96 Address. [Feb. 



favourable and unfavourable for rainfall. Attached are several excel- 

 lent maps showing the mean annual rainfall of the whole world and of 

 various countries. The rainfall of India and contiguous countries is 

 fully considered, and tables of rainfall at Cherra Punji, the Khasi 

 Hills and at mountain stations are given. 



An elaborate atlas of twenty-two charts, containing the results of 

 observations in the Indian Ocean for the months of December, January 

 and Febi'uary, published by the Royal Meteorological Institute at 

 Utrecht, is noticed in Nature. No less than 51,199 observations have 

 been used in the construction of the wind-chart for December. The 

 atlas includes charts of temperature, currents, atmospheric pressure, 

 speciiic gravity, rain, and percentages of storms. 



Chemistry. 



Considering the enormous and almost unworked field for chemical 

 research that lies open in India, it is remarkable that so attractive a 

 science should find so few votaries in this country, so far, at any rate, as 

 may be judged by the paucity of published papers. The idea that a 

 quantity of delicate and expensive apparatus is required, no doubt 

 deters many, and the pursuit is not as yet a sufficiently remunerative 

 one to tempt the chemical students of our Colleges to take it up as a pro- 

 fession. One cannot, however, help contrasting the slow progress in 

 practical science made in this country with the rapid advances made 

 in Japan, and especially in applied chemistry. 



The only chemical paper in our Journal is by Mr. A. Pedler — on 

 the Volatility of some of the compounds of Mercury and of the metal 

 itself. In it he notices a case of slow distillation of mercury in the 

 tube of a barometer at Buxar (Behar), and points out that with instru- 

 ments of this kind, on the Kew principle, the sublimation of the mer- 

 cury would entirely vitiate the accuracy of the reading. He also de- 

 scribes the results of experiments on various mercuric compounds and 

 on the mercurous chloi-ide. He found that mercuric chloride is very 

 decidedly volatile at ordinary air temperatui'es, but the volatility is in- 

 creased by the direct action of light. The paper concludes with a word 

 of warning against the indiscriminate use of corrosive sublimate for pre- 

 serving books and for other similar insecticide and preservative purposes. 



From Dr. G. King's last report on the Government Cinchona 

 Plantations in Sikkim, we learn that the new oil-process for making 

 sulphate of quinine, referred to in my last address, was in use throughout 

 the year 1888-89, and no less than 2,191 lbs of that drug were pre- 

 pared by it. Arrangeraents have also been made for its application 

 to the manufacture of cinchona febrifuge. The new process is found 



