Page:The Architecture of Ancient Delhi Especially the Buildings Around the Kutb Minar 1872 by Henry Hardy Cole.djvu/15



URING the governor-generalship of Lord Lawrence, Sir Stafford Northcote, in 1868, made the suggestion to the Government of India to conserve and record the most remarkable of the ancient monuments in that country. Although amounting to scarcely more than a tentative measure, a resolution indicating the value which the Government of India attached to the suggestion emanating from Sir Stafford Northcote was passed, whereby amateur photographers were encouraged in the taking of views of architectural buildings, and were pecuniarily assisted in so doing. Soon after a more comprehensive scheme was drawn up, by which the surveying of Bengal, Madras, Bombay and the Upper Provinces was assigned to various parties who were charged to record, as far as possible, the measurements, and to take photographs of buildings and monuments and plaster casts of carvings and sculptured figures. Under the late Governor-Generalship, viz. that of the Earl of Mayo, many important results have been obtained by the prosperous working of the system, the cost of which has been supported by Imperial funds. Advantage of this organization was taken by the South Kensington Museum authorities, who applied to the Indian Government for a cast of the Eastern Gateway of the Sanchi Tope, and this work was speedily put in hand. As this and other work proceeded elsewhere, the necessity of a central authority presented itself, and that has been now met by the creation of a government officer, termed Director-General of Archæology. Hence, it may be said, to the interest awakened in this country for Indian monuments of antiquity, is