look forward to for the benefit of futurity, but from what I have, from my own observation, inserted in this paper, I am convinced of the practicability and success of a scheme which many will treat as chimerical and visionary, while others, more thinking, will see the utility of the design and probability of success, but will be deterred by the difficulty and tediousness which would attend the execution.

REMARK BY THE PRESIDENT.

It seems at length to be settled among naturalists that corals and corallines are the cretaceous habitations of animals, and one of the links in the great chain of nature. The idea of making islands for the protection of ships at anchor is very sublime; but it might be feared that very dangerous reefs of coral would be formed before an isle could appear above the water. An artificial embankment of coral might, perhaps, on some coasts be a powerful barrier against an encroachment of the sea.

III. ON THE COPPER OF SUMATRA.

I have the satisfaction of laying before the Asiatic Society a specimen of copper-ore, the production of the island of Sumatra. It is found on and in the hills of Mucchy, near the sea, between Annalaboo and Soossoo, to the north of our extreme English settlement of Tappanooly. The soil which generates the ore is a mixed loam, consisting of clay, small stones, and red sand, founded on an undersoil of soft rock intersected with veins of this useful substance. The space affording the ore is considerable, extending above a degree in length, and further east, or into the country, than has been yet ascertained. A considerable quantity of ore is annually collected on the surface of the hills, to which the indolence or ignorance of the inhabitants at present confines their search. Its being found on the surface may probably be ascribed to the efforts of earthquakes, which are very prevalent on this coast and over the island in general. The natives, from inexperience, are incapable of conducting a mine and pursuing a metallic vein. They are content with excavating the ore till their labour is interrupted by the flowing of the water, which soon takes place in a country subject to heavy rains throughout the year. As many of these veins widen as far as they have yet been traced, it is more than probable that these hills contain inexhaustible mines of this metal. The ore, by repeated smeltings and other operations to free it from its sulphur, has been reduced to a metal, and then found to include a considerable proportion of gold. As no part of the world contains a greater quantity of this latter metal than Sumatra in proportion to the area it occupies on the globe,

it is probable that the discovery of gold mines would attend the establishment of copper ones in the hills of Annalaboo. This is so much the more probable, as metalline stones of various kinds, and which the Malays regard as sure indications of a soil affording gold, are found on these hills, independently of the consideration that gold-dust is collected in the immediate neighbourhood, and in the interior country, contiguous to the hills yielding the copper ore. It is singular that the same method of rough-smelting which is practised at Goslar in Germany should be in use among the uncivilized inhabitants of Sumatra. The Sumatran method possesses more ingenuity, and is at the same time more simple. An undemonstrated knowledge of the plainest and most obvious principles of science is congenial to the most rude as well as to the most civilized conceptions, and the advantages which the talents of born genius have conferred on Europe are by no means a conclusive proof of the inferiority of intellect which the fortunate inhabitants of Europe liberally bestow on their less enlightened brethren of the East and West. That "time and chance happen unto all things under the sun" is a truth that amounts to a voluminous disquisition on this subject. But to return. The ore-gatherers choose a level spot of hard clay, which they divide into equidistant points by lines intersecting_each other, and laid off equally on two sides of a square. These points, included in the square space, they surround with circles, of which the points are the centres. The circles are inverted bases of cones, excavated to receive the fused metal. The smelting space is now covered with wood, charcoal, and other combustible matters, and the ore is distributed among these admixtures. The melted ore is received into the formed holes, leaving the scoriæ or recrement above. The metal, still requiring many smeltings to render it fit for use, or perfectly malleable and ductile, is taken out in the form of pointed cakes, and sold for twenty Spanish dollars per pecul, or five pounds sterling for 1331 pounds avoirdupois weight. The natives are particularly careful in preventing accidents, for, previously to fusing the ore, they heat the ground to a great degree in order that all the water near the surface may be absorbed or made to exhale, having experienced, I imagine, that copper when in a state of fusion, meeting the smallest quantity of water, will fly in all directions with a force destructive of every vulnerable substance within the sphere of its action. I have been informed that the metal has been eliquated at Madras lately, and found to contain very little appearance of any other but of gold. The useful solvents, aqua fortis, aqua regia, and spirits of salts, readily dissolve the Sumatran copper. A deep green solution is produced in a very short time by the action of the weaker acids on the rough ore. The above method of smelting will separate all coarse, mineral, and heterogeneous

E

substances from the metal, but will still leave it strongly impregnated with its peculiar mineral earth. The detaching of this mineral earth is the most difficult and expensive operation attending the refinement and purification of copper, it being frequently necessary to add a proportion of another metal to effect it. This consideration will probably prevent a private company from applying for public permission to work these mines, and therefore they must remain in their present state, unless the East India Company will order the experiment to be made from the reports and opinions of such as may be qualified to give them on so interesting a subject. By submitting this short account to the gentlemen of our society, whose useful researches will, I hope, produce permanent national benefit by advancing the knowledge of nature, of science, and of literature, opinions, properly weighed, will be diffused among the public of the advantages that may result from an establishment for working copper-mines on the west coast of Sumatra.1

VII.

ON THE TRACES OF THE HINDU LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE EXTANT AMONGST THE MALAYS.

By WILLIAM MARSDEN, Esq.

["Asiatic Researches," vol. iv. pp. 223-7.]

THE Sanscrit, or ancient language of the Hindus, is a subject so interesting in itself that every discovery which contributes to throw light upon its history or to mark its extent, carries with it a degree of importance. The proofs of its influence in the northern countries of Assam, Nepal, Bootan, and Tibet, as well as in the southern parts of the peninsula of India, are to be found in the works of the missionaries and the researches of this society; but the progress it made in early times amongst the inhabitants of the Eastern islands and countries possessed by the Malays has not, I believe, been pointed out by any writer. My acquaintance with the language of the latter people, together with some attention

["Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië," 1869, i. p. 27. "Jaarboek van het Mijnwezen," 1876, ii. p. 76 ff.]

paid to the dialects of India in general, have enabled me to observe that the Malayan is indebted to the Sanscrit for a considerable number of its terms. I have also satisfied myself that the intercourse by which this communication was effected must have taken place in times anterior, probably by many centuries, to the conversion of these people to the Mahometan religion. The language, it is true, abounds at present with Arabic words, which their writers affect to introduce, because this display of literary skill is at the same time a proof of their religious knowledge; but they are generally legal or metaphysical terms borrowed from the Koran and its commentaries, are never expressive of simple ideas, have not been incorporated into the language (a few excepted), and are rarely made use of in conversation. The Hindu words, on the contrary, are such as the progress of civilization must soon have rendered necessary, being frequently expressive of the feelings of the mind or denoting those ordinary modes of thought which result from the social habits of mankind, or from the evils that tend to interrupt them. It is not, however, to be understood that the affinity between these languages is radical, or that the names for the common objects of sense are borrowed from the Sanscrit. The Malayan is a branch or dialect of the wide extended language prevailing throughout the islands of the archipelago to which it gives name, and those of the South Sea, comprehending between Madagascar on the one side and Easter Island on the other, both inclusive, the space of full two hundred degrees of longitude. This consideration alone is sufficient to give it claim to the highest degree of antiquity, and to originality, as far as that term can be applied. The various dialects of this speech, though they have a wonderful accordance in many essential properties, have experienced those changes which separation, time, and accident produce, and in respect to the purposes of intercourse may be classed into several languages, differing considerably from each other. The marks of cultivation by which the Malayan is distinguished from its ruder neighbours, are to be attributed, in my opinion, to the effects of an early connection that must have subsisted between the inhabitants of this Eastern peninsula and those of the continent of India; but what the nature and circumstances of this connection may have been it is not easy to determine. A spirit of foreign conquest, and still more a zeal for the propagation of their religious tenets, appear incompatible with the genius of the Hindu system, excepting amongst the disciples of Boodh; but I have never discovered in the Malayan customs or opinions any traces of the peculiar institutions of that extraordinary sect.

*

The Malay Archipelago may be understood to comprehend the Sunda, Philippine, and Molucca Islands, in the maritime parts of which the Malayan is used as a lingua franca.

A commercial intercourse has always subsisted between the manufacturing countries of India and the marts for the produce of the Spice Islands, such as Johor, Singapore, and Malacca, and when the Portuguese, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, first visited these places, they mention with surprise the concourse of foreign vessels assembled there. But independently of other objections that might be raised to the probability of these traders having polished the language of the people whose ports they frequented, or having imparted to them their national literature, it is to be observed that by much the greater proportion of the ships belonging to native merchants which now enter the Straits of Malacca come from the coast of Coromandel, and consequently are navigated by persons who speak the languages prevailing in these parts; whereas it is evident that from the Telinga or the Tamool the Malayan has not received any portion of its improvement, but from the genuine Hinduvee of the northern provinces, prior to its debasement by the mixture of Arabic nouns and the abuse of verbal auxiliaries. If the communication must necessarily be supposed to have its origin in commerce, I should be inclined to consider the people of Guzerat, notwithstanding their distance, as the instructors of the Malays. Their resort to Malacca is particularly noticed by De Barros and other authentic writers, and it is well known that the Hindu language has been preserved with more purity in that than in any other maritime province of India.

The nature of the affinity suggested will sufficiently appear to those who are conversant with the Hindu dialects by the following examples of Sanscrit words, which are at the same time so familiar to the Malays, and so thoroughly incorporated into their vernacular tongue, that their foreign origin is never suspected, although the terms adopted from the Arabs can, with very few exceptions, be immediately pointed out by the most ordinary scholar. It is true that he is assisted in this discrimination by the peculiarities of the Arabic orthography, for the Malays, as well as the Persians and other people who, in consequence of their conversion to the faith of the Koran, employ this alphabet in their writings, do yet reject the use of certain letters, either as superfluous or as not suited to the smoothness of their own sounds, and which therefore appear only in words purely Arabic. The Hinduvee words, on the contrary, being divested of their proper dress, and clothed in common with those originally Malayan, in the adopted Arabic character (with certain judicious modifications) want the same token of their origin, and are more assimilated with the rest of the language.

In this short list of words, taken, with little pains in the selection, from a Malayan dictionary, the departure from the Hinduvee is scarcely more than may arise from a different habit of spelling