154 0. Little — The "Himalayan summer storm of Sept. 24th, 1903. [No. 4, 



investigation, with an expression of the opinion that the confirmation 

 requires watchfulness and judgment not to be expected from the *' class 

 of men who furnish the registers of our observatories." I understand 

 him to take the snowfall in the North-Western Himalayas as the best, 

 and in fact at that time the only available indication of different states 

 of the upper atmosphere (of great elevations he observes). 



At the time when the head of the Meteorological Department in 

 India was evolving the above hypothesis or theory, that is in the early 

 eighties, Mr. Eliot, then a subordinate in Bengal, was publishing (see 

 Monthly Weather Reviews) rival forecasts based upon the principle 

 which Mr. Blanford was declaring to be an insufficient guide. After he 

 became in turn head of the Department, that principle became to the 

 exclusion of all others the working guide in estimating the character 

 of the rainfall, and in fact of all weather changes. 



It is not easy to give chapter and verse for what I may select as 

 the guiding principle, theory or hypothesis used by Mr. Eliot in wea- 

 ther forecasting, for owing to the immense amount of printed matter 

 published since J 888 and the difficulty of finding what I may call 

 incriminating statements, the search reminds one of a recent process 

 which has been attracting much attention lately — the extraction of 

 radium from pitchblende. 



Perhaps the most explicit statement issued previous to the letter 

 published in the Pioneer in 1899, is to be found in an extract from the 

 papers of the Chicago Meteorological Congress, August 1893. The fol- 

 lowing extracts give, as Mr. Eliot then states, some of the conditions 

 determining the character of the coming monsoon : — 



(1) " Unusually heavy and prolonged snowfall in the Himalayan 



Mountain area has been shown by Mr. Blanford to exercise 

 a. very powerful influence." 



( 2) " The abnormal pressure conditions established during the hot 



weather, more especially if they are marked, exercise a 

 great influence in modifying the set of the monsoon cur- 

 rents/' 

 " A consideration of the snowfall data of the cold weather, of 

 the meteorological conditions prevailing during the hot 

 weather, and more especially the character and persistency 

 of the pressure variations, usually enables a rough estimate 

 of the general strength of the monsoon currents and the 



distribution of the rainfall to be made 



This is what is now attempted to be done in the forecasts 

 issued annually in June by the Department and which have 

 had a fair measure of success, For example, a full warning 



