INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 287 



volume of about 300 pages, and published under the title of tho 

 " Indian Meteorologist's Vade Mecuru." 



Besides the Report on the Meteorology of India in 1875, the 

 publications issued during the year were — 



Part I. of the Indian Meteorological Memoirs, containing three 

 papers, viz. : — 



(a.) On the winds of Calcutta ; 



(b.) On the climate and meteorology of Kashghar and 



Yarkand ; 

 (c.) On the diurnal variation of barometric pressure at 

 Simla. 



Part I. of the Indian Meteorologist's Vade Mecum. 



The Meteorological Office for Bengal also published Mr. J. Eliot's 

 report on the Vizagapatam and Bakarganj cyclones of October 

 1876. In this report, Mr. Eliot gave a very full discussion of the 

 formation and progress of these two storms, based on data collected 

 partly from ships which encountered the storm and partly from the 

 registers of the coast observatories. He also gave an account of the 

 disastrous flood which submerged the low alluvial tracts at the mouth 

 of the Meghna. But perhaps the most valuable part of the report was 

 tbat which dealt with the formation of cyclones. Previous theories 

 had laid it down that cyclones originated from the action of two 

 opposing winds, which resulted in a rotatory action. But as the winds 

 preceding the formation of a cyclone are generally very light, this 

 was practically a mechanical impossibility. Mr. Eliot's theory, on 

 the other hand, ascribes the formation to the continued precipitation 

 of rain raising the temperature of the cloud-forming strata by the 

 emission of the latent heat of the condensed vapour and lowering 

 the atmospheric pressure. 



Mr. N. R. Pogson published a tabular statement during the year 

 of the rainfall registered at the Madras Observatory in every month 

 during the previous 62 years. The data in this table were discussed 

 by Mr. W. "W. Hunter, with special reference to the supposed 

 periodicity of droughts and famines in Southern India, in a 

 pamphlet which obtained a large circulation and attracted very 

 general interest. Mr. Blanford, however, after investigating the 

 question with a wider field of materials, was compelled to conclude 

 that Mr. Hunter's results required some limitation. 



The following year (1877-78) was marked by an important 

 addition to the work of the Department, i.e., the transmission by 

 post daily of the 10 a.m. readings from nearly all the observing 



