1889.] Address. 95 



the same time of day in different parts of Bengal and Assam during 

 periods of slight general atmospheric disturbance in Northern India. 

 If the conditions happen to be unusually favourable, these Nor'- Westers 

 may occasionally develope into or include a tornado, as in the case of 

 the Dacca storm. 



The most important addition sanctioned by Government undoubted- 

 ly is the systematic collection of observations recorded in the logs of 

 vessels entering the ports of Bombay and Calcutta, with a view to the 

 early publication of daily charts of the whole area, including India, the 

 Indian Seas, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, South Arabia and Persia. It is 

 hoped that this extension will throw much light on the causes of the 

 variations in strength of the South- West Monsoon current on land and 

 at sea, and also upon the origin of the cold-weather storms of Northern 

 India. It may be hoped that some day it will be possible to obtain 

 observations from various parts of Russian Asia which might also be of 

 use. Although Indian Meteorology is chiefly affected by influences 

 coming from the Bay of Bengal on the one side and the Arabian Sea 

 and Indian Ocean on the other, the colder currents from the regions to 

 the far north must exert some influence on the equatorial currents, and 

 a knowledge of the meteorological conditions prevailing in those northerly 

 regions might possibly be a guidance to meteorologists here. 



Mr. H. F. Blanford, late President of our Society, has fully com- 

 pleted during the past year his very valuable Monograph on the 

 Rainfall of India, and it is now issued as a separate volume of the 

 Indian Meteorological Memoirs. He has also written during the year 

 several papers on questions connected with Indian Meteorology which 

 have appeared in the Royal Society's ' Transactions ' and in ' Nature.' 

 He has also completed a work on the Meteorology of India, based on the 

 publications of the Meteorological Department and giving a popular 

 exposition of the more important featui'es of the climate and weather of 

 this country. It will not only increase the interest taken in Indian 

 Meteorology but, it is hoped, lead to greater attention on the part of 

 European meteorologists to the problems it presents. 



Mr. Eliot has also continued his researches into the nature, origin 

 and paths of the cyclonic storms generating in the Bay of Bengal, and 

 has during the year contributed two papers to the Indian Meteorological 

 Memoirs, the first giving a list and brief account of the south-west 

 monsoon storms in the Bay of Bengal during the years 1882 to 1S86, 

 and the second giving the full history of the cyclonic storms of Novem- 

 ber and December 1886 in the Bay of Bengal. The history of these 

 three interesting storms, which succeeded one another at intervals of 

 about a fortnight, appears to support the condensation theory of the 

 formation of cyclones ^Yhich has been so ably advocated by Mr. Eliot. 



