186 LIEUT.-COLONEL SYKES ON THE ATMOSPHERIC TIDES 



water at the latter hour. The following morning, at Kundallah, on the top of the 

 Gh^ts, 1744 feet above the sea, at the same hours, the dewing-points were 36° and 

 40°, temperature 72° and 78°, equivalent only to 2*690 grains and 3*004 grains of 

 water in a cubic foot of air. In the afternoon of the same day, at Karleh, 2015 feet 

 above the sea, seven miles east of Kundallah, a cubic foot of air held 2954 grains, 

 and on the 12th, at 4 p.m., 2'61 1 grains of aqueous vapour. On the summit of Loghur, 

 3381 feet above the level of the sea, and 1366 feet above Karleh, the dewing-point 

 at sunrise the next day was 5° Fahr. below the freezing-point, temperature of air 67° ; 

 and a cubic foot of air held only 1 -995 grains of water in a state of vapour. 



These facts fully establish the remarkable discrepancies between the hygrometric 

 state of the air in Bombay and Dukhun, and that too within a difference of a few 

 miles of latitude and longitude. A comparison of the absolute fall of rain in Bombay 

 and in Poona for the years 1826, 1827, and 1828, shows an agreement (to a certain 

 extent) in their ratio to the relative hygrometric state of the air at Poona and Bombay 

 above noticed*. The occasional extreme dryness of the air in the months of Decem- 

 ber, January, February, and part of March, is productive of some inconvenience; new 

 furniture cracks, planks separate from each other, doors shrink so much that the 

 locks will not catch ; the leaves of card-tables warp, and manifest a disposition to 

 curl up, and are only kept level by the constant application of brackets ; ink disap- 

 pears as if by magic, and the nibs of pens, by their recession from each other, mani- 

 fest a provoking mutual antipathy. 



I will confine my observations on the fall of rain in Dukhun within a narrow com- 

 pass, as a glance of the eye over the Tables, Nos. 23 — 28, will afford every infor^ 

 mation. The rains are light, uncertain, and in all years barely sufficient for the 

 wants of the husbandman, and a slight failure occasions much distress. They usually 

 commence at the end of May, with some heavy thunder showers from the E. to the 

 S.E., the lightning being terrific, and frequently dangerous. They set in regularly 

 within the first ten days in June, and continue until the end of September from the 

 W. to the S.W., and break up with thunder storms from the E. to S.E. before the 

 middle of October. During the remaining months of the year an accidental shower 

 or two may fall from the Coromandel monsoon ; and the further the distance east- 

 ward from Poona, the greater the chance of showers in the cold months. The 

 monsoon temperature is equable and agreeable, and the rain occurs almost always 

 in showers, rarely continuing uninterruptedly for a day or more, as is common on 

 the coast and in the Konkun. There does not appear to be any uniformity in the 



* The mean annual fall of rain in Bombay for those years was 93" 62 inches, and the mean fall at Poona 

 26' 926 inches, or 28|- per cent, only of the fall in Bombay. The absolute weight of aqueous vapour at 

 Poona in March 1828, was 4\^ per cent, of the quantity suspended in the air in Bombay in the same month. 

 The comparison of the means of the annual fall of rain in Bombay for twelve years, from 1817 to 1828 in- 

 clusive, viz. 82-01 inches, and of the fall of rain at Poona, 23-43 inches, from 1826 to 1830 inclusive, gives 

 the same result. 



