1904.] 0. hiit\e—The Himalayan summer storm of Sept. 24thy 1903, 167 



the remaining portion of the area of the complete monsoon 

 air circulation, viz., the South-East trades region of the Indian 

 Ocean." 



Later in the same page : — 



" The preceding data show that the abnormal monsoon of 1902, 

 accompanied abnormal conditions in the Indian Ocean un- 

 favourable to a strong monsoon, although in India the condi- 

 tions are favourable. This fact is almost sufficient fco establish 

 that the abnormal features of the monsoon of 1902 were due 

 primarily, if not entirely, to abnormal features in the Indian 

 Ocean." 



Page 707. 



*' It is not necessary to give further data, as the previous have 

 been sufficient to establish fully that the variations in the 

 strength of the Arabian Sea current in India were primarily 

 and directly related to variations in the strength of the whole 

 air movement over the Indian Oceau and Seas, and more espe- 

 cially to the movement in the Indian Ocean." 



1 have attempted to show by the above brief extracts what the 

 controlling principle in weather forecasting has been from time to time, 

 and these may, I think, be still more briefly summarised as follows : — 



Mr. Blanford at first relied on pressure anomalies or variations, but 

 afterwards found that method to be untrustworthy. His own observa- 

 tion showed that there was some other condition on which rainfall in 

 Northern India depended, connected as he thought with the upper 

 strata of the atmosphere and requiring careful investigation in the fu- 

 ture. Taking the snowfall in the Himalayas as a tangible representation 

 of that condition, he claimed to have repeatedly and successfully 

 shown beforehand the character of the coming monsoon. 



Sir J. Eliot was guided entirely by the pressure anomalies in India, 

 as is shown by the claim to have foretold the nature of the famine in 

 Rajputana in 1891. He was subsequently induced by the criticism of 

 American meteorologists to extend the sphere of observation over a 

 wider area, and when the pressure anomalies in India failed conspicu- 

 ously in the later nineties, as Mr, Blanford had found them to fail nearly 

 twenty years before, the discussion of the character of the coming 

 monsoon resolved itself into a consideration of conditions over the 

 Southern Sea area, and a comparison of what had happened in India in 

 years said to be similar. 



Still later the sunspot cycle has been put forward under an im- 

 petus from Sir Norman Lockyer. 



