4 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Jui.v i, 1884. 



rain clouds are first and most liberally served. In 

 India, not only are the hot and dry regions unhealthy, 

 but so are even large portions of th" bill-country, 

 where excessive rain at one period of the year is 

 followed by droughts sometimes extending over eight 

 mouths. The salubrity of the mountain and hill re- 

 gions of Ceylon above 2,500 feet, and also of much 

 of the plain country, is owing to the position of the 

 island with reference to the two monsoons, so that 

 the rainfall is not only copious but well-distributed 

 over the year. The insalubrity of the regions around 

 Haiubantota in the south of the island and Mannar in 

 the north is not so much due to the low rainfall of 30 

 inches, as to the fact that nearly the whole of the 

 fall takes place in about four months while the rest 

 of the year is hot and dry, conditions evidently 

 favourable to the production of what is called " mal- 

 aria " (mal-aria, bad air) and the resulting fevers, 

 which are so often fatal or which make life a burden. 

 We know of the case of a doctor and his wife in 

 Rajputanawho have buried seven out of eight children 

 born to therh, and the eigkth is probably only alive 

 because sent early to England and kept there, the 

 parents themselves having sifii ply struggled on against 

 repented and wearing attacks of fever. Most of our 

 stations in Ceylon are healthy, while in India many 

 are insalubrious and a number deadly. At such stations 

 there will be comparative immunity from disease for 

 many years, and then a bad year will come, disease 

 being generally coincident with drought. In Kuruue 

 gala, in the early days of British occupation, one- 

 third of the European population have been swept away 

 in one season. Things are not so bad now but still 

 Kurunegala fever is dreaded and rightly so. Trincomalee 

 had once a very evil reputation, but it is now claimed 

 for the eastern port that it is healthy. But this 

 must be merely comparative. The difference between 

 Trincomalee and Colombo, apart from quantity and 

 distribution of rainfall, is, that, for the larger portion 

 of the year, the wind at Trincomalee is a land-wind. 

 For nine out of the twelve months, Colombo is re- 

 freshed and purified with sea-breezes. The result is 

 that Colombo is, and with proper sanitary precautions 

 ought always to be, one of the most salubrious towns 

 iik- the world. None of the capital towns of Ind a 

 can compare with it in this respect. Dr. Fayrer's 

 paper was suggested by one read by Mr. Bateman 

 before the Victoria Institute on the rainfall of the 

 British Isles and its influence on human health and 

 hardihood, on the fertilily of the toil and the pro- 

 duction of food. Mr. Bateman is one of the greatest 

 authorities of our time on hydraulic engineering, and 

 he occupies the same position 111 regard to the Colombo 

 water works (now aelvancing to completion) as Sir 

 Hutton Gregory does towards our railway system. 

 As bearing on the question of the fall and distribution 

 of rain, the geographical position and physical pecu- 

 liarities of India were, of course, described. The 

 gaseous atmosphere which surrounds the globe is described 

 and the causes and eflects^of evaporation and condensation 

 on which rainfall depends. We quote as follows : — 



The ocean is the great source whence atmospheric mois- 

 ture is derived ; it is the great bourne to which it all 

 returns. As the wise king said, — " All the rivers run 

 into the sea, yet the sea is not full ; unto the place from 

 whence the rivers come, thither they return again." 



The atmosphere is the great sponge that soaks up anil 

 holds the watery vapour, which, when condensed falls 

 into the ocean, or ou to the earth, to fill the rivers, to 

 sink into the ground, whence it rises again in springs, 

 collects iu wells, lakes and pools, or runs off in streams 

 and rivers, diffusing itself everywhere, ministering to the 

 wants of nature, and supporting life and organization ; 

 finally, to return to the ocean again to rise in vapour, 

 anel repeat the endless circulation, without which life 

 would be extinct, and the earth reduced to the con- 

 dition of the moon, or of some effete worn-out world. 

 Water is always, evaporating ; oxpose a cup of it, t? , 



the air and it will soon disappear,— all the sooner if the 

 air be dry and warm. So will ice or snow, in regions 

 where the cold may prevent it from melting, but not 

 from evaporating ; it is not lost, but assumes the im- 

 palpable form of vapour, and mingles with the air. This 

 process is going on wherever there is water, but more 

 especially from that part of the ocean which lying near 

 the equator, is subjected to the continued heat of the 

 vertical solar rays. Here vaporisation is most active, and 

 the warm air, saturated with moisture, rising in constant 

 currents to higher regions, is replaced by colder and 

 heavier currents rushing in from towards the poles ; in 

 turn to be heated, charged with moisture, ascend, and 

 so keep up a constant circulation, making the equatorial 

 rain ' belt the great distillery of nature 



" The wind goeth towards the south, and turneth a bout 

 unto the north ; it whirleth about continually, aud the 

 wind returueth again according to its circuits." hesc 

 perennial northern and southern currents, or trade winds 

 getting their easterly direction from the earth's rotatio, 

 arc always blowing towards the equator ; whilst there is 

 a regularity of climatic phenomena unknown beyond the 

 tropics, where, many and varied changes occur. 



The northern hemisphere, containing much more land 

 than the southern, is subject, on account of deflected 

 ocean currents and " thermal " changes, resulting from 

 the varying radiatious of the laud and sea to greater per- 

 turbation of the conditions that determine the formation and 

 distribution of aerial moisture and other meteorological 

 phenomena ; and it is to one of the most remarkable 

 of these, the mousoous of the Indian Ocean, that 

 the climate aud varying seasons of India owe much of 

 their peculiar character. 



Then comes the passage about the monsoons which 

 we have quoted, and Sir JoBeph Fayrer pro eedB to de- 

 scribe the main physical characteristics of the vast 

 rainfall area of India. A knowledge of the general 

 facts connected with India may be taken for granted 

 on the part of our readers : such as that it has a 

 coast Hue of 4,000 miles ; that the direct length in 

 two directions is 1,900 miles; that the Superficial 

 area is 1,500,000 square miles, equal to the whole of 

 Europe excluding Russia; that it contains the highest 

 mountains in the world, covered with eternal snow, 

 and many great rivers with several watersheds. We 

 now fjuote : — 



This vast country, which has nearly two hundred and 

 fifty millions of inhabitants, of races more ethnically dis- 

 tinct and more numerous than those of Europe, has, ow- 

 ing to the nature of its physical geography and the extent of 

 its area, every kind of climate, from that of the Torrid to the 

 Arctic zone ; possessing lofty mountains, elevated table-lands 

 alluvial valleys, desert tracts, and plains ; noble rivers, ex- 

 tensive swamps, jungles, anel magnificent forests ; it has 

 characters that invest it with peculiar interest for the me- 

 teorologist ; for, as Mr. Blanford says, " it offers peculiar 

 advantages for the study of meteorology, exhibiting at 

 opposite seasons of the year an almost complete reversal of 

 the wind system and of the meteorological conditions de- 

 pending on it. Its almost complete isolation in a meteoro- 

 logical point of view from the rest of the Asiatic continent 

 by the great mountain chain along its northern border 

 simplifies to a degree almost unknown elsewhere the con- 

 ditions to be contrasted, by limiting them to those of the 

 region itself and the seas around. India ateo presents in its 

 elirfereut parts extreme modification of climateanel geograph- 

 ical feature. In its hill stations it affords the means of gaug- 

 ing the condition of (he atmosphere at permanent observator- 

 ies up to a height of 8,(100 feet. The periodical variations of 

 temperature, vapour, tension, and pressure, both annual and 

 diurnal, are strongly marked and regular ; and these changes 

 proceed so gradually that the concurrence and inter-depend- 

 ence of these several phases can be traced out with precision." 

 As regards climate, India may be divided into: — 1. Him- 

 alayan, including! Bhotan, N'epaul, Gurhwal, Cashmere, and 

 Cabul. 2. Himloostau, which extends along the foot of Ihe 

 Himalayan range, and includes the alluvial plains of the 

 great rivers Ganges and Indus, with their numerous tri- 

 butaries, as far south as the Viudyah mountains. 3. South- 

 ern India, or the Deccan, which consists of elevated table- 

 lands, littoral plains intersected by numerous rivers, uioun 



