house. The site was granted to the Society on 15 May 1805. The original plan for the new building was prepared by Captain Thomas Preston. The French architect Jean-Jacques Pichou made certain modifications to it and constructed a two-storeyed building at the site. This 15,071 ft² building was built at a cost of Rs. 30,000. The first quarterly meeting of the Society for 1808 was held at its new building on 3 February 1808. From 1784 to 1828, only Europeans were elected members of the Society. In 1829, at the initiative of H.H. Wilson, a number of Indians were elected members, which include Dwarakanath Tagore, Sivchandra Das, Maharaja Baidyanath Roy, Maharaja Bunwari Govind Roy, Raja Kalikrishna Bahadur, Rajchunder Das, Ram Comul Sen, and Prasanna Coomar Tagore. On 12 December 1832, Ram Comul Sen was elected 'Native Secretary'. Later, Rajendralal Mitra became the first Indian President in 1885. Both the orientalist Brajendranath De, and one of his grandsons, the historian Barun De, were for some time vice-president of the Asiatic Society."He Rehabilitated Persian in Bengal: Tributes to Late B.De: Birthday Celebration" in Amrita Bazar Patrika, Wednesday, 24 December 1952 Library One of the main activities of the Asiatic Society was to collect the old manuscripts of India. There was an enormous collection of Sanskrit manuscripts with the society. At present, the library of the Asiatic Society has a collection of about books and 79,000 journals printed in almost all the major languages of the world. It has also a collection of 293 maps, microfiche of 48,000 works, microfilm of 387,003 pages, 182 paintings, 2500 pamphlets, and 2150 photographs. The earliest printed book preserved in this library is Juli Firmici's Astronomicorum Libri published in 1499. It has in its possession a large number of books printed in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The library also possesses many rare and scarcely available books. The library has a rich collection of about 47,000 manuscripts in 26 scripts. The most notable amongst them are an illustrated manuscript of the Qur'an, a manuscript of the Gulistan text, and a manuscript of Padshah Nama bearing the signature of Emperor Shahjahan. The number of journals in the possession of the library is about 80,000 at present. The early collection of this library was enriched by the contributions it received from its members. On 25 March 1784, the library received seven Persian manuscripts from Henri