388 Ceylon Literary Society. 
dered as applying to Barometers on board the ships in the roads 
and off the coast, as the difference probably is very trifling be- 
tween those and Barometers on shore and near the sea coast on 
a low elevation. 
No sensible difference bas hitherto been observed in the Ba- 
rometer on the western and eastern sides of the island; for, at 
the time of a gale of wind on the western side, during the south- 
west monsoon, the same changes occur in thie’ rise and fall of the 
mercury on the eastern side, and vice rersd. 
In the city of Kandy situated at the distance of about eighty 
miles inland, and at a computed elevation of about 2500 feet 
above the lavel of the sea, during the month of October, the 
maximum of the Barometer, Suhiles the Thermometer was at 76° 
of Fahrenheit, was 25.452 inches, and .the minimum while 
the Thermometer was 70° was 28.272. Sufficient observations 
have not as yet been made to determine with accuracy the ge- 
neral average height, but it may be considered as about 28.3 
inches ; and ‘similar: to what occurs at Colombo, it is always 
higher in the morning about nine o’clock, and at night, than at 
the hour of three. In fact, this periodical rise and fall of the 
mercury appears of so fixed and established a nature, that, there 
is no doubt, an attentive observer of the Barometer may thereby 
mark the above hours and intervals of time with very tolerable 
accuracy, where the state of the atmosphere and the weather has 
not during the time of observation undergone any very material 
change. 
The following additional remarks and observations on the 
Barometer, though not applicable to this island, may notwith- 
standing be deemed not unworthy of a place in the Transactions 
of the Ceylon Literary Society. 
At the Mauritius or Isle of France, in the month of January 
1819} the mercury in the Barometer falling to 29.10 inches, 
was followed bya very violent hurricane, and as the gale abated, 
the mercury again gradually rose and continued rising till it 
reached 29.80 inches, the Thermometer of Fahrenheit during 
the time of the gale varying from 75 to 81 degrees. 
At the town of Port Louis in the month of February, being 
the middle of summer, while the average height of Fahrenheit’s 
Thermometer was 86°, that of the Barometer was 27.72 in 
French inches and lines 5 the English foot being to the French 
as 12 is to 12.816. 
At Madras in the month of October 1818, the mercury in the 
Barometer fell to 28.78 inches, which was considered as unpre- 
cedented at that place, and was followed by a very violent gale 
of wind, which gradually abated as the mercury continued to 
rise until it reached the height of 29.8 inches, which it had been 
at 
