1811.] 
mon to hear, that four or five people* 
have died in the streets in the course of 
a day, in consequence of being taken un- 
prepared. This happens especially at 
the first setting-in of those winds. 
The natives use no other means of se- 
curing themselves against this wind, but 
shutting up their houses, and bathing in 
the morning and evening; Europeans 
cool it through wetted tats; made of 
straw or grass, sometimes of the roots of 
the wattie,t which, wetted, exhale a 
pleasant but faint smell. It will be in- 
credible to those that have never wit- 
nessed it, but the evaporation is really 
So great, that several people must be 
kept constantly throwing water upon the 
tats (eight feet by four) in order to have 
the desired effect of cooling a small 
room. 
It would be scarcely necessary to ob- 
serve, if it were not in contradiction to 
public opinion, that the cold produced is 
nota peculiar property of the wind, but 
depends upon: the general principle, that 
all liquids passing into an aériform state, 
absorb heat, and cause immediately 
around them a diminution of it, and con- 
sequently a relative coldness. On the 
same principle depends also the cooling 
of wine and water, in the land-wind 
seasons, the latter in light earthen ves- 
sels, which allow an oozing of the water 
through their pores, and the former in 
bottles, wrapped in a piece of cloth, or 
in straw, which must be constantly kept 
moistened. Tis a ; 
The great violence of these winds is at 
last terminated by frequent showers of 
rain, in June, in the low countries, and 
by the greater quantity of the regular 
rains falling in the inland countries, 
which seem to suspend the partial for- 
mation of clouds along the Ghauts, and 
to leave them clearer, and visible at a 
greater distance, than they had been at 
ny other period of the year before. 
After the enumeration of so many dis- 
agreeable circumstances, I am naturally 
* Four people dropped down dead at Ya- 
mam in the year 1797, an hour after my ar- 
rival there from Masulipatam: and at Samul- 
Cotali, four or five died the same day on the 
Short road between that place and Peddapore : 
the number of inhabitants of either of these 
_ Places does not exceed, I believe, five thou- 
sand. 
+ The frame of them is made of bamboos, 
in the form of the opening in the house to be 
tatted, let it be door or window, which is 
then covered with straw in the manner every 
one thinks best suited to retain the water 
longest. 
TL Andropogon muricatum. 
OnTULY Mac. No. 209, 
Proetedings of Learned Societys. 
49 
led to an investigation of the causes that 
produce them. Before this can be done, 
however, I must prove, according to pro- 
mise, that the theory of our philosophers 
is founded in error. 
They ascribe, as already observed, the 
extraordinary heat which distinguishes 
thess winds from most others, to the 
absorption of caloric, in their passage 
over an extensive tract of country, at a 
time when the sun acts most powerfully 
in our Jatitudes. 
According to this theory, the heat 
should increase in proportion to the 
space over which this wind is to travels 
it should be hotter on the coast than it is 
at any part of the country inland, or, 
which is the same, it should decrease by 
degrees from. the eastern to the western 
sea ofthe peninsula. Experience, how- 
ever, teaches us the reverse; for it is 
hottest near the Ghauts, and among tha 
valleys between those ranges of hills, 
than at any place on the coast; and the 
heat of those winds decreases also as 
they approach the Bay of Bengal, and in 
a direct ratio from the Ghauts to the 
sea: accordingly, it is at Ambore* hot- 
ter than at Vellore, and at this place 
again than at Arcot,f Conjeveram,|| and 
Madras, where the Jand-winds are sel- 
dom felt with any degree of severity. 
Time is another measure applicable to 
the acquisition of heat, as it increases to 
the greatest pitch which a body is ca- 
pable of receiving in pYoportion to its 
continuance: the land-winds should 
therefore be cooler when they set-in at 
ten or eleven o’clock, and hottest at their 
termination in the afternoon; they should 
be so at least at noon, when the sun is 
nearly vertical, and has the greatest in- 
fluence on the substances from which 
heat is to be attracted. The contrary, 
however, comes nearest to the truth; for 
it is known that these winds set-in with 
their greatest violence and heat at once, 
* A place situated in the most western val- 
ley of the Ghauts; immediately at the foot 
of the steepest ascent into the Mysore 
country. 
+ Lies in a spacious valley, nearly at the 
entrance of the Ghaut mountains, and has 
the advantage of an open communication with 
the flat country to the north-east. 
ft A large city, the capital of the nabobs 
of the Carnatic, east of the ranges of hills 
called the Ghauts. 
|| -«+. miles-eastof the latter place in the 
road te Madras, a large populous place. JI 
have chosen this tract, or line, as the most 
known, although not the hottest; for Ellore,’ 
Rajahmundry, and Samulcotah, inthe North- 
ern Circars, are by fax more exposed to these 
Winds» 
: G which 
