XIV 



portance of establishing a proper system of storm-warnings for the 

 protection of the ports of India, and especially Calcutta. 



Up to the date mentioned almost the only trustworthy records 

 of meteorological observations in India were those which had 

 been kept for several years at the observatories of Madras and 

 Bombay, and at the Surveyor- General's office in Calcutta. It is true 

 that observations were also taken at a number of hospitals and dis- 

 pensaries throughout India ; but the instruments had not been verified, 

 the observers were untrained, and there was no proper supervision ; 

 moreover no care had been taken to preserve th'e records. Mr. H. 

 Piddington had collected and published in the 'Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal,' details of 23 different cyclones in the Indian and 

 Chinese Seas, a work of the greatest interest and value, but the data, 

 which were naturally imperfect, whilst adding greatly to the 

 knowledge of these storms, and whilst sufficing to enable Mr. Pid- 

 dington to frame practical directions for the guidance of sailors during 

 such storms in the India seas, had not led to a full understanding of 

 the disturbances, or of their origin. 



At the instance of General (then Colonel) R. Strachey, who, in 1857, 

 called the attention of the Asiatic Society to the uselessness of the 

 desultory attempts that had up to that time been made to acquire a 

 knowledge of Indian meteorology, and to the urgent need of some 

 controlling authority capable of directing and utilising the work of 

 observers in India, a committee was formed which, after some un- 

 successful attempts at acting as a controlling power, drew up, in 

 1862, a report in which the establishment of a small centralized 

 system by the Government was recommended. At the request of 

 the Government, the Committee, after some delay, drew up a scheme 

 for carrying out the system recommended. This was not submitted 

 to the Government till 1865, after the occurrence of the Calcutta and 

 Masulipatam cyclones. Meantime the Indian Government had been 

 urged by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal to establish a system 

 of storm warnings, and the Secretary of State, about the same time, 

 recommended the record of meteorological data in connection with 

 the suggestions and requirements of the Sanitary Commission. To 

 the latter body the whole question of meteorological enquiry in 

 India was referred, and in accordance with their recommendations, 

 provincial meteorological systems were established in the Punjab 

 and North-West Provinces in 1865, in Madras in 1866, arid in Bengal 

 in 1867. These systems were, however, quite independent of each 

 other, and the opportunity of establishing a controlling authority, so 

 emphatically urged by General Strachey and the Calcutta Com- 

 mittee, was postponed for several years. 



An account of the Calcutta cyclone of 1864 was drawn up by 

 Colonel Gastrell and Mr. Blanford, and was published by order" of the 



