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ASIATIC SOCIETY OF JAPAN.
The regular May meeting of the Society was held on Monday the 31st ult. at 8.30 P.M. at the Grand Hotel, Dr. Brown in the Chair.
The Minutes of the last meeting were approved, and it was announced that the following gentlemen had been elected Ordinary Members of the Society since the last General Meeting: Rev. C. F. Warren, Messrs. A. J. Van Casteel, G. J. Rockwell and John Farmer.
The following donations had also been received:—A Comparative Vocabulary of the Chinese, Corean and Japanese Languages, Proceedings of the American Oriental Society and of the American Philological Association, &c.
Mr. Dallas then read his paper entitled “Notes collected in the Okitama ken with an itinerary of the roads leading to it.”
On its conclusion Dr. Brown said:—In Japan we have no Nineveh or Babylon to disentomb, no Jerusalem to uncover of its superincumbent débris, in order to identify its ancient topography, no Ilium that was, to bring to light, after the oblivion of ages, nor ancient ruins of any kind whatever to interest the antiquary. The materials of which all structures have been built in this country have been so perishable that we have but to scratch the surface of the soil, or penetrate a few inches or, at most a few feet, below it to lay bare all the structural antiquities it contains. Hence the antiquarian who confines his researches to this country is in danger of being disaapointed, not because the country is not old enough, but because if is so old that its perishable monuments have crumbled to dust. All are turned to mould. The Asiatic Society is therefore indebted to those who, despite the want of such monuments as might furnish them with themes for papers to contribute to our Transactions, are willing to put themselves to the trouble of giving us the results of their careful observations upon things that he, as it were, upon the surface. These things are not seen without travel, nor understood without inquiry, nor is every one who does see them ready to take such note of them as is requisite to furnish the basis of valuable communications to the public. Even itineraries, in the present exclusion of foreigners from the interior of the country, are valuable, and especially carefully prepared statistics like those contained in Mr. Dallas’s paper on the Akitama Ken. I have much pleasure in saying that the Asiatic Society are under obligations to him for this contribution to their information respecting a part of the country to which few of us have had access.
Alter some further conversation on the subject of the paper the meeting terminated.
