1884.] Himalaya Snowfall with Drought in India. 9 



another condition which influenced, in a very important degree, the 

 meteorology of the years 1876 to 1878, which may indeed have 

 originated in conditions more or less similar to the above, but was of 

 far wider incidence, and must have been determined by circumstances 

 operating far beyond the limits of our area. This condition was that 

 excessive atmospheric pressure which, from August, 1876, to August, 

 1878, prevailed continuously over India, and which I have noticed at 

 length in the Report on the Meteorology of India in 1878.* In 

 India this was at its maximum from July to September, 1877, and its 

 disappearance in Northern India in August, 1878, about coincided 

 with the abundant influx of the monsoon rains of that year. In 

 Southern India it had disappeared earlier, viz., in May. During the 

 northern summers of 1876 and 1877 it was even more excessive in 

 extra-tropical Asia on the one hand, and in Australia (in the southern 

 winter) on the other, than in India. It was probably the presence of 

 this condition in the monsoons of 1876 and 1877 and its absence in 

 the latter part of that of 1878 which in part, at least, determined the 

 differences in the rainfall of these years. Still, this is no argument 

 against the local influence of the Himalayan snows, for which there 

 is ample independent evidence. It only shows that the latter were 

 not the sole cause operating in those years. 



To return to the consideration of the facts shown by the table. 

 The two years with the smallest winter rainfall, viz., 1879 and 1870,f 

 when it amounted respectively to only 54 and 66 per cent, of the 

 general winter average, were years of very plentiful summer rains, 

 that of 1879 being one of the highest on record, and one-third in 

 excess of the average, while that of 1870 was as much as 21 per cent, 

 in excess. In three other years, in which the excess of the summer 

 rains amounted to as much or nearly as much as in 1879, the winter 

 rainfall on the North -Western Himalaya had been from 10 to 13 per 

 cent, below the general average. 



Evidence of the Exceptional Year, 1880. The facts of the deficient 

 rainfall of 1880, both in the winter and summer seasons, are of 

 especial 'interest in relation to the present discussion. In this year 

 the winter rainfall was on the whole considerably below the average, 

 but in February there was a heavy fall of snow on the North- 

 Western Himalaya, when according to a report received from the 

 Commissioner of Kumaon, General Sir H. Ramsay, " the fall of snow 

 in Almora came down to a lower altitude than it had been known to 

 do for many years. " J Further, with respect to the mountains around 



* Op. tit., pp. 53-58. 



t It is noteworthy that Mr. Hill adduces 1870 as a year of winter rainfall above 

 the average, and therefore as affording adverse evidence. This is, of course, due to 

 the different method in which he has treated the data. 



J Report on the Meteorology of India in 1880, p. 166. 



