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IV

INTRODUCTION. appointment o f Buchanan, in 1807, by the Court o f Direc­ tors, to make a statistical survey of the Bengal Presidency.

For seven years Buchanan pursued his survey through the provinces of Bihar, SkaMbad, Bliagalpur, Gorakhpur, Dinajpur, Puraniya, Kangpur, and Assam, when his labours were unfortunately brought to an abrupt close. The results of the survey were transmitted to England in 1816, where they remained unnoticed until 1838, when Mr. Montgomery Martin “ obtained permission to examine the manuscripts, which eventually led to their publication.” To him*we certainly owe the publication o f this valuable ,work ; but I must confess that the warmth o f my gratitude for this welcome service is absolutely frozen by the coolness o f appropriation displayed on the title-page, where the name o f Buchanan is entirely omitted, and the districts of ^Eastern India are stated to have been “ surveyed under the orders of the Supreme Government, and collated from the original documents at the East India Office by Montgomery Martin.” This singular proceeding has not escaped the notice ' i M. Vivien de St. Martin, who remarks that the three volumes had been published “ sans y mettre le nom de M. Buchanai It is, however, but fair to say that full credit is given :<> Buchanan in the introduction, and that the work appears to be satisfactorily edited.

Although the instructions given to Buchanan included neither the history nor the antiquities of the country, yet both were diligently explored by h im ; and when, alter a lapse of upwards of twenty years, a great mass of the matter collected by the survey was found to have bccomo useless, the value o f the traditional or recorded history, and of the monuments and relics of antiquity, remained unchanged. All this part of the work has been published by the editor with a fair proportion o f plates, from which we lgarn that Buchanan was amongst the first to perceive the value and importance o f detailed plans and exact measurements of remarkable buildings and ancient sites. His notices of the Buddhist remains at Gaya and Baragaon in Bihar, o f Kasia and Kahaon in Gorakhpur, and at many other places, are not less creditable to him because, through delay in the publication of his work, they were partly anticipated by James Prinsep. llis historical and archaeological researches in the districts of Eastern India arc specially valuable for