UPPER INDIA. 25 



it, the difference was reduced to 18, showing the increased 

 absorbent power from the surface having been broken into a 

 layer of dust. In the third case there was no difference 

 between the heat on the surface and the heat ten inches or a 

 foot below it, but the heat of the surface was 6 lower than 

 that of the surrounding ground, although the hole was only 

 about two feet in diameter, and the heat of its surface must 

 have been greatly affected and raised by the surface heat of 

 the land around it. Still, under these adverse circumstances, 

 there was a reduced temperature of 6. Were the surface of 

 any large extent of country broken up and pulverized, the 

 reduction in its surface temperature would, doubtless, be much 

 greater, and the temperature of the atmosphere, which obtains 

 its heat, by contact from the surface of the earth, and is 

 never so hot in the daytime as the surface of the earth, would 

 also be proportionately reduced. 



In other trials I made I found the temperature at ten inches 

 or a foot below the surface, where it was hard and unbroken, 

 was always from 80 to 84, but where broken, it more closely 

 approximated to the heat of the surface, which was invariably 

 below that of the surrounding unbroken land. This was the 

 case at all hours of the day ; and in the mornings the surface 

 temperature of the broken-up soil was much below that of 

 the unbroken surface close by, as was also the mass of soil to 

 the depth it had been loosened. 



The experiments I made were on fields irrigated only two 

 or three times during the season, from wells where the water 

 is only scantily supplied ; had they been carried out on lauds 

 irrigated by canals, where the water is more frequently 

 supplied and in greater quantity, the difference in tem- 

 perature between surface and subsoil would probably have 

 been greater in the case of fields with an unbroken surface - 

 soil. 



