In] IE TZEOR O OG Y I07
the First Assistant Meteorological Reporter to the Government
of India (all of whom are whole-time officers); the Provincial
Meteorological Reporters at Allahabad, Bombay, Calcutta, and
Madras, of whom the three latter issue Provincial Daily
Weather Reports; and an Assistant Meteorological Reporter
in charge of the Alipore central observatory. The five officers
last mentioned are half-time officials, who hold other appoint-
ments in the Educational or Telegraph departments '.
For many years the Indian region, including India proper, India not
Burma, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal, was considered an isolated
meteoro-
as an independent meteorological area, in which the weather logical
was supposed to be determined chiefly, if not solely, by the area.
conditions within that area. It was assumed that India was
protected on the north by the lofty barrier of the Himalayas,
and on the west by the moderately high range of the Sulaimlns,
from the cold winds coming from northern regions, and that
it was only exposed to the influence of equatorial sea currents.
The presence of this northern mountain barrier does un-
doubtedly exercise a very considerable influence on the
meteorology of India and more especially of the Indo-Gangetic
plain; for a comparison of the temperature data of Northern
India with those of the south and centre of the United States in
the same latitudes indicates that the intervention of the Hima-
layas increases the temperature of the Indo-Gangetic plain from
3° to 5° above what it would have been if a low-level plain
had extended northwards to the Arctic regions. Nevertheless,
as will be seen later on, meteorological conditions in India
generally are very largely determined by outside influences.
The physiographical and geographical features of India are Physio-
of great importance, in so far as they modify more or less features
considerably the lower air movement, and hence the distribution of India.
of temperature, pressure, humidity, and rainfall; and it is
necessary to bear them in mind in any scientific discussion of
the meteorological conditions and actions of that country.
India is the middlemost of three great Asiatic peninsulas
which project southwards into the Indian Ocean, and which
are more or less dependent on that ocean for their broader
meteorological features. It consists of a peninsula proper (to
the south of latitude 22° N. or the Tropic of Cancer), and of
a broad low alluvial plain the axis of which runs east and west.
Asle by Editor.-The constitution and present efficiency of the Indian
Meteorological Department are due mainly to two men who have successively
been at its head-Mr. H. F. Blanford and Sir John Eliot, K.C.I.E., the
latter of whom has contributed the material for the present chapter.
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