Among the many objects of Indian antiquarian research which possess general claims upon the attention of the Royal Asiatic Society, none perhaps can be cited as more peculiarly entitled to its fostering care than the History of the Suráshtran Kings, as illustrated by their Coins. The pages of the Journal of this Society contain the earliest systematic notice of these beautiful medals; and though much has been written, and much additional information gained in other places, little or nothing has since been done by our Association to forward this particular enquiry. Having presided over the first introduction of this investigation into the world of literature, it is but fit the Society should watch over its accepted offspring; and if as yet unable to conduct it to a safe and satisfactory resting-place, it may at the least prove useful in advancing it some stages ou its way.

Much difficulty will always exist in determining the age of granite, since no petrographical distinction, sufficiently decisive to warrant us dividing it into classes, exists. The opinion of some geologists that the ordinary syenite, or, indeed, any other variety of syenite hitherto discovered in Southern India, is more modern than the usual ternary granite of felspar, quartz, and mica, is unsupported by any of the usual proofs required by geologists to establish a fact of this nature; viz., superposition; included fragments of rocks of a determined age; intrusion into other rocks, with or without alteration.

Amongst the many works of antiquity whose loss we have to deplore, are those of the historian of Charax. Some of them, if our good fortune had permitted their preservation, would have diffused a strong light upon the study of Oriental subjects, which owing to the progress of research and discovery at home and abroad, is prosecuted with increased ardour by the learned throughout Europe. His Parthic history, for example, was a work which to us would have been invaluable. Amongst the fragments of his composition remaining, is, however, an Itinerary of a route through the principal parts of Asia, an ancient relic of exceediug worth, and which, from its perfect accuracy, cannot be sufficiently commended.

Among the several experiments now in progress for the improvement of the Resources of India, there is not one which, in its ultimate effects, will probably be of such great importance, as the cultivation of the genuine Tea-plant of China in the valleys and slopes of the Himalayan Mountains. Having some further recommendations to make, respecting a culture which I believe I was the first to recommend to the Indian Government in the present localities, I think it advisable to give an account of the reasons which led to the suggestion, as welL as of the results which have been obtained.

The circumstances under which the remarkable inscription at Shah baz gheri or Kapur di Giri was discovered and transcribed by Mr. Masson, and decyphered by Mr. Dowson and Mr. Norris have been already detailed in a preceding Journal, vol. VIII, and it was then shown by a comparison of one of the divisions of the inscription with a similar division of those of Girnar and Dhauli, that they were all three substantially the same. The interest excited by this identification, and the possibility that some of the difficulties in the reading and translation of the earlier known inscriptions might be explained by the one more recently discovered, naturally recommended the prosecution of the inquiry and the complete collation of the several inscriptions. In the absence of any person more competent to accomplish so desirable an object I consented to undertake the task, and now lay before the Society the result of the comparison. It has not, I fear, added materially to our knowledge of the purport of these curious documents, but it leaves no doubt of the identity iu all material respects of the records preserved by the rocks of Guzerat, Cuttack, and Afghanistan.

It but rarely occurs amid the often dry details of Numismatic inquiries that we meet with a subject combining such varied claims upon the attention of so many distinct classes of archæologists, as that now about to be brought under the notice of the Royal Asiatic Society.

The mountainous country lying between the coasts of Tyre and Sidon and the valley of the Jordan presents almost a complete blank, even in our latest maps of Palestine. Nau (a.d. 1674) went from the mouth of the Kasimíyeh river to Safed; Buckingham (a.d. 1816), from Banias to Sidon; Ven Monro (a.d. 1833) went from Safed to Tyre; and my friend Mr. Thomson, the American missionary of Beyrút, took a somewhat similar route in 1837. In 1835, Mr. Smith passed from the Húleh, through Merj Ayún, to Jezzin, and subsequently (1838), in company with Professor Robinson, from Safed to Tyre.

The following Itinerary, or account of the route from Kashmír, viâ Leh, to Yarkand, is translated from a little Persian MS., written by Ahmed Shah Nakshahbandí, at the request of Lord Elphinstone, and presented to that nobleman at Kashmír, in July, 1846. The author, Ahmed Shah, was the son of Khájah Sháh Niyáz of Kashmīr, a man of high reputation and sanctity, who was held in great esteem by the Mohamedans of Yarkand and the surrounding countries, where he had numerous disciples. Ahmed Shah had himself visited the countries he describes, and spent some time in the chief places, his religious character and reputation giving him peculiar advantages for travelling and observing in these countries.

1. What are the geographical features and geological characters of your distriot?

The ports with which I am most acquainted are, Hong-Kong, Chusan, and Ningpo.

Hong-Kong and the adjacent district of Singan consists of red earth mixed up with gravel and disintegrated granite, interspersed with large masses of granite. The fertile parts are formed by deposits of alluvial soil in the valleys, of which there are many on the shore opposite Hong-Kong, between ridges of mountains stretching along the whole coast.—Chusan has a loamy soil, the hills being covered nearly to the top with black earth, and is with very few exceptions productive. Sandstone is found in the north-western parts of the island, but not in any large quantity. The writer has never seen any volcanic remains, as some English residents on the spot are said to have found, thereby suggesting the idea that this group is a continuation of the Japan Islands.—The soil around Ningpo is still more fertile than that of Chusan, the environs forming a very extensive valley, with mountains at a considerable distance. The. whole is well watered, both by nature and art, and it presents the most delightful views, and one aspect of teeming fertility.

When I drew up the following Notes upon the Inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria, and read them at the Royal Asiatic Society's Meetings of January 19th, and February 16th, I had no intention of publishing them in their present form. I merely wished, as much interest had been excited by the exhibition of the Nineveh marbles, to satisfy public curiosity, by presenting at once, and in a popular shape, a general view of the results at which I had arrived in my labours on the Inscriptions; and I judged that this object would be more conveniently attained by oral communication than by publication in the pages of a Scientific Journal. At the same time, of course, I proposed to follow up the oral communication, by publishing with the least practicable delay, a full exposition of the machinery which I had employed both for deciphering and rendering intelligible the Inscriptions, and during the interval which would thus elapse between announcement and proof, I trusted that, if inquiry were not altogether suspended, philologers and palaeographers would, at any rate, refrain from pronouncing upon the validity of my system of interpretation.