122 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [ June, 
only one reached me which is destined. for Ladakh. That embassy 
has already cost Government three barometers and myself one.’ 
The remaining portion of Dr. Neil’s letter did not bear upon the 
particular matter of complaint, and therefore for the moment he, (the 
President), would abstain from reading it. He at once replied to 
Dr. Neil as follows :— 
19th May, 1871. 
‘ Dear Str,—Your letter, dated the 11th May, reached me late 
in the evening of the 17th. I regret much to learn from it that you 
consider you have occasion to complain of a statement lately made 
by me in the course of an Address to the Asiatic Society. You 
quote from the Address the following words, ‘‘ According to the 
published reports, out of 19 stations in the Punjab, from 2 only 
have continuous registers, extending over two and a half years been 
furnished,” and you say that this statement disagrees entirely with 
facts.’ 
‘You will observe that in this passage, I donot refer to your 
records of registration, as to which I have indeed no information. 
I merely speak here of the published reports. And at the time 
when I delivered my address there were, I believe, but three of 
these, namely, the reports for 1866, 1867 and 1868. The report 
for 1869 was (if I am not mistaken) not then published. At any 
rate, I was certainly not aware of its existence.’ 
‘The monthly abstracts in these three Reports for 1866, 1867 and 
1868, appear to me to cover a period of almost exactly two anda half 
years. Ihave just now in consequence of your letter, carefully looked 
through these again, and I must confess I am quite unable to dis- 
cover on this review that my original statement in reference to this 
period is in any degree erroneous. In regard to all excepting 2 
out of the 19 stations, there seem to be breaks of greater or less 
extent in the continuity of every abstract. I take for instance your 
own-principal station of Lahore, I find there are no observations, 
or results of observations given, for the months of May, June, July, 
August and September 1868. I need hardly say, however, that I 
am nevertheless most ready (if you still wish me to do so) to comply 
with the request, which you make to the effect, that I should give 
the same publicity to your letter as was given to my address; and, 
