348 



NATURE 



[August 13, 1891 



botanical officer, as well as by the necessity for having a 

 botanical officer at the disposal of the Government of India 

 to accompany military expeditions beyond the frontier. 



Arrangements were then made, with the concurrence of 

 the local Governments concerned, under which the follow- 

 ing territorial division of India was prescribed for the 

 purposes of botanical survey : — 



Under the Superintendent, Royal Botanical Gardens, 

 Calcutta.— 'Y\\Q Provinces of Bengal, Assam, and Burma, 

 the Andamans and Nicobars, North-East Frontier Expe- 

 ditions. 



Under the Government Botanist, Madras. — The Presi- 

 dency of Madras, the State of Hyderabad, the State of 

 Mysore. 



Under the Principal, College of Science, Poona. — The 

 Presidency of Bombay, including Sind. 



Under the director, Botanical Department, Northern 

 India. — The North- Western Provinces and Oudh, the 

 Punjab, the Central Provinces, Central India, Rajputana, 

 North-West Frontier Expeditions. 



The discribution above stated was reported to Her 

 Majesty's Secretary of State, and his Lordship has been 

 pleased to express his satisfaction with these arrange- 

 ments. 



(3) The Government of India now desire to communi- 

 cate the following observations as to the central position 

 which, in conformity with the suggestions of the Director 

 of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kevv, the officer at 

 Seebpur will occupy in the scheme for the botanical sur- 

 vey of India, and as to the sphere and nature of duties 

 of each botanical officer, so far as they are connected 

 with botanical survey. 



It is desirable that the Seebpur Institution— which, as 

 remarked by Mr. Thiselton Dyer, " though technically 

 Provincial, must, at any rate in external estimation, from 

 its age (it has passed its centenary), from its scientific 

 traditions, and from the splendour of its maintenance, 

 rank as Imperial " — should, without any interference 

 with the Provincial control over the Royal Botanical Gar- 

 dens, be officially recognized as the acknowledged centre 

 of the Botanical Survey of India, and that to it should be 

 referred tl.e solution of all problems rising out of the 

 practical or scientific study of Indian botany. In view 

 of the important position which the Superintendent of 

 the Royal Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, will thus occupy 

 as the central authority in the Botanical Survey of India, 

 the Government of India have, with the concurrence of 

 the Secretary of State, added to Dr. King's present 

 designation the official title of " Director of the Botanical 

 Survey of India," and it is requested that in all corre- 

 spondence dealing with subjects relating to general bota- 

 nical exploration the latter title should be employed. The 

 more effective botanical survey of Burma and Assam 

 has also been intrusted to the Director, who will arrange 

 a definite programme each year for the purpose in com- 

 munication with the Chief Commissioners of those Pro- 

 vinces. He will also submit a separate Annual Report 

 on the botanical exploration and researches effected 

 during the year. The Government of India record with 

 satisfaction that the local Administrations of Burma 

 and Assam have each contributed an annual grant from 

 Provincial revenues as an addition to the Imperial grant 

 for the botanical survey of their provinces. 



The investigation of the flora of the Madras Presidency 

 and of the Hyderabad and Mysore States has been in- 

 trusted to Mr. M. A. Lawson, the Government Botanist 

 and Director of Cinchona Plantations, who has expressed 

 his opinion that the whole survey of the territories in 

 question might, if diligently prosecuted, be completed in 

 three or four years. 



In Bombay, a scheme involving an annual expenditure 



of Rs. 4500 per annum on botanical work has been 



sanctioned, and Dr. Cooke, Principal of the College of 



Science, Poona, is officially recognized as in charge of 



NO. I 137, VOL. 44] 



botanical research in that Presidency. A herbarium 

 exists at the College of Science, and a botanical collec- 

 tion is in course of formation at the Victoria Gardens, 

 Bombay. The former place is to be the head-quarters of 

 botanical research and collections, and the existing 

 herbarium there is to be developed. 



By the transfer of the services of the Superintendent of 

 the Government Botanical Gardens, Saharanpur — who 

 now bears the designation of Director of the Botanical 

 Department, Northern India— the services of this officer 

 are, as already explained, available for scientific investiga- 

 tion in all Provinces and States in Northern and Central 

 India, as well as on expeditions beyond the north-west 

 frontier. Mr. Duthie, the officer now holding the appoint- 

 ment, was thus in 1888, by his deputation to accompany 

 the Black Mountain Expedition, enabled to acquire in- 

 formation concerning the flora of a country which had 

 not hitherto been botanically explored. During the last 

 three years, Mr. Duthie has also been deputed to Simla 

 in the hot weather to assist in the preparation of the 

 " Dictionary of the Economic Products of India," and 

 during the same period he has been engaged in the 

 botanical exploration of Rajputana and .of the Central 

 Provinces. 



M. F AYE'S THEORY OF CYCLONES. 



T N his admirable work on " The Principles of Science," 

 -*■ the late Prof. Jevons thus sums up the characteristic 

 mental attributes of the great scientific discoverer : — 



" He must be fertile in theories and hypotheses, and 

 yet full of facts and precise results of experience. He 

 must entertain the feeblest analogies and the merest 

 guesses at truth, and yet he must hold them as worthless 

 till they are verified in experiment. Where there are 

 any grounds of probability, he must hold tenaciously to 

 an old opinion, and yet he must be prepared at any 

 moment to relinquish it when a single clearly contra- 

 dictory fact is encountered." 



In his theory of cyclones, M. Faye has abundantly 

 proved himself to possess those attributes that are de- 

 fined in the first phrase of each of these sentences, and 

 particularly the final one. Whether, however, in his treat- 

 ment of this subject, the manifestation of the remaining 

 and qualifying attributes is equally recognizable ; whether 

 he has fairly grasped and duly weighed all the established 

 facts that are relevant and even essential to his hypothesis ; 

 and whether, among those that he has overlooked, there 

 are not some that are " clearly contradictory '' to the re- 

 quirements of his theory, and therefore fatal to it — these 

 are the questions that I propose to inquire into in the 

 present article. 



A true theory of cyclonic storms has not merely a 

 scientific interest, it has also practical bearings of very 

 high importance. When a ship is involved in the outer 

 circle of a tropical cyclone, the vital problem which the 

 seaman has to solve is, how to escape the fearful squalls 

 of the inner vortex and the tremendous cross-seas of the 

 central calm. In order to do this he must be able to 

 judge of the bearing of the storm-centre from the actual 

 position of his ship, and, to determine this point with 

 even approximate accuracy, his sole guide is the direc- 

 tion of the wind. It may well be, then, that the safety 

 of his ship, his own life and those of his fellow-seamen, 

 are involved in the right answering of this question, 

 " Does the storm-centre bear at right angles to the local 

 direction of the wind, or is it from two to four points in 

 advance of this position?" M. Faye's theory assumes 

 and inculcates the former ; the latter is consistent only 

 with the hypothesis of an indraught from all sides, and 

 an ascending current over the storm, the existence of 

 which M. Faye persistently denies. 



M. Faye's views on the nature of cyclonic storms are 



