18G2.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 311 
his very existence may be said to depend in great measure on the 
operation of atmospheric influences. The immediate connexion of 
health with climate is brought home to every one. Any progress 
made in a clear appreciation of the laws that regulate these pheno¬ 
mena, will therefore more or less directly become of real practical 
utility to us all. It is not intended to be said that we are ever 
likely to be able to bend the forces of nature as brought into play in 
atmospheric changes, so as to regulate the seasons or the winds to 
our will, this of course is unreasonable. But to know what is pro¬ 
bable, to foresee what is the inevitable result of certain antecedent 
causes, is what we may expect. Indeed this practical application of 
meteorological science is already taking a very definite form, and the 
reports of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade in 
London are now generally accepted as giving a fair approximation to 
the course of the winds and weather for a day or so at least in ad¬ 
vance, and as such are daily becoming of more practical utility to 
the mercantile world. 
In India where the accidents of the seasons, so to speak, are 
developed with the intensity peculiar to tropical regions, there can 
at least be no smaller degree of value in such practical applications 
of science than in Europe. And to those who carry in their recol¬ 
lection the horrors of the late famine, it will be needless to say how 
inestimable a benefit would any thing be that would enable us to 
foresee these terrible calamities, and to prepare to meet them. Nor 
is there any thing at all unreasonable in anticipating that as the 
application of scientific knowledge now enables the sailor to foresee 
and avoid what used to be thought the irresistible and fatal hurri¬ 
cane, so this knowledge may be equally applied under other circum¬ 
stances in enabling us to foresee and avoid what now seems the 
equally irresistible and equally merciless desolation caused by drought. 
But the necessary precursor of the practical application of any 
science, is a careful, laborious and intelligent study of the actual 
phenomena; and it is obviously to this means that we must look here 
as elsewhere. 
Nor need the intensity of tropical storms, or the extreme irregu¬ 
larity of the rain, which in one year will fall in a flood, while in 
another it will be scanty to such a degree as to create a famine, 
cause us to entertain any especial apprehension that we may tliere- 
2 s 
