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XLIX. Notices respecting New Books. 



Report on the Administration of the Meteorological Department of the 

 Government of India in 1878-79. By H. F. Blaintobd, Meteoro- 

 logical Reporter to the Government of India. 



Indian Meteorological Memoirs. Vol. I. part III., containing VII. 

 Variations of Rainfall in Northern India, by S. A. Hill, Esq., 

 B.Sc, Meteorological Reporter to the Government of the North- 

 western Provinces and Oudh. VIII. Meteorological and Hypsome- 

 trical Observations in Western Tibet, recorded by Dr. Scully, with 

 a Discussion by H. F. BljUSTOKD, Meteorological Reporter to the 

 Government of India. Calcutta : Office of the Superintendent of 

 Government Printing. 1879. 



r PHESE publications constitute the latest instalments of the re- 

 -■- suits of meteorological inquiry so energetically pursued in 

 India. The first testifies to the unwearied perseverance of the 

 Reporters to the different Governments in India ; and the second 

 treats of the Rainfall, with its variations, in the northern parts of 

 India. 



One of the most striking features, we may say, of both publications 

 is the connexion of the condition of the sun's surface with the 

 state of the earth's atmosphere as manifested by its meteorological 

 phenomena ; and we are disposed to consider, from a careful perusal 

 of the first, that our Indian meteorologists are in a fair way, if not 

 of fully solving the problem of solar influence on terrestrial phe- 

 nomena, at least of throwing much light upon it. In this connexion 

 we shall extract some of the most important passages bearing on it. 



" A branch of physical enquiry, the close connexion of which 

 with Meteorology has been fully recognized only within the last few 

 years, is that of the physical condition of the Sun. So long ago as 

 the beginning of the present century, Sir William Herschel specu- 

 lated on the probable variation of the sun's heat, and the consequences 

 of such variation on terrestrial meteorology, and secondarily on 

 agricultural produce. But it was not until the British Association 

 meeting of 1872, that attention was prominently drawn to this 

 subject, by the late Colonel Strange, since which time the study of 

 Solar Physics has more and more been recognized as inseparable from 

 that of the meteorology of our planet. Hitherto such coincidences 

 as have been traced out, with more or less distinctness or vague- 

 ness, between the variations of the sun's condition and the atmo- 

 sphere and other physical phenomena of our planet and its inhabi- 

 tants, have been purely empirical. To take, for instance, the case 

 which is perhaps the most firmly established of all, viz. the variation 

 of terrestrial magnetism, — all that can be said is, that the various 

 changes in the sun's condition and position with reference to the 

 earth, such as the diurnal and annual periods of the earth's re- 

 volution, cyclical variation of sun-spots, the sun's periodical revolu- 

 tion on his axis, &c, are faithfully reflected in the variations of the 

 terrestrial magnetism, in the varying intensity and direction of 

 the force. But as to the chain of physical causes through which the 

 solar variations thus react upon the earth — whether, for instance 



Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 9. No. 57. May 1880. 2E 



