Chap. Ill] TROPICAL WOODLAND AND GRASSLAND 269 



3. THORN-FOREST CLIMATE IN CIS-GANGETIC INDIA. 



The peninsula of Hindustan affords the amount of rainfall necessary 

 for high-forest (rain-forest and monsoon-forest) only on its west coast, 

 and a small part of its north-east territory in the monsoon district of 

 the Ganges and Brahmaputra. In the central parts of the peninsula 

 the rainfall is mostly 760-1,900 mm., and according to Hann's map 

 there is an extensive district lying between 8o° and 88° E., the tropic of 

 Cancer, and 18 N., in which the rainfall is about 125 cm. The southern 

 and north-western parts of the peninsula are, on the whole, much drier 

 (380-760 mm.) ; the north-western part borders on the western district 

 of India. 



All these districts experience summer and winter rain, except the 

 south-eastern (Madras), where autumnal rain prevails. They are covered 

 with thorn-forest and semi-desert, according to the rainfall. Tree-growth 

 is nowhere entirely excluded (Fig. 126). 



The climate is everywhere suitable for woodland, never for grassland : 

 during the vegetative season it is extremely hot, usually very dry, the 

 latter especially during the cool winter and spring months. 



Tropical Xerophilous Woodland Climate. 

 ROORKEE. PATNA. 



29 52' N.j 77° 56' E.j 270 meters above 25° 37' N., 85° 14' E., 56 meters above 



sea-level. sea-level. 



(After Woeikof in Meteorol. Zeitschr., 1894, p. 41 1.) 



