PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL, FOR JANUARY, 1876. LIBRARY The Monthly General Meeting of the Asiatic Society was held on Wednesday, the 5th January, 1876, at 9 o'clock P. M. T. Oldham, Esq., LL. D., President, in the chair. The Minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. The following presentations were announced 1. From Dr. D. Brandis, a copy of "The Forest Flora of NorthWest and Central India." 2. From Capt. J. Waterhouse, a copy of his "Report on the Operations connected with the Observation of the Total Solar Eclipse of April 6th, 1875, at Camorta in the Nicobar Islands." 3. From Rajah Jai Kishn Dás, a copy of the Rig Veda Sanhita Bhashya by Pandit Dyananda Saraswati. 4. From W. H. Dall, U. S. Coast Survey, through the Rev. C. H. Dall, a copy of a "Report on Mt. St. Elias." The President, seeing the Rev. C. H. Dall present, asked him to explain the objects of his son's paper MR. DALL said: At the call of our President, I will say a few words of the pamphlet on the table. It details a careful re-measurement of one of the highest mountains in North America, Mt. St. Elias; decidedly the highest in that north-western portion of the continent which Russia ceded to the United States in June 1867, for about a million and a half sterling. Dr. Oldham has made kindly reference to what he is pleased to call the repeated indebtedness of this Society to the same donor,—a son of mine William H. Dall, Acting Assistant, United States Coast Survey, who is getting to be known as the explorer of Alaska (Russian America), to the development of which country he has devoted the best part of a dozen years. The Government have left him in sole charge of this survey and exploration, and have given him, besides other means and appliances of discovery, first one and then another vessel, the "Humboldt" and the "Yukon," specially built for the often dangerous work of sailing among unknown reefs and currents, and charting out (a dozen or more) good harbours, just now opened to commerce. One test of the general success of this work is found in the fact that Alaska has already paid back more, I think, than twenty per cent. of its cost to the United States. I may here say that when I was leaving America, less than three months.ago, Mr. Dall gave me for this Society an Atlas of twenty-four new charts and maps of his, just published in good style, by the Coast. Survey Department. These maps are coming to Calcutta, with other books, round the Cape. The Asiatic Society need hardly be reminded that the best surveys of the N. West coast of the American continent, antedating those of Mr. Dall, were made a century ago,-of course with instruments inferior to those we now possess,-by the faithful and able French explorer La Perouse. If I am rightly informed, he trusted mainly to observations taken with his quadrant or sextant; and generally from the deck of his ship. Important changes and adjustments must come of the instruments and facilities of observation that are ours to-day. These make it no wise incredible that Mr. Dall's rectifications of latitude and longitude should have shifted the whole coast line from 3 to 5 leagues westward, for hundreds of miles;-added eight hundred square miles to British (the Hudson's Bay) territory, and done many other things besides lifting Mt. St. Elias from being " 13,000 feet high" to a clear elevation of over 19,000 feet. The quarto pamphlet, of thirty-two pages, now on the table, records attempts to measure the mountain, as made by several travellers since the time of La Perouse, and gives the results of sixty-four observations of it, taken by Mr. Dall, with better instruments, on sea and shore. The final working out of these has been done, with extra care, at his present home, and for the last ten years his hailing-point, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. Thanking the Chairman for his call upon me, I do not doubt that it will encourage and cheer the author of this pamphlet to learn that his persistent sacrifice of home and society for science, natural and geographical, from his nineteenth year, has the approving sympathy of the President and Members of this Society. The following gentlemen duly proposed and seconded at the last meeting, were balloted for and elected ordinary members W. McGregor, Esq. Ottokar Feistmantel, Esq., M. D. The following are candidates for ballot at the next meeting R. B. Shaw, Esq., late British Resident at Kashgar, proposed by Dr. J. Scully, seconded by Capt. J. Waterhouse. Col. J. F. Tennant, R. E., Calcutta, for re-election, proposed by Col. Hyde, seconded by Capt. J. Waterhouse. G. E. Knox, Esq., C. S., Major H. H. Mallock, and Lieut. H. B. Urmston, have intimated their desire to withdraw from the Society. The President laid before the meeting a statement from the Council regarding certain proceedings in connection with the rejection of a gentleman proposed by the Council for election as an Honorary Member, which was taken as read and ordered to be circulated to the members with the Proceedings. The following letter from Major-General Sir A. P. Phayre, K. C. S. I., K. C. B., Governor of the Mauritius, to Mr. Blochmann, was readNovember 10th, 1875. MY DEAR SIR,-I observe in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society for June 1875, a paper by Mr. V. Ball on stone implements of the Burmese type found in the district of Singbhúm. I beg to bring to your notice, that the stone weapons hitherto sent from Burma, have, I believe, all been found within the limits of the territory, in the delta and valley of the lower Erawati, occupied from time immemorial by the Taláing or Mun people. The language of the Mun race of Pegu, is connected with that of the Ho or Mundá people of Chutiá Nágpur, called Kol. I beg on this subject to refer to my paper on the History of Pegu in the Society's Journal, Volume XLII of 1873. The form of the stone implements remarked on by Mr. Ball, tends to indicate a connection in race, or intercourse in pre-historic time, between the Kols and the Mun of Pegu. The supposed origin of these weapons as thrown to earth in the lightning flash, is, as remarked by Mr. Theobald, the same among both peoples. MR. WOOD-MASON exhibited specimens and read descriptions of several new or little-known species of phasmideous insects, amongst which were the following: Asám. Phibalosoma Westwoodi, n. sp. 9, from Nazírah and Sámágúting, Lopaphus Iolas, Westw., d, from Johore in the Malay peninsula. Phyllium Celebicum, De Haan, ?, from Karennee. Phyllium siccifolium, Lin., ?, from Mauritius. Phyllium Westwoodi, n. sp., f, from S. Andaman and Pahpoon. Heterorrhina Roepstorfii, &, from S. Andaman. Heterorrhina annectans, ♂ 7, from Sikkim. Mr. Wood-Mason also exhibited specimens of a new species of freshwater Astacide from New Zealand, for which he proposed the name Astacoides tridentatus from the presence of three spines on the inferior edge of the rostrum, arranged and shaped like the teeth of a saw. He denied the existence of any special relationship between the New Zealand species of freshwater Astacide and the marine genus Nephrops, from which they differed, as indeed did all freshwater crayfish whatsoever, in having the last abdominal somite freely movable upon the preceding, and in having, like the species of the genus Astacoides, no appendages to the first and the appendages to the second post-abdominal somite similarly constructed to those of the following ones even in the male. Under these circumstances and as the species referred to Paranephrops differed less from those of Astacoides than these latter did from one another, and as, moreover, the latter name had priority, he proposed, provisionally, to refer the New Zealand species of Astacide to it. In continuation of his readings and translations of Arabic and Persian inscriptions, Mr. Blochmann exhibited the following from Dihlí, Rohțás, and Sahasrám. The Dihlí rubbings belonged to the batch received from Mr. Delmerick; those from Rohtás were taken by Mr. J. D. Beglar and were given to the Society, together with two rubbings from Sahasrám, by Major-General A. Cunningham, C. S. I. I. From the Rauzah Mírzá Muqim (vide Proceedings for December, 1875), in the niche of the gate of the Dargáh of Nizamuddín, south. Rubá'í metre. ه جا کرد درین روضه پرفیض ونعيم • فرزند مقيم بنده حي قديم چون ساکن فردوس برین گشت مقیم او را نبود ز شر اندیشه و بیم * حسين ... قابلہ نویدے کا .... آنها که بكوي قرب جا یافته اند کام دل خود بمدعا یافته اند این مرتبه داني زكجا یافته اند و از شیخ نظام اولیا یافته انـــــه قابله میر نويدي نشابوري ٩٦٩ 1. The boy Muqím, the slave of the living and eternal God, dwells in this mausoleum which is full of bliss and beauty. * Astacoides, Guérin, ' Revue Zoologique,' 1839, p. 109. Paranephrops, White, Gray's Zool. Miscellany, 1842, p. 78; and Dieffenbach's New Zealand, 1843, vol. II, p, 267.. 2. He has no thought nor fear of sin; for the dweller of the highest paradise has taken his place (here). 1. Those who dwell in the lane of vicinity [to Nizám's tomb], have gained for their object the desire of their heart. 2. Doest thou know how they have obtained this high degree? They have obtained it from Shaikh Nizám Auliya. A. H. 969 [A. D. 1561-2]. Composed by Mír Nawedí of Nishápúr. II. From a tomb inside the enclosure of Nizamuddín, West. 1 ft. 3 in. by 3 in. این لوح باسم مرحوم مغفور خواجه دوست محمد که در جواني (؟) شهید شد سنه سبعين وتسعمايه تحريرا في الشهر صفر تمام شد ] This tablet is erected in memory of the late Khwajah Dost Muhammad, who has obtained forgiveness. He was killed in...., in 970. Written in the month of Çafar [October, 1562]. The illegible word may be, youth; but it may also be a geographical name. III. From outside Nizamuddín's tomb, West. 1 ft. 2 in. by 6 in. محمد امین سلطان در چتور شهید شده || در سنه نهصد هفتاد پنج مرحومي In the year 975 [A. D. 1567-8], the late Muhammad Amín Sultán was killed before Chitor. Regarding the siege of Chitor, vide the next inscription. IV. From a tomb in a gumbaz near the Kadam Sharif. 1 ft. 2 in. by 7 in. مرحوم نواب آصفخان بتاریخ بیست و پنجم شهر شوال بر روز جمعه في سنة ٩٧٦ || The late Nawab Açaf Khán [died] on Friday, 25th Shawwál, 976 [12th April, 1269.] His biography will be found in my Kín Translation, I, p. 368. After the fall of Chitor (25th Sha'bán, 975), Açaf Khán was appointed governor of the fort. The year of his death was hitherto unknown. . From a tomb outside Nizamuddin, West. 1 ft. 1 in. by 6 in. Rubat metre; but the nún in dín (last line) is used as a nún i ghunnah. چون کرد علا الدین محمد نقل * از دار فنا جانب فردوس شتافت تاریخ وفاتش همه کس می جستند * عقلم بجنان رفت علا الدین یافت |