1871.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 65 
indebted to Mr. Blanford for the manner in which he was taking up 
the study of the Meteorology of India, and of Calcutta in particular, 
It was an indisputable fact that there was no country in the world 
that had such great advantages as India, to offer to a student of 
Meteorological Science, if such a term could be used in the present 
state of our knowledge or rather ignorance. Here the great mo- 
tive force of all atmospheric phenomena, the Sun, acted with an 
intensity and regularity that led to a corresponding intense and regu- 
lar development of those phenomena, would render their study in 
a corresponding degree easy. ‘The great plains of India presented 
vast areas of land over which the action of the atmosphere was 
remarkably little disturbed by local causes, and which thus 
offered special facilities for watching the principal phenomena at- 
tending that action. The mountains on the north of India, in 
like manner, gave advantages for enquiries into the condition of 
the atmosphere at great heights above the earth’s surface, not 
equalled in any other part of the globe. The great ocean that 
surrounded the Peninsula, again, offered similar opportunities for 
observing the special phenomena due to the peculiarities of a ma- 
rine surface, and to the juxtaposition of land and sea. On the whole 
he had no hesitation in saying that India was the country of all 
others in which meteorology could best be studied, and to which we 
should look for the investigations which could rescue meteorology 
from its present somewhat discreditable position, and advance it to 
that of a real Science. 
Col. Strachey said he would offer a few comments on the chief to- 
pics of Mr. Blanford’s instructions and observations. 
First as to Vapour. He had on a former evening stated gener- 
ally his objections to the suggested dependence of the double diur- 
nal tide of pressure on the variations of the vapour pressure. It 
was impossible for any one who had looked at the facts to have a 
moment’s doubt on this point, and it was obvious that, after hay- 
ing made the suggested allowance for the variations of vapour 
pressure, the double tide remains in the Bombay, Madras and Cal- 
cutta observations just as plainly marked as before, though some- 
what altered in form. 
As he had before said, to subtract the vapour pressure, as indicated 
