10 Mr. H. F. Blanford. On the Connexion of tlie [May 1, 



the sources of the Granges, the report states " The winter has been an 

 exceedingly severe one ; snow fell at Srinagar (in the Ganges valley), 

 Ramri, Palinda (a few miles north of Katawara), places where it was 

 seldom seen." The months of March and April which followed were 

 of excessive dryness. Scarcely a drop of rain fell in these two 

 months on the plains of the North- Western Provinces, the Punjab, 

 Rajputana, or Central India, and in May, June, and July, except in 

 the Punjab and the most northerly of the adjacent districts of the 

 North- Western Provinces, the fall was considerably below the average. 

 But in June and July there was heavy rain in the Eastern Punjab 

 and on the North- Western Himalaya. In July, "on the hills the 

 rain was almost continuous ; at Dharmsala, there was but one day in 

 the month on which no rain was registered, and at Simla but seven 

 days."* The rain was equally heavy in the hills of Kumaon and 

 Garhwal, and as appeared from information subsequently received 

 the precipitation extended far into the heart of the mountain zone. 

 Major Biddulph, then stationed at Gilgit, in the north-west of Cash- 

 mere, wrote to me to the effect that the weather was unusually 

 stormy in Northern Cashmere throughout July, and that " the rain 

 and snowfall on the mountains have been such as are unprecedented 

 at this season." Also a letter from the Reverend Mr. Heyde, stationed 

 at Kailong in Lahoul, reported " such weather as Major Biddulph 

 experienced in July of this year .... we certainly had also in 

 Lahoul, about the same time. It commenced on the 1st July with 

 heavy rain, which, after a few hours, changed to snow, and lasted 

 till the 6th. The snow fell heavily for three successive days, doing 

 much harm. Ponies, cattle, sheep, and goats grazing on the higher 

 hills perished in large numbers in the snow, Ac." This unseason- 

 able snowfall was followed, in August, by an almost entire suspension 

 of the rains on the plains of North- Western India. As described in 

 the official report on the meteorology of the year, " August was 

 conspicuously a dry month in India, and to some extent in Burmah. 

 Indeed the last half of the month was almost rainless in Northern 

 India ; and dry westerly winds set in, which recalled, for the time, 

 tin- disastrous seasons of 1876 and 1877, and seemed to justify the 

 most gloomy forebodings." In the Western Punjab there was no 

 rain, and in the Eastern Punjab and the North- Western Provinces, 

 except in the eastern districts and in Kumaon, it was practically 

 rainless after the 12th or 14th. In Rajputana and the States of 

 Cfiit ml India, although the rainfall of the month was very deficient, 

 the deficiency, except in the eastern States, was much less than on 

 the Gangetic plain and in the Punjab. Even in the Central Pro- 

 vinces, with one or two exceptions, the fall was very deficient. 



It is not then too much to say that this very exceptional year (as 

 * Report on the Meteorology of India in 18SO, p. 149. 



