INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 299 



Ajmir and Dehra. The tendency of the results was to show that 

 the existence of forest increases the rainfall. Mr. Ribbentrop, the 

 officiating Inspector- Grenei'al of Forests with the Government of 

 India, starting from the fact that extensive tracts of forest, previously 

 devastated by jungle fires with a view to the nomadic system of 

 cultivation practised by the hill tribes, had been brought under 

 protection in 1S75, and that thereby the area of vigorous forest 

 growth had been enormously increased, was led to inquire whether 

 this measure had sensibly affected the rainfall. Mr. Blanford's data 

 showed that the rainfall of the years subsequent to 1875, when 

 compared with that anterior to that date, manifested a large increase, 

 attributable to the preservation of forests. Subsequently, however, 

 some doubt was thrown on the trustworthiness of the registers of 

 the earlier years, which had led to this conclusion. 



On the 22nd September 1885, a cyclone, small in extent, but 

 accompanied by a high storm, devastated the settlement of Hukitolla, 

 at False Point, in Orissa. The terrible destruction of life and 

 property which resulted from this storm, aroused public attention 

 to the subject of storm warnings to the coast ports, and led to the 

 adoption of measures for extending the system. It was therefore 

 arranged that whenever the telegraphic reports showed the existence 

 of a storm over the bay, an intimation to that effect should be sent 

 to the port officers of the chief places on the Indian coast, who should 

 be instructed to depend on their own observations of the wind and 

 barometer for taking all necessary precautions. 



During 1885-86, Part I. of Vol. III. of the Meteorological 

 Memoirs was issued, containing the first part of a memoir on the 

 rainfall of India. Three other memoirs, viz., one by Mr. Eliot, 

 on the Akyab cyclone of the 12th to the 17th May 1884 ; one by 

 Mr. Blanford, on the diurnal variations of the rainfall of Calcutta ; 

 and one by Mr. Dallas, on the meteorology of a sea tract to the south 

 of the Bay of Bengal, were also printed. 



As a consequence of the annexation of Upper Burma,, an enormous 

 tract of country, of the meteorology of which scarcely anything 

 was previously known, was in the same year brought under the 

 operations of the department. Three fully equipped meteorological 

 observatories were established at Mandalay, Bhamo, and Kind at, 

 and in addition rainfall registers were received for a portion of 

 the year from ten other stations. The three principal observatories, 

 however, very inadequately represented the enormous tract added to 

 our possessions, and it was felt that it would be soon necessary to 



