49: 



NA rURE 



[March 26, 1908 



indebted to Sir John Eliot for his work, " Handbook 

 of Cyclonic Storms in the Bay of Bengal," which has 

 in all human probability been the means of saving 

 many vessels and valuable property — possibly from 

 destruction and certainly from damage — by enabling 

 such vessels, by the rules laid down in that work, to 

 avoid the more dangerous parts of these cyclones, and 

 also generally to escape from them altogether by the 

 knowledge thus given of the indications of the ap- 

 proach of such storms and of the tracks usually fol- 

 lowed by them in the different months of the year. 



Indeed, it would be an easy matter to prove that in 

 many instances the information and warnings conveyed 

 from the Indian Meteorological Department have been 

 the means of helping that Government and individuals 

 in a most remarkable manner, and that even to put 

 the matter on the lowest ground, it has saved the State 

 vast sums of money by giving accurate information 

 of the precise meteorological conditions of the country, 

 and timely warnings of possible famines, and in some 

 cases, when famine seemed looming in the immediate 

 future, of timely information of approaching rainfall, 

 which at once would do away with the necessity of 

 starting famine relief operations on a large scale. 

 The Indian Meteorological Department has far more 

 than justified its existence, for it has really proved 

 itself of far greater value than its relatively small 

 cost. 



Sir John Eliot was also very greatly interested in 

 the subject of solar physics, and he was largely in- 

 strumental in starting the solar physics observatory at 

 Kodaikanal, in southern India, and immediately on his 

 retirement he was appointed as a member of the Solar 

 Physics Committee, and also on other scientific bodies, 

 and he worked quite as hard as he had always done 

 in India. Indeed, he was at work up to the last, for 

 on the Monday before his death he was engaged on 

 his new book," K Handbook of Indian Meteorology," 

 and said he was making great progress with it. 



One w^ho knows well the work of Sir John Eliot 

 after his return to Europe writes as follows : — 



" Sir John Eliot left India full of enthusiasm for the 

 future of his department. As a public servant he had 

 the rare satisfaction of knowing that a scientific enter- 

 prise begun with some doubt and misgiving, had, 

 under his direction, established its claim to a recog- 

 nised position, and had justified the anticipations of 

 its promoters. His last official step was to secure for 

 his successor the increase of the scientific staff of 

 which he had himself felt the need. 



" On his return to England he gave expression to 

 his experience and his aspirations in an address to the 

 British Association at Cambridge in 1904 as president 

 of the subsection for astronomy and cosmical physics. 

 Reviewing his own work and stimulated by his suc- 

 cess, he looked beyond the forecasts of to-morrow's 

 weather to anticipating, on strictly scientific grounds, 

 the character of the seasons by the correlation of 

 meteorological phenomena over extended regions of 

 the earth and their possible relation with solar changes. 

 He became secretary of the Solar Commission, origin- 

 ated upon the proposition of Sir Norman Lockyer by 

 the International Meteorological Committee, which 

 met at Southport in 1903. The purpose of the com- 

 mittee was to collect comparable meteorological data 

 from all parts of the world and solar data for compari- 

 son with them. He spent a considerable part of his 

 last stay in England in planning new arrangements 

 for carrying out the objects of the Commission. In 

 the latter part of his address at Cambridge he advo- 

 cated the organisation of the British contribution to 

 this side of meteorological work upon an imperial 

 basis. He realised that an imperial combination would 

 treat such questions with a breadth of view that is 



NO. 2004, VOL. ']']'\ 



not possible or permissible in any single colony or de- 

 pendency, guided, as it must be, by the narrower con- 

 sideration of its immediate needs. 



" His plan was to provide for organised observations 

 from areas too wide to be within the control of any 

 single Government; to place the material thus obtained 

 at the service of workers in all parts of the world by 

 publishing it while it was still of direct practical utility 

 and to ensure its application to the service of the 

 Empire by a special staff of trained workers. 



" Anyone who reads the address cannot fail to catch 

 something of his enthusiasm. There is a ring of the 

 " land of hope and glory " about his appeal for the 

 extension of our knowledge of the facts. " Wider 

 still and wider be thy boundaries set " bespeaks the 

 ideal of his meteorological method, and it was to the 

 various parts of the King's dominions that he looked 

 for its realisation. The task was no light one. The 

 British Association made a beginning, but imperial 

 wheels grind ver)' slowly. It says much for Eliot and 

 for India that he carried with him the active support 

 of the Indian Government for the proposal. He wel- 

 comed the idea of a meeting of British meteorologists 

 in Canada, because it gave him the opportunity of 

 getting a step forward, and although conscious of the 

 personal sacrifice which it involved, he undertook to 

 make the journey to Ottawa this year for the purpose. 

 The intention cannot be fulfilled." 



" It is a bitter disappointment to all his fellow- 

 workers that death has brought his efforts to an 

 untimely end. His enthusiasm was entirely free from 

 any suggestion of selfishness or personal ambition ; 

 he could speak from an unique position with un- 

 rivalled experience. There is no one now to take his 

 place. But the idea remains, and this country seldom 

 wants for men when there is real work to be done. 

 Remembering Eliot's achievements we are em- 

 boldened to fall back upon the refrain, and to add the 

 second couplet without misgiving." 



.\mong the more prominent of Sir John Eliot's pub- 

 lications arc numerous accounts of cyclones and severe 

 cyclonic storms occurring within Indian seas; also 

 numerous meteorological discussions contributed to 

 the Indian Meteorological Memoirs, to the Indian 

 Cyclone Memoirs, to the Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, and to the Quarterly Journal 

 of the Roval Meteorological Society; his " Handbook 

 of Cyclonic .Storms in the Bay of Bengal " (already 

 mentioned), and his last publication, which took the 

 form of that most valuable work, " The Climatological 

 Atlas of India," published by the authority of the 

 Government of India only a few months ago; while at 

 the time of his death he was engaged in' writing a 

 " Handbook of Indian Meteorology " to accompany 

 this, also to be published under the direction of the 

 Government of India. 



Sir John Eliot was elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society in 1895; he was created a CLE. in 1897, 

 and was given his K.C.I.E. in 1903 on his retire- 

 ment. In 1877 he married Mary, daughter of Mr. Wm. 

 Nevill, of Godalming ; his widow survives him, and 

 he has left three sons. A. P. 



i 



Sir Oliver Lodge was unable to deliver his presidential 

 address to the Faraday Society on Tuesday on account 

 of an attack of influenza, from which, however, he is now 

 recovering. 



We regret to state that the Duke of Devonshire died at 

 Cannes on Tuesday morning-, at seventy-four years of 

 age. The Duke was a Fellow of the Royal Society and 

 Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. 



