36 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Jan* 



prepared by the officers charged with the record of these observa- 

 tions under each of the local Governments, were to be published toge- 

 ther each month. The observations are now published in detail from 

 week to week, but I think the information they afford, might, with 

 great advantage, be summarized each successive month. 



The great value, commercially, of these returns have been ac- 

 knowledged during the year, by the application from Commercial 

 bodies, for the publication of information regarding rain-fall, 

 &c, in the Upper Provinces. And I cannot help thinking that 

 more practical benefit would be derived from the issue of a brief 

 summary of results each month, and indeed, I would hope, each week, 

 than from the publication of a long list of detailed numerical results, 

 which few persons ever look at ; I would also gladly see a combina- 

 tion of the several returns now given. In Calcutta we have weekly 

 publications of the results obtained at the Surveyor- General's Office, 

 as well as those compiled in the office of the meteorological reporters 

 to Government. Now, neither of these are complete in themselves. 

 The establishment maintained at either office is insufficient to secure 

 full and satisfactory results. And we would hope that arrangements 

 may be made to combine both, and to form one really satisfactory, 

 and thoroughly efficient, meteorological observatory. Hitherto 

 no observations whatever have been made of the electrical elements, 

 and their disturbances ; none of the seismic phenomena, the importance 

 of which in a general physical study of the country, we have been so 

 recently reminded of, — no satisfactory photometric observations have 

 been made, and — of still higher interest and importance practically — 

 no trustworthy observations of the amount and distribution of eva- 

 poration. 



I have no doubt all these important questions will receive due 

 attention in time. And I am confident that the Asiatic Society, 

 which has now for nearly quarter of a century steadily, and at great 

 cost to itself, given to the public continuous returns of the meteoro- 

 logical results obtained in Calcutta, will rejoice to see such observa- 

 tions extended, systematized, and compared, with an amount of detail 

 and care, commensurate with the importance of a knowledge of the 

 atmospheric forces and their changes in direction or amount. 



And here I would express our grateful sense of the manifold assis- 



