XV 



Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal in 1866. It gave a very full descrip- 

 tion of all the more important features of that cyclone, and, consider- 

 ing the unsatisfactory character of a large portion of the data, is 

 remarkably complete. The conclusions based on the data and on the 

 investigations of Piddington show a thoroughly clear grasp of the 

 subject, and are, in almost every respect, in agreement with the 

 results of later investigation on storm genesis and motion in India. 



Soon after the Calcutta cyclone, at the instance of the Lieutenant- 

 Governor, a Committee, of which Mr. Blanford was the secretary, 

 was appointed to arrange a system of storm- warnings for the port of 

 Calcutta. Observatories were established at a number of coast 

 stations, and the observations made were telegraphed to Calcutta daily. 

 The Bengal Provincial Meteorological Department was founded in 

 1867 for the combination of general meteorological observations with 

 the continuation of this system of storm-warnings, and Mr. Blanford 

 became Meteorological Reporter for Bengal, still retaining his 

 Professorship, and lecturing, chiefly on chemistry and physics, in the 

 Presidency College. The new Meteorological Department of Bengal 

 at once took a very high position, and became known for the 

 accuracy of its data and the thoroughness of its work, and the 

 annual reports on the meteorology of Bengal, prepared by Mr. 

 Blanford, increased in importance from year to year. He also, 

 during the eight years that he held the post, published a series of 

 meteorological papers in the ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.' 

 Of these the most important were " On certain protracted irregu- 

 larities of Atmospheric Pressure in Bengal in relation to the Monsoon 

 Rainfall " (' Jour. As. Soc. Bengal,' vol. 39, Part 2, p. 123) ; " On the 

 Normal Rainfall of Bengal" (i.e., p. 243) ; and " On some recent Evi- 

 dence of the Variation of the Sun's Heat" (' J.A.S.B.,' vol.44, Part 2, 

 p. 21). The first of these papers directed attention to one of the 

 more important features of Indian meteorology, and, probably, of 

 tropical meteorology in general, the frequent persistency of abnormal 

 variations of pressure over large areas in India for periods varying in 

 length from a few months to two or three years, and the connexion 

 between such prolonged abnormal features and large modifications in 

 the distribution of rainfall. This was a subject which occupied much 

 of Mr. Blanford's thoughts, and it is increasing in importance in con- 

 nexion with the forecasting of the general character of the monsoon 

 rains, now performed by the Indian Meteorological Department. 



During the same period he contributed two papers, one " On the 

 Origin of a Cyclone " (' Proc. Roy. Soc.,' vol. 17, 1869, p. 472), the 

 other on " The Winds of Northern India " (' Phil. Trans.,' vol. 166, 

 p. 563), to the Royal Society. In the second paper he utilised the 

 data collected by the Meteorological Departments of Bengal, the 

 North- Western Provinces, and the Punjab, in order to describe the 



