300 INDIAN METEOROLOGY. 



increase their number. One other observatory commenced work 

 during the year, i.e., at Coco Island, which, being situated betweeu 

 Diamond Island and Port Blair, and close to the cradle of most of 

 the violent storms that occur at the change of the monsoon, formed 

 a valuable addition to the Indian system. 



Preparations were also made for establishing an observatory 

 at Baghdad, in connexion with the British Political Residency, and 

 proposals were also afoot with respect to a fresh observatory at 

 Srinagar. A third rainfall register from Baluchistan {i.e., from 

 Pishin) was obtained, so that the Baluch highlands were thus 

 represented as adequately as other parts of India. 



The investigation of the vicissitudes of Indian rainfall, made 

 by the light of all the numerous rainfall registers that had 

 accumulated in the Meteorological Office relating to the last 22 

 years, were concluded during the year under review. The result 

 shows that in the Carnatic there is really a tendency to drought at 

 intervals of about 11 years, but not necessarily cf such intensity 

 as to be disastrous. In all other parts of the peninsula such 

 regularity was not shown by the numerous registers consulted. 

 But this appeared to arise from the cyclical variation being much 

 more liable to disturbance by seasons of copious or deficient rainfall, 

 which are due to other and non-periodic causes. The most im- 

 portant law relating to the droughts of previous years in Northern 

 India, and which appeared to hold good equally of temporary and 

 prolonged suspension of the rainfall, was that they were preceded 

 by heavy snowfall on the Himalaya, particularly the North-west 

 Himalaya. Such was the case before the famines of 1868, 1877, 

 1878 (Kashmir), and also in the period preceding the temporary 

 droughts of 1880 and 1883. 



A volume of weather charts of the Bay of Bengal, exhibiting the 

 barometric pressure, winds, and currents prevalent in every part 

 of the sea, and as far south as the equator, in each month of the 

 year, was published during 1886-87. The work was prepared 

 by Mr. Dallas, from the data furnished by the meteorological logs 

 collected by the London office between 1855 and 1878 and copied, 

 tabulated, and reduced at the cost of the Government of India. 

 Bach chart was reduced to convenient dimensions, and accompanied 

 with a page of description, giving statistical and other details. 

 These publications have been much appreciated by the naval and 

 mercantile marine. 



