MONSOONS. 359 



stances, may be seen gathering above the low coral island, and 

 performing their office in preparing it for vegetation and fruitful- 

 ness in a very striking manner. As they are condensed into 

 showers, one fancies that they are a sponge of the most delicately 

 elaborated material, and that he can see, as they " drop down 

 their fatness," the invisible but bountiful hand aloft that is press- 

 ino" it out. — Mauky's Sailing Directions^ 7th ed., p. 820. 



698. Land and sea breezes are monsoons in miniature, for they 

 Monsoons in minia- ^©peud in a moasuro upon the same cause. In the 

 ture. monsoons, the latent heat of vapour which is set 

 free over the land is a powerful agent. In the land and sea 

 breezes, the heat of the sun by day and the radiation of caloric by 

 niglit are alone concerned. In the monsoons the heat of summer 

 and cold of winter are also concerned. But could the experiment 

 be made mth two barometers properly placed — one at sea and the 

 other on land, but both within the reach of land and sea breezes — 

 they would show, I doubt not, regular alterations of pressure. 

 In the sea breeze, the land barometer would be low and the sea 

 high, and vice versa in the land breeze ; and when the barometer 

 was highest and when it was lowest it would be calm at the 

 barometric stations. 



699. It is these calm bands or '* medial belts," as the crest and 

 trough of the barometric wave may be called, 

 which, with their canopy of clouds, follow the 



departing and herald the coming monsoon. They move to and 

 fro, up and down the earth, like the sun in declination. As they 

 have a breadth of 200 or 300 miles, they occupy several days in 

 passing any given parallel, and while they overshadow it, then 

 the monsoons are dethroned. During the interregnum, which 

 lasts a week or two, the fiends of the sfcorm hold their terrific 

 sway in these bands. The changing of the monsoons is marked 

 by storm and tempest. Becalmed in them, meanings are said 

 by seamen to be heard in the air — a sign of the coming storm — 

 a warning of impending danger to ship and crew. Then the 

 props and stays are taken away from the air, and the wind seems 

 ready to rush violently hither and thither, and whenever there is 

 from any cause a momentary disturbance of the equilibrium. In 

 such an atmosphere, the latent heat that is liberated by every 

 heavy rain-shower has power to brew a storm. Throughout the 

 monsoon region, the people know beforehand, almost to a day, 

 the coming of this interregnum, which they call the changing of 



