56 Floods in India in 1849. 



These results have been thrown together with a view of conveying 

 all the information that can be collected from all parts of India over 

 the heaviest of the rainy season ; and, imperfect as they are, com- 

 pared to what they might readily be made, we venture to say that a 

 much larger amount of information has been conveyed by them than 

 is to be found in any single paper or in any similar space. Papers 

 on similar subjects are now issued by the Greenwich Observatory, 

 quarterly, like the Chancellor's accounts ; and the government of 

 India would be conferring a service on the public were the example 

 set at home to be copied by them. They may rely on it that the 

 rumours of those interested in spreading alarm are much more 

 gloomy in the most unfortunate seasons than anything they can set 

 forth : and that on such occasions as these, truth is not only much 

 more satisfactory and salutary, but far more cheering than fiction. 

 The space required for the authorities on which our statements are 

 based, is more than we can afford : the great bulk of them are 

 from the newspapers — we have no doubt whatever of their perfect 

 authenticity : our only cause of regret is that they should be so few, 

 and that so large an amount of information should be constantly in 

 the way of being collected by the various departments under Govern- 

 ment — especially by the medical — from which so very little benefit is 

 derived. All the trouble is taken, but no gain whatever arises from 

 it to any one. 



The month of August was generally open all over the country : 

 from the 17th, indeed, along the western seaboard the monsoon 

 appeared to have been over, when on the 1st of September it recom- 

 menced with double fury, no less than ten inches having fallen at 

 Bombay in the course of the week — betwixt twenty and thirty inches 

 fell on the seaboard, and consequently about double this on the 

 mountains in the course of the month, the fall along the lowlands 

 having been betwixt 130 and 150 for the monsoon, or nearly 

 double the average. On the Eastern coast, again, from lat. 15° S. 

 showers fell during the season usually fair with them, the dry 

 weather on the Coromandel Coast corresponding with the rains in 

 June, July, August, and September in the other parts of India — 

 their own rainy season, November, December, and January, was 

 one of the most defective ever known throughout the Madras presi- 

 dency. 



About the beginning, and again near the middle of August, a 

 tremendous fall appears to have occurred along the range of moun- 

 tains bordering the northern and north-western frontier of the Pun- 

 jaub. The Indus, Jheelum, Chenab, and Kavee came down in un- 

 restrainable fury, and burst through all their boundaries, deluging 

 the country as they went. On the 3d August the cantonments of 

 Wuzeerabad on the Chenab were entirely flooded, and the troops 

 required to be moved. This, however, was a trifling matter in com- 

 parison to what followed a fortnight afterwards. A tremendous 



