03.] C. Little — On two remarkable rain-bursts in Bengal. 37 



Circars July 2nd. Going westward we see that before June 30th, Bihar 

 was practically rainless, and that there was no rain in the United Pro- 

 vinces, Punjab, and the Simla Hills, until July 1st. The dates of heavi- 

 est falls are July 2ud in Bihar, the 2nd and 3rd in the United Pro- 

 vinces, the 3rd in the Punjab, and the 3rd and 4th in the Simla Hills. 



In Table X (a) I have merely added together the columns for 

 the days 27th, 28th, and 29th, with the heading " before 30th June " 

 and the columns for the days July 1st to 4th with the heading " after 

 30th June." It will be seen that the heaviest falls occurred before the 

 30th June in Assam and Bengal, and after the 30th June in Lower 

 Bengal, Orissa, the Circars and over the whole of North- Western India. 



In addition to the provinces and divisions in the Table, I have given 

 the rainfall at Darjeeling and Oherrapoonjee. The rainfall at these two 

 stations agrees only partially with what is given for the plains of Ben- 

 gal and Assam ; and there is a striking difference between the falls at 

 these places for the two disturbances. With the June storm, rainfall 

 was comparatively light at both Darjeeling and Oherrapoonjee, while in 

 August it was very heavy at both. 



There appears to me to be no want of evidence, in the above Tables, 

 in favour of the view that an atmospheric disturbance invaded India 

 from the north-east, at the end of June. I may, however, give one or 

 two further items of information showing the south-westward direction 

 of progress over Bengal. They are only stray items, but they will indi- 

 cate to some extent how the meteorological record might be improved, if 

 there were some fore- knowledge of coming events and of the direction 

 from which change should be looked for. 



As the disturbance advanced over Bengal, thunderstorms probably 

 occurred at places in succession. If so the fact has not been recorded. 

 But I saw in the newspapers that a local storm of great severity had 

 occurred between Nalhati and Rampur Hat, on June 29th, and I have 

 ascertained that the hour when it overturned a train on that part of the 

 E.I. Railway was between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I person* 

 ally observed the changes, as the wave passed over Calcutta, on the 

 morning of the 30th and the traces of the self-recording apparatus, at 

 the Alipore Observatory, show that it began about 4 a.m. on that date 

 and was practically over by 10 a.m. When the weather was becoming 

 more settled at Calcutta, that is about 10 a.m. I received a telegram 

 from the observer at Saugor Island that weather was very unsettled 

 there, that the barometer had fallen two-tenths of an iuch, and that 

 the wind was blowing 44 miles an hour. The following day I heard 

 from a Calcutta resident who had just arrived from Madras that while 

 the train on the East Coast Railway was passing through Orissa on the 



