1903.] C. Little — On two remarkable rain-bursts in Bengal. 25 



every one will remmember the general distribution of rainfall in that 

 year was great scarcity in the west and abundance in the east. The 

 past monsoon season has been even more rich in evidence, in favour of 

 the enquiry, which I here suggest, being one of first class importance. 



The recurving of cyclonic disturbances, is not the only important 

 matter of enquiry which a discussion of the past monsoon season brings 

 to the surface. The disturbed weather which extended along the Hima- 

 layas on two occasions appears to me to indicate the direction in which 

 the enquiry as to recurving should be made. These disturbances were 

 the immediate cause of the two rain-bursts in Bengal, and 1 have on that 

 account used them as a title for this paper. In what follows I have 

 given small tables containing the more important meteorological statis- 

 tics collected at the time of their occurrence and I have endeavoured to 

 show how they serve to divide the monsoon season into periods which have 

 important characteristics as regards the recurving of storms from the Bay 

 and of the rainfall distribution in Northern India. No one who gives any 

 consideration to such matters can have forgotten the famine cloud that 

 was hanging over North-Western and Central India, in the early part 

 of August, and the rapidity with which that foreboding vanished, 

 when the storms from the Bay moved towards the area of drought. 



Some Calcutta people may remember the change that occurred in 

 the weather here on the 30th June. On that date a very trying period 

 of hot muggy weather came to an end, and there began, at last, what had 

 all the appearance of the south-west monsoon. 



If there should be any doubt in the minds of my Calcutta friends 

 as to what happened here on that date, I am sure residents of Benares 

 will remember the relief they must have experienced, not on the 30th 

 June, but on the 2nd July, that is, two days later, when their excessive 

 temperature gave place to the comparative coolness of the south-west 

 monsoon. The interval of two days between these occurrences shows 

 one of the points which I wish to make out, viz., that the change 

 progressed from east to west. No one, I think will be likely to 

 challenge that statement because it is accepted by everyone that south- 

 west monsoon conditions gradually extend from the head of the Bay 

 north-westward into Northern India. The other point which I wish to 

 make, and which may not be readily accepted, is that the disturbance 

 to which that change of weather was due, began in the north-east of 

 India, and while progressing westward also extended southward over 

 Bengal Proper in the first instance, then over Orissa and on to the 

 Circars. It was even felt in Arakan and Madras though not very 

 noticeably. 



Of the occurrences accompanying this wave of change, which 



