Meteorological Observations. 53 



much as 38 inches in the plains. In districts along the base of 

 the mountain ranges on the Malabar and Malay Coasts, as 

 well as along the whole North-eastern frontier, the fall of 

 rain is greater, although the lower strata of air in which we 

 live in Bengal is far more saturated than in districts where 

 the fall of rain is greater. We cannot therefore calculate 

 by means of rain-guages and other similar means, how the 

 condition of a climate in regard to moisture affects its salu- 

 brity, and hence much of the mystery malaria presents to us. 

 It may indeed be questioned, whether excessive humidity 

 in low flat countries is not itself sufficient to develop similar 

 effects on the constitution of man to those we refer to mala- 

 ria, without resorting to any more active or mysterious 

 agency. In India, it is after inundations and rains subside, 

 that intermittents most prevail ; is this universal ? if not, what 

 are the circumstances of exceptions ? But let us satisfy our- 

 selves that humidity itself is not the cause of intermittents, 

 before we go further and ascribe them to more subtile agency. 

 It would be very easy to argue one way or other on such a 

 question, but we ought to discard opinions, and even all evi- 

 dences short of direct inferences from such facts as are not 

 opposed to other facts. We cannot gain a knowledge of 

 the operations of natural causes without being acquainted 

 with nature, and recording the results of observations as we 

 advance. The investigation of the causes of endemic dis- 

 eases and the physical effects of climate on the human con- 

 stitution, is one of the most beneficent and profound subjects 

 of inquiry ; and though it concerns us more than any other 

 question in which the mind can engage, yet it ever has been, 

 and ever will be, more neglected than other subjects, simply 

 because those who are most competent, have least leisure to 

 investigate it ; and it is unfortunately considered by philoso- 

 phers to be exclusively the province of the physician, to whom 

 they are consequently too much disposed to leave it. 



The phenomenon of mists in Bengal depends on two 

 causes; and the season during which they are liable to 



