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1875.1 SANSKRIT AND OLD CANARESE TNSCRIPTi 177 native hands, and were in many cases of doubt- ful accuracy, but the collection would have been a most useful guide in prosecuting further researches of this kind. Recent inquiries, how- ever, after this collection have resulted in the discovery that the copies presented to the Branch Societies have been en c sight of and cannot now be traced ; ami the copy presented to the London Society is virtually inaccessible in this country. All that now remains to the public of Sir W. Elliot's tab consists of his old Canarese Alphabet* and the Paper on Hindu IiiKcriptions t in which he summarizes the historical results of his re- searches : nitd these even are now ont of print and very hard to be procured. Another very extensive MS, collection, com- prising much information of a similar kind, was made in Southern India by the late Colonel Mackenzie, and is still in existence at Madras. This collection, again, has never yet been made accessible to the public; but there are hopes that before very long a general sumnr.' contents, and selected portions of it in detail, will be published by the gentleman J in whose charge it now is on behalf of Governmen I . These are, I believe, the only large collections that have ever been made. Researches by c inquirers have been made pal mostly of a detached kind, and. together with the reports on the contents of the Mackenzie Collection that have ' ire scattered over the pages of the journals of literary societies in such a way as to be accessible, and frequently to be known, only to those who have tin.- fortune to live in the aeigaboarhood of large libraries. In other pari npire activity is being displayed by Government in respect of I publication of onoionl reati and records. north of India there is an Axons ->vhich poblisl the same salts of qu trios, all ins. En bolar has recently sine, copy, ok inscriptions. A ■ ■ ■ in Madras in connexion with the Mackenzie Collection. And in this Presidency Mr. I! has latterly been employed on the duty of in- vestigating and reporting on the Arohi Remains. The Canarese Country, however, — the rii of all in inscriptions,— is still left to r. the field of casual and intermittent pi • of necessarily a very imperfect kind. During a short tour through part of the Cana- rese Country in the early pari of last year, Mr. Burgess took advantage of the opportunify thus afforded him, and prepared and has ashed § excellent, facsimiles of over thirty o inscriptions. But his duties have now taken him to another part of the Presidency, and a long time must probably elapse before he will be Canarese Country again. The only record of any Government action in respect of the inscriptions of the Canarese Country is to be found in a photographic col- lection of abont ninety inscriptions, on at tablets and copper-plates, at Chitrakaldurga, BalagAmve, Harihar, and other places t south, made by Major Dixon. 1 1. M.s 22nd T ment M.X. I. . fur the Government of Maisur and published by that Government in 18Gfi.]| Not long ago, it is true, it was in contemplation by the Bombay Government to employ an officer OB the special duty of preparing for publication S reliable collection of Canarese inscripr: box, — <m the ground that, as the basis of the work have been the Elliot Collection, the dis- appearance of that collection renders it impossi" fale for anything further to bo done, — the project seems to have been abandoned, for the present si all To Major Dixon's collection mention, we have bo add a Si graphic copies of inscci] taken by tin- late Dr. Pigon, Bo.M.S., and Col. . H.A.. and edited in Bo.CS.,, for and at the cost of the Com;: bitectoral Antiqnifcies of Western h A synopsis of tents of this the late Dr. Bhilu D:ji, is to be found at pp. 314—338 of So. xxra. vol. IX. of the