170 F. Chambers — Winter Bains of Northern India. [Nov., 



Society of Bengal for March, 1884, Mr. Blanford makes the following 

 statement — " It has been suggested by one writer that barometric 

 " depressions travel to us from the west across Afghanistan. This, 

 " however, can be only a guess in the dark, for, at the time it was made, 

 " there were no observatories to the west of India, nearer than Bushire 

 " at the top of the Persian Gulf." It appears from the discussion which 

 followed the reading of the abstract, that I am the writer here referred 

 to, for Mr. Eliot is reported to have said " He " (Mr. Blanford) " points 

 u out that Mr. Chambers, Meteorological Reporter to the Government 

 " of Bombay, has asserted that these disturbances are due to the passage 

 41 of barometric depressions from Beluchistan and Afghanistan." The 

 only occasion on which I have referred to the winter rains of Northern 

 India, was in a letter to Nature published in the number for February 

 24th, 1881, Vol. XXIII, p. 400, where I incidentally made use of the 

 following words : "It is now known that the short rainy periods of the 

 "winter are periods of relatively low pressure. It is not improbable 

 " that these periods of low pressure and the rainfall which accompanies 

 " them are connected with the feeble cyclonic disturbances, which (as 

 " appears from the charts of storm tracks published by the American 

 " Government,) occasionally enter the north-west of India in the winter 

 " months and travel down the Ganges valley, sometimes as far as Bengal. 

 " The facts concerning these winter rains seems to accord far better 

 " with this view of their origin than with the old notion of their connec- 



" tion with the upper anti-monsoon current The question is as yet 



" involved in much obscurity and I must, with the above suggestion, 

 41 leave it to be dealt with by those more immediately concerned." Mr* 

 Blanford appears to have taken up this question, and he arrives at the 

 conclusion that " the cold weather rainfall is always the result of a local 

 " fall. of the barometer, the formation of a barometric depression, which 

 " generally appears first in the Punjab or Western Rajputana, and then 

 " moves eastwards." 



It is clear that this conclusion agrees closely with my suggestion. 

 But Mr. Blanford appears to take exception to my use of the word 

 " enter," and his criticism deals exclusively with the side issue thus 

 raised. It is a mistake to suppose that my suggestion specifies Afghan- 

 istan as the only direction from which the winter barometric distur- 

 bances may advance towards India, for it is obvious that they might 

 move along the Mekran Coast and enter India across Lower Sind. In 

 the one case they would not have to surmount any considerable eleva- 

 tion. In the other, they would have to pass over the mountains of 

 Afghanistan or Beluchistan, and herein lies the chief objection to the 

 hypothesis that cyclonic disturbances may enter the north-west of India. 



