116 H. F. Blanford — Rainfall of the Carnalic. [April, 



The most rigid attention to commentaries is necessary to avoid 

 such absurdities. In these alone we can have the traditional meaning, the 

 meaning which the people have hitherto assigned to their texts, and every 

 departure from them is an outrage on the law of the land, which the 

 Government is pledged to uphold. And as the text of Manu is cited 

 in every judicial proceeding concerning Hindu Law, Mr. Mandalik has 

 done valuable service to legal practitioners, by placing the commentaries 

 before them in so acceptable a form. 



The necessity for a careful comparison of the different commen- 

 taries was felt a long time ago. The late lamented scholar, Mr. Burnell, 

 took in hand a translation of the text of Manu with voluminous notes, 

 showing the differences of the different commentaries. Our Society 

 also wished to do something in the same way, and very readily accepted a 

 proposition of Dr. J. Jolly to print, in the " Bibliotheca Indica," extracts 

 from all the commentaries then accessible to him, except that of Kul- 

 luka Bhatta. Two fasciculi of this work have already been published 

 under the title of ' Manu-tika-sangraha.' Owing to other engagements 

 the learned editor of the work has not been able to push on this under- 

 taking as fast as could be wished. The published portion comes up to 

 only about one-ninth of the total, and now that all the commentaries 

 have been published in their entirety, it will be for your Council to con- 

 sider whether your undertaking should not be dropped. Disjointed 

 extracts, without even the texts to which they refer, cannot be of any 

 value, or at all worth having, when the entire works are at hand in so 

 convenient a form. 



Mr. H. F. Blanford read the following remarks on some recent 

 evidence on the subject of the variation of the rainfall of the Carnatic 

 and N. W. Himalayas with the sun-spot period. 



The supposed variation of the rainfall of the globe in response to 

 those changes in the snn's condition which we know best by the variation 

 in the magnitude and frequency of the spots on his surface has been 

 tolerably familiar to all who busy themselves with meteorological en- 

 quiries, ever since in 1872 Mr. Charles Meldrum communicated to 

 the British Association his discovery that the cyclones of the South 

 Indian Ocean were subject to such a cyclical variation. In 1872, Mr. 

 Norman Lockj^er drew public attention to the fact that the rainfall of 

 Madras (that is, that recorded at the Madras Observatory) appeared to 

 vary in like manner, inasmuch as the average rainfall in years when sun- 

 spots were at or near their maximum frequency, very appreciably ex- 

 ceeded that of years when they were at or near their minimum. Sub- 

 sequently other writers took up ths subject : among others, one of the 



