1869.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 35 



given by Maulvi Abdullatif; drawn up from a MS. in Arabic 

 by one of the Panthays themselves. We anticipate a large addition 

 to our knowledge of these people, and of their border tribes, from 

 the account of Dr. Anderson's sojourn among them, and hope it 

 may be soon accessible to the members of the Society and the 

 public. 



The second part of the Journal for 1868, contains the usual me- 

 teorological returns for Calcutta up to close of August. The 1st 

 number for 1869, now on the table, brings these up to the close of 

 October. These had been allowed to get so much into arrear that, 

 at the close of the preceding year, they had been issued only up to 

 August, 1866. It is hoped that we shall in future be able to give 

 these returns more quickly than hitherto ; and that very soon 

 the necessity for publishing them at all may be removed, by the issue 

 in a more complete and general form, of tables exhibiting the chief 

 meteorological elements, not only for Calcutta, but for Bengal 

 generally, from the office of the meteorological reporter. We have 

 seen, with pleasure, that the Government of Bengal has acted on the 

 advice of their able officer, and enabled him, by visiting the out- 

 stations, and personally conferring with the several observers, testing 

 and comparing their instruments, and the modes of registration, to 

 introduce a greater uniformity in the system, and thus obtain a greater 

 regularity in the returns. This is the essential first step towards 

 improvement, and we doubt not will bear good fruit ; for, however 

 interesting to local observers local observations may be, they fail 

 entirely in leading up to any general results, unless they can be 

 correlated with other observations in adjoining or more distant locali- 

 ties ; and this correlation and comparison is worse than useless, 

 unless the observations have been in each case -conducted with nearly 

 equal care, and on a uniform system. This element of success will 

 now be secured for Bengal, by Mr. H. Blanford's visits to the 

 Bengal stations. Similar efforts have been made in the N. W. 

 Provinces, and we look forward to the adoption of a uniform system, 

 throughout India generally, when it may be practicable to deduce 

 from all the returns one general review of the meteorology of 

 India. I would suggest that useful progress towards the accomplish- 

 ment oi this desirable end might be made, if monthly summaries 



