1862.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 311 



his very existence may be said to depend in great measure on the 

 operation of atmospheric influences. The immediate connexion of 

 health with climate is brought home to every one. Any progress 

 made in a clear appreciation of the laws that regulate these pheno- 

 mena, will therefore more or less directly become of real practical 

 utility to us all. It is not intended to be said that we are ever 

 likely to be able to bend the forces of nature as brought into play in 

 atmospheric changes, so as to regulate the seasons or the winds to 

 our will, this of course is unreasonable. But to know what is pro- 

 bable, to foresee what is the inevitable result of certain antecedent 

 causes, is what we may expect. Indeed this practical application of 

 meteorological science is already taking a very definite form, and the 

 reports of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade in 

 London are now generally accepted as giving a fair approximation to 

 the course of the winds and weather for a day or so at least in ad- 

 vance, and as such are daily becoming of more practical utility to 

 the mercantile world. 



In India where the accidents of the seasons, so to speak, are 

 developed with the intensity peculiar to tropical regions, there can 

 at least be no smaller degree of value in such practical applications 

 of science than in Europe. And to those who carry in their recol- 

 lection the horrors of the late famine, it will be needless to say how 

 inestimable a benefit would any thing be that would enable us to 

 foresee these terrible calamities, and to prepare to meet them. Nor 

 is there any thing at all unreasonable in anticipating that as the 

 application of scientific knowledge now enables the sailor to foresee 

 and avoid what used to be thought the irresistible and fatal hurri- 

 cane, so this knowledge may be equally applied under other circum- 

 stances in enabling us to foresee and avoid what now seems the 

 equally irresistible and equally merciless desolation caused by drought. 



But the necessary precursor of the practical application of any 

 science, is a careful, laborious and intelligent study of the actual 

 phenomena ; and it is obviously to this means that we must look here 

 as elsewhere. 



Nor need the intensity of tropical storms, or the extreme irregu- 

 larity of the rain, which in one year will fall in a flood, while in 

 another it will be scanty to such a degree as to create a famine,, 

 cause us to entertain any especial apprehension that we may there- 



2 s 



