348 Lieutenant R. Strachey on (he 



ble of carrying with it more moisture, than is allowed by the 

 very low temperature to which the air is of necessity reduced 

 in surmounting the snowy barrier, 19,000 or 20,000 feet in 

 altitude, that it has to pass. Nor can any further condensa- 

 tion be expected at all comparable in amount to what has 

 already taken place, as it would manifestly demand a much 

 more than corresponding depression of temperature ; and 

 this is not at all likely to occur, for the most elevated peaks be- 

 ing situated near the southern limit of perpetual snow, the 

 current on passing them will more probably meet with hotter 

 than with colder air. 



It is, I conceive, to precisely similar causes that we should 

 attribute the great amount of rain that is known to fall 

 at Mahabaleshwar, on the Western Ghats, at Chira-punji, 

 in Sylhet, and generally, though the quantity is far less, 

 along the most southern range of the Himalaya itself; and 

 it is curious to observe that the comparative dryness of the 

 less elevated country to leeward also holds good in these 

 cases. In the Deccan, the country immediately to the east 

 of the Western Ghats, Colonel Sykes tells us, that " the rains 

 are light, uncertain, and in all years barely sufficient for the 

 wants of the husbandman." On the same authority we find, 

 that while the mean fall of rain for three years at Poona, was 

 about 27 inches,* that at Mahabaleshwar for 1834 was no less 

 than 302 inches. t Although I have not the exact figures to 

 refer to, I know that the rain at Nainee Tal, on the external 

 range of the Himalaya, is about double what falls at Almorah, 

 not thirty miles to the north. 



It will therefore be seen that as I hold the direct action of 

 the sun to be the primary cause of the great genei*al height 

 to which the snow-line recedes, so I consider that the increase 

 of the height in the northern part of the chain, chiefly de- 

 pends, not on any additional destructive action, but on the 

 smaller resistance offered by a diminished quantity of snow 

 to destructive forces, which are not indeed constant through- 

 out the whole breadth of the chain, but whose increase ap- 



* British Association's Seventh Report, p. 236. 



t Ibid., Ninth Report, p. 15 (Sections). The exact amount is 302-21 inches. 



