1871. ] Proceedings of the Asiatie Society. 49 
Government Astronomer, all specially salaried for this extra work ; 
in Bombay, the Superintendent of the Observatory, in Oude the 
‘* Scientific officer,” and in the Central Provinces the Sanitary 
Commissioner, under an obligation to do this work ex-officio, There 
are no Official relations between these provincial officers, and as a 
matter of fact, I believe, if one of them requires the registers, or 
results of a neighbouring province for comparison with his own, or 
for the purposes of scientific inquiry, he experiences great difficul- 
ty and delay in obtaining them. 
Then again, in regard to organization, the systems seem to vary 
considerably in the different provinces. In the Panjab, I am in- 
formed, the officers who keep the registers are all volunteers ; and 
they seem to be somewhat irregular in the matter of observing, for 
according to the published reports out of 19 stations, from 2 only 
have continuous registers extending over 24 years been furnished ; 
from most of the other stations registers covering a few months 
only, or for interrupted periods, are forthcoming. In Bengal and 
Madras there is a paid observer at each station and also a superin- 
tending officer (generally the Civil Surgeon) who receives an al- 
lowance for supervising the work. : 
As to the instruments, the kinds in use are very diverse. The 
head of the system in each province, (except Madras, and from a 
recent period Bengal) gets them whence and how he can. For 
instance, barometers of several sorts, standards or aneroids, are 
employed indiscriminately, and consequently the registers of ob- 
servations effected by them are of little value whenever small 
differences are important, as for example in the comparison of range 
in the daily oscillations of atmospheric pressure, inasmuch as no 
data exist by which due allowance can be made for the instrumen- 
tal irregulaties, and these are of the same order as the differences 
in question. In Bengal and Madras, the barometers are compared 
with a provincial standard at the Presidency towns. And those of 
two stations in the N. W. P. have been compared with the Calcut- 
ta standard. Whether or not in the other provinces any compari- 
son is effected with a local standard I cannot say positively, though 
I have heard that it is not; but certainly no attempt has yet been 
made to compare the local standards if-there are any, with one as- 
