that quarter presented to the Museum of Economic Geology by Mr. Williams, and these results are highly curious as Geological data, for they seem to prove the existence of beds of coal of the same quality as the present ones, but formed long before them and then broken up and rolled by streams as boulders into the present deposits, whilst they were in

the act of forming, just as we might suppose the Missisippi, now rolling fragmen of coal into the Gulf of Mexico, to be deposited in coal beds now forming the This is a lapse of time at which the imagination is startled, but if the accounts gr by Mr. Williams that these balls are found of all sizes up to 18 inches or more diameter in coal beds, be correct, there seems no other way of accounting for the for they are distinctly rolled, or at least rounded fragments formed like the oth coal in layers. Mr. Homfray, I observe, has noticed these balls as rolled by t attrition of water, but the question of how they can have been deposited, is or first interest with reference to the time we have hitherto supposed necessary for formation of coal and its superincumbent strata.

Economic Geology.-We have received from our always active contributor, Cap. tain Sherwill, two specimens of lead ore, of which he says:

"I send by steamer as it is too heavy for banghy, two lumps of Antimony & embedded in a decaying or oxide stained quartz rock, which is found to the sou of Bhagulpore. As I am busy from morning to night with business connect with my survey, I must defer furnishing any information I may possess upon 2 locality, extent, &c."

This ore contains a portion of Antimony and of Arsenic, but a much larger e of lead, so that it is much more properly a lead and not an antimony ore. We out destroying the specimens we cannot obtain a good piece for analysis, and I ha thus only noticed it temporarily (intending to refer to it again) but desirous th our friend Captain Sherwill should have his discovery announced, assuming it is a new locality, which I believe it to be.

LIBRARY.

The following books have been received since the last meeting:

PRESENTED.

La Rhetorique des nations Musulmanes d'aprés le traite Persan, intitulé Haday: ul-Balagat, par M. Garcin de Tassy.-BY THE AUTHOR.

The Calcutta Christian Observer for November, 1817.-BY THE EDITORS. Meteorological Register kept at the Surveyor General's Office, Calcutta, for th month of October, 1817.-BY THE OFFICIATING DEPUTY SURVEYOR GENERAL The Oriental Baptist, for December, 1817.-BY THE EDITOR.

The Upadeshak, No. 12.-BY THE EDITOR.

Journal Asiatique, Nos. 43-4.

EXCHANGED.

The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine, No. 207.

PURCHASED.

The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, No. 132.

The Curator in the Zoological Department gave his usual report on the acquisitions to the Museum during the past month.

Report of Curator, Zoological Department.

The following presentations have to be recorded this evening.

1. H. E. Strickland, Esq. Oxford. A small collection of English mammalia, ards, and reptiles.

2. Dr. R. Templeton, of Colombo. Two living Monkeys, one an adult male f the Ceylon Hoonuman, the other a remarkably coloured female of Presbytis ophalopterus, (Zimmerman). The former I considered identical (p. 732 ante), idging from a not very good skin of a half grown animal examined some time ago, with Pr. priamus of the eastern and western ghats of the peninsula; but a glance t the living animal suffices to show its distinctness from that and the several other llied species which have been confounded under Pr. entellus. At Mr. Elliot's suggestion, it may be designated

Pr. thersites, Elliot, (Pl.-fig. 3.) Adult male inferior in size to that of Pr. entellus (verus) of Bengal, Orissa, and Central India; of an uniform dusky-grey colour (devoid of fulvous tinge) on the upper parts, darker on the crown and fore-limbs, and passing to dull slaty-brown on the wrists and hands; the hair upon the toes whitish or dull white no crest upon the vertex (as in Pr. priamus), nor does the hair there form a sort of transverse ridge (as in the living Pr. entellus): face surrounded with white, narrow over the brows, the whiskers and beard more developed than in the other entelloid Indian species, and very conspicuously white, contrasting much with the crown and body, which are darker than in Pr. priamus (as I remember was the smaller specimen which I examined formerly). The strongly contrasting white beard is indeed the most striking feature of this Ceylon species, as compared with its near congeners.

:

The specimen of Pr. cephalopterus is a most gentle creature, as were another that I formerly possessed, and a third which I had opportunities of observing all three being females. The two last (one of them now set up in the museum) had the body black, slightly grizzled; croup, tail, and exterior of thighs, albescent, palest on the croup and end of tail: head rufescent-brown, a little tinged with blackish on the sides; and the whiskers, and short hair on the chin and lips, were dull white, conspicuously contrasting. The specimen now sent by Dr. Templeton is of an uniform dark brown colour, passing to dusky on the hands and feet; the head rather paler and more rufescent, and the whiskers and hairs of the chin and lips whitish; the croup, outside of thigh, and tail, are comparatively but slightly paler and albescent. The skin of a male sent by Mr. Jerdon, (procured also in Ceylon, to which island the species seems to be restricted,) is marked as in the others, but is of a much lighter and rufescent brown colour, darker on the hands and feet, and the croup and tail are fulvescent-whitish: its crown, and especially the long hairs of the occiput, are paler than the back. The general colour of this last specimen is, indeed, that which is confined to the head only of black individuals; while in Dr. Templeton's live specimen, the usual colours are nearly blended