Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, 



609 



1864.] 



The local Reporters should be carefully selected, and such a salary 

 should be offered as would make it worth their while to devote time 

 and care to the duties. If a very small remuneration be offered, it is 

 scarcely probable that time and attention of more than equivalent 

 value will be given ; for Meteorological work, involving much tedious 

 detail, does not present the same attractions to speculative minds, as 

 are possessed by sciences of more immediate generalization. It is 

 considered that Rs. 400 per mensem for pay and travelling expenses, 

 and Rs. 100 for office, would be a just and moderate remuneration 

 for the local Reporters. An annual report on the reduced and gener- 

 alized results should be a sine qua non. 



The local Reporters would, in the first place, be entrusted with the 

 collection of all observations actually made by different Officers of 

 Government ; and from the whole would select such as, with improved 

 appliances and systematisation, may be brought to that standard of 

 accuracy which has been pointed out as a primary condition of value. 



They would then see that the selected observers be furnished with 

 properly compared instruments, and with instructions to enable them to 

 conform to the general system adopted ; and they would occasionally 

 visit the observing stations, to ensure that the instructions issued are 

 strictly observed. 



They would also receive the tabulated results, and either reduce 

 them to the standards of comparison, or, if too numerous to deal with 

 themselves, forward them to the Central Office for that purpose ; in the 

 former case, they would send to the Central Reporter, copies of the 

 reduced observations, together with the annual report on the general 

 results, for the area of observation. 



The observations now recorded under orders of Government may 

 be classed under four heads, viz. : — those made at — 



1st. — The Government Observatories at the Presidency stations. 

 These are generally trustworthy, and made with standard instruments. 

 It is proposed that the Central Observatories be placed under the 

 superintendence of the local Reporters, and that special attention be 

 directed to them in order that the observations there made may be 

 used as standards of comparison. In certain cases, also, extension 

 may be advantageously given to the observations, so that at all central 

 stations the following classes of phenomena be recorded, by self- 

 registering instruments wherever possible ; — 



