THE WINDS. 



279 



803. In the next field below, namely, that between 5° and 10^ 

 N., the northeast trades or monsoons do not begin to feel the heat- 

 ing-iip of the deserts until the month of April has set in. The 

 battle now, as it may well be supposed, is not to last long, for the 

 sun is vigorously at work heating-up the brown wastes, and call- 

 ing upon the northeast trades to stop and supply the ascending 

 column with fresh air. By the end of April the southwest mon- 

 soons are found to be decidedly in the ascendant, and they so con- 

 tinue for nearly five months. In October, but not before the mid- 

 dle, the conflict again commences ; feebly at first, and by fitful G:usts 

 it rages all through November, and is not fairly over before the 

 end of December. Here sims of the southeast trade-winds bedn 

 to appear. They come in on the side, now of the northeast, now 

 of the southwest monsoons, and so prolong the contest. 



804. In the next "field" — between 0° and 5° N. — the southwest 

 monsoon is decidedly marked only for a short time. This con- 

 flict ends in May, the other begins in August, leaving the north- 

 east trade-winds decidedly in the ascendant for only about three 

 months, January to March. So that in this "field" we have dur- 

 ing the year six months of conflicting winds, and three months 

 only for each monsoon. 



805. If a ship were stationed in each one of these five " fields," 

 to observe the setting in, continuance, and changing of the mon- 

 soons, the one in the northern "field," between the land and 20° 

 N"., would report that the southwest monsoons had been observed 

 to have regularly set in before the first of March, after a conflict 

 which lasted perhaps six weeks. The observer in the next "field" 

 below, i. e., between 15° and 20° N., would report that he found 

 the southwest monsoons to set in about the middle of March, and 

 after a conflict that commenced in ^February instead of January, as 

 in the " field" above. The vessel in the "field" next below — 10^ 

 and 15° — would report them early in May, after a conflict of four 

 or five weeks. The ship between 5° and 10° would not find 

 them to set in regularly until the first of May, and still later would 

 the vessel in the last " field"— 0° and 5° K— report them. Thus 

 we perceive that the southwest monsoons extend from the land 

 out to the sea at a progressive rate, and that they spread firom a 



