58 
President's Address. 
[Feb. 
ing. In the remarks all the principal features of pressure, wind, rainfall 
&c., during the preceding 24 hours are noticed. The Government of India 
has now sanctioned the continuance of this system permanently, and has 
authorized the publication, with the daily reports, of lithographed weather 
charts for India, similar to those published for some years past in the United 
States and several European countries. This improvement will come into 
operation shortly. 
It is very satisfactory to find that the vast practical importance of 
extended.meteorological observations, and of quick and accurate information, 
has been so rapidly recognized throughout India as has been the case, and 
that the great advantage to commerce and agriculture to he derived from 
a careful study of the changes in the atmosphere has been appreciated, if 
not to the extent that it deserves, still sufficiently to convince thinking 
men. The time may come when a meteorological report will have to be 
posted at every thannah in the empire in order to warn farmers when to 
expect rain or fine weather for their crops, and there can he no reasonable 
doubt that either a continuance of dry weather or heavy rainfalls could, in 
India, as a general rule, be foretold several days beforehand even now. Just 
as the storms of Western Europe are outstripped by the telegraph in their 
race from the American coasts to the shores of Great Britain, so the singular 
cyclonic movements to which, as Mr. H. F. Blanford has shewn, the heavy 
rainfall of the year is mostly due, are now predicted in Northern India before 
the atmospheric disturbance itself has travelled beyond the shores of the Bay 
of Bengal. 
The publication of the ‘ Indian Meteorologist’s Vade-Mecum’ by Mr. 
II. F. Blanford in 1877 has furnished a record of the present state of 
Indian Meteorology. The work consists of two parts, the first containing 
Instructions to Observers, with a description of different meteorological in¬ 
struments, instructions as to their use, and of the precautions to be taken 
in observing them, and rules for the reductions necessary. The second part of 
the work consists of a description of the meteorology of India, and compri¬ 
ses chapters on the physical properties of air and vapour, the Physical Geo¬ 
graphy of India and its dependencies, Radiation and Temperature, Atmos¬ 
pheric pressure and Winds, Hygrometry, Cloud and Rainfall, Storms, and 
suggestions for future enquiry. At the end of the work are tables of 
annual and monthly mean barometric pressure, temperature, rainfall, &c., 
and an accompanying volume gives the necessary tables for the reduction 
of observations. The work is intended to be a Manual or Hand-book of 
Meteorology for India, and whilst shewing how much has been ascertained 
in the course of the last few years, it will serve as a mark from which to 
measure future progress. 
