PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

ASIATIC SOCETY OF BENGAL.

FOR JANUARY, 1881.

The Monthly General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal was held on Wednesday, the 5th of January 1881, at 9 P. M.

H. B. MEDLICOTT, Esq., F. R. S., in the Chair.

The minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed.

The following presentations were announced

1. From Dr. R. L. Mitra,-Nidána, a Sanskrit system of Pathology, translated into Bengali by Uday Chand Dutt.

2. From the Meteorological Reporter for Western India,-(1) Brief sketch of the Meteorology of the Bombay Presidency in 1879, (2) Abnormal Variations of Barometric Pressure in the Tropics and their relation to Sunspots, Rainfall and Famine.

From the Hon'ble Whitley Stokes,-Uber die Sprache der Etrusker, (2 vols.), by W. Corssen.

4. From the Madras Government,-Report on the Amravati Tope, and excavations on its site in 1877, by R. Sewell.

5. From the Department of the Interior, U. S. America,-History of the North American Pinnipeds by J. A. Allen.

6. From the Home, Revenue and Agricultural Department,(1) Report on the Amravati Tope, and excavations on its site in 1877, by R. Sewell, (2) Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East, Vols. IV, V, and VII.

7. From the Authors,-(1) An account of the Country traversed by the second column of the Tal-Chotiali Field Force in the spring of 1879, by Lieut. R. C. Temple, (2) Gulshan-i-Raz, the Mystic Rose Garden of Sa'd-ud-din Mahmud Shabistari, by E. H. Whinfield.

8.

From Pandit Mohanlal Vishnulal Pandia,-Nos. 1-9 of Harischandra Chandrika and Mohan-chandrika.

9. From Surgeon-Major A. F. Bradshaw,-Hindu Matrimony, by Babu B. C. Bose.

10.

From the Trustees of the British Museum,-Illustrations of Typical specimens of Lepidoptera Heterocera in the Collection of the British Museum, Part IV, by Lord Walsingham.

The following Gentlemen are candidates for ballot at the next meeting

1. P. J. Carter, Esq., Forest Department, British Burmah, proposed by E. W. Oates, Esq., seconded by A. Pedler, Esq.

2. Capt. T. Morris Jenkins, Asst. Commissioner, British Burmah, proposed by E. W. Oates, Esq., seconded by A. Pedler, Esq.

3. Major W. F. Prideaux, Calcutta, proposed by A. Pedler, Esq., seconded by Capt. W. H. Johnstone, R. E.

4. R. C. Laughlin, Esq., proposed by J. C. Douglas, Esq., seconded by L. Schwendler, Esq.

5. Dr. G. Bomford, Garrison Surgeon, Fort William, proposed by Dr. A. F. Bradshaw, seconded by A. Pedler, Esq.

The SECRETARY reported that Mr. H. A. Cockerell and Mr. J. G. Apcar had intimated their desire to withdraw from the Society, and that Mr. W. T. Webb had requested that his letter of resignation might be cancelled.

The following papers were read—

1. On the Identification of Certain Diamond Mines in India which were known to and worked by the ancients, especially those which were visited by Tavernier.—By V. BALL, M. A., F. G. S.

(Abstract.)

In this paper the author gives the result of his investigations into the identity of the diamond mines visited and described by Tavernier which have long afforded matter for more or less vague speculation to numerous writers on the subject.

RAOLCONDA is believed to be identical with Rawdukonda in the district of Mudgul in the Nizam's Dominions: it is situated near the Tungabudra river in Lat. 15° 41" Long. 76° 50'.

GANI-COULOUR is shown to be identical with Kollur on the Kistna river, Lat. 16° 42′ 30′′, Long. 80° 5′. Under this heading there is a note on the Great Mogul diamond and its identity with the Koh-i-mur. The prefix Gani is supposed to be simply the Persian Kan-i- (i. e. mine of). And the title Koh-i-nur may have been suggested by the meaningless name Kollur.

SOUMELPOUR appears to have been situated in Chutia Nagpur and probably was in Palamow. It is quite a distinct locality from Sam

balpur on the Mahanadi with which it has been the custom, hitherto, to identify it. Its position was about Lat. 23° 35′ Long. 84° 21'.

BEIRAGURH, mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari as having diamond mines, is shown to be identical with Wairagurh in the Chanda district, Lat. 20° 26', Long. 80° 10′, where the remains of the mines are still to be seen.

This paper will be published in full in the Journal, Part II.

2. On a forgotten Record of the occurrence of the Lion in the District of Palamow and its connection with some other facts regarding the Geographical Distribution of Animals in India. By V. BALL, M. A., F. G. S.

I have taken the above title for this paper in consequence of the fact that in the accounts of the distribution of the lion in India by the principal writers on the subject, there is no notice of the following statement which occurs in a work by Surgeon Breton "on the Medico-Topography of the Ceded Provinces of the South-West Frontier" published in the year 1826.* The following is the passage: "A lion in 1814 was shot by the natives near the village of Koondra in Palamow and its skin was seen and recognized by Mr. W. M. Fleming, the then Magistrate of Ramgarh, to be that of a lion." Surgeon Breton adds, "Possibly this may have been a stray animal, for the lion is very little known in South Behar, although the name of Sheerbubbur (lion) is familiar to the more intelligent of the natives."

It may appear at first sight that such slight evidence as the above is not of much importance, but viewed in connection with other facts regarding the geographical distribution of animals in India, it is of no little interest.

Mr. W. T. Blanford in a paper published in the Journal for 1867 gives a resumé of the information of which he was then in possession as to the distribution of the lion in India during the present century. The most eastern locality he mentions is Sheorajpur, twenty-five miles to the west of Allahabad where a lion was killed in 1861, and he records another as having been killed in Rewah in 1866.

I am inclined to believe in an inherent probability that the lion formerly occurred in Palamow from the fact that I have observed peculiarities in the fauna of that sub-division which serve to separate it from the regions surrounding it, and that in fact it should be regarded as an eastern prolongation of the Gangetic province of Blanford. In a paper published in the Proceedings "On the Mammals of the Mahanadi basin" I stated that so far as I then knew, the Indian Gazelle (G. Bennettii) did Govt. Lith. Press, Calcutta, and Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, Vol. II, P. A. S. B. 1877, p. 168.

not occur to the east of Sirguja; but since that time I have found that it is not uncommon in Palamow, having been seen by me as far east as Latiahar, Long. 84 35′ E.

Again in a paper on the distribution of birds throughout the region extending from the Ganges to the Godavari,* I have pointed out that there were indications that Palamow, in consequence of the occurrence within its limits of certain species would in all probability prove to belong to a region or sub-province of geographical distribution distinct from that which includes the rest of Chutia Nagpur.

Although the lion mentioned by Surgeon Breton may have been a stray or solitary one, the fact that Palamow is up to the present day included in the range of the Gazelle, would seem to shew that it had not wandered beyond its legitimate province. This, taken with the fact that the Gazelle and some species of birds keep within these boundaries which are not limited on the south by more than an easily traversable range of hills, affords a case of limitation of distribution sufficiently remarkable to be worthy of permanent record.

3. A find of coins struck by Gazni Sultans in Lahore.-By C. J. RODGERS, Principal, College Amritsar.

Some time ago in wandering about the city of Amritsar, as I am pretty well known as an old coin collector, a young Sarráf asked me to look at some coins he had just received. There were two small bags full of them, so I asked permission to take them home and examine them, at my leisure. This was readily granted. On getting them home I examined them, and they proved to be coins of Masaud I of Gazní, Maudúd, Abd-ur Rashid, Farrukhzád and Ibrahím, struck in Lahore.

The coins of Masaud were of the horse and bull type with the name Jem over the horse. But there were several varieties of this exceedingly rare coin. Several had the name just as I have written it. Some had am which is very strange, as the two brothers were deadly enemies to each other. Some had so which is not so strange, as Masaud was son of Mahmúd. Some had

first. I did not notice one with

which is only a variety of the simply on it, although Thomas in

the Chronicles of the Pathán kings says that Sir E. C. Bayley has one of these coins with Muhammad on it and one with Masaud.† From this I infer that Mr. Thomas knew of no others. Before this find I had three of Masaud's of this type, and the Rev. J. Doxie has one of Muhammad. Two of the coins of this find had a new name over the horse . There is no mint mark on these coins. But as they were found with a • Stray Feathers, Vol. VIII.

Thomas gives a figure of this coin of Masaud on p. 58.

lot which were all of one mint, and as the whole of the coins were of the same style as to finish and as to metal, I infer that the few without mint names were of the same mint as those which had mint names. Hence I have no hesitation in calling these coins Lahore ones. The Gazní coins are altogether of another type as to execution of inscription and animaldrawing and metal.

Of Maudúd there were, besides the one type already mentioned, three other distinct types. They all had the bull on one side, and over it was the usual inscription in Hindi Srí Samanta Deva. The obverses of the coins were covered with Arabic inscriptions round which were margins in Arabic giving originally the mint town and date. In these margins. wherever the mint town comes, it is spelt or Lohor. The inscriptions were :

The third type has not been published. The dates in the margin are four and five (only the unit figures or words rather are on the coins). Hence as Maudúd reigned from A. H. 432 to 440, the dates are 434 and 435 A. H. Of this third type there were only two. Of type (b) there were 19. Of type (a) no less than 35, but some of them were very much the worse for their being 800 years old.

Of Abd-ur Rashid there were several types. All had the bull reverse. The obverse was covered with inscriptions in a circular area round which was a margin sometimes of dots, sometimes of words stating mint town and date.

A variety of (a) has instead of Jas the word.

عبد الرشيد

Arabic margin.

A second variety

of the same type has A third type has a flower with a dot on each

side of it. Of (a) were "unique, my cabinet." to indicate its absence.

ع

5, of (b) 13, of (c) 8. Thomas marks (a) as But his has not the word adl on it, only a dash