Eugene Lafont - Meteorology at St. Xavier's College, Calcutta

Meteorology At St. Xavier's College, Calcutta

Soon after arriving in the capital city of British India Lafont was appointed to teach science. St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, was hardly 5 years old and everything had to be done. However he could not think of teaching science without practical experiments; he promptly installed a laboratory in the college, probably the first such science laboratory of modern India. Within two years he made headlines in the local press: in November 1867, thanks to a makeshift observatory set on the roof of the college he recorded daily meteorological observations which allowed him to anticipate with much accuracy the arrival of a devastating cyclone. The government authorities were informed and took immediate measures that prevented the loss of many human lives. From that day meteorological forecasts of Lafont were regularly published in the widely read weekly paper of Calcutta: the Indo-European Correspondence.