46 Meteorological Observations 



to' 



rock which was condensed by the colder wind, while the 

 general air not being saturated with moisture, absorbed the 

 mist soon after it had been blown away a little from the 

 rock. 



I have had the opportunity of seeing a great deal of fever, 

 and have observed that in the plains this disease generally 

 appears during the cold weather after the rains. It is 

 at this time generally that natives are attacked, those 

 suffering most in whom the circulation is languid, and 

 who are temperate in their habits ; while those who are 

 accustomed to the free use of spirituous liquor, generally 

 suffer but little more than Europeans. I have supposed 

 that the want of warm clothing was sometimes the cause of 

 fever appearing, and have tried, by obliging sepoys always 

 to wear their woollen dress, to prevent it ; but I have never 

 observed that it had the slightest good effect, on the 

 contrary, the half-naked coolies did not suffer more than 

 any others.* 



While employed in the Kimedy district, a wild jungly 

 tract close under the Ghauts, about 40 miles N. W. of 

 Chiccacole, I have observed that while fever prevailed, tanned 

 leather, as boats and shoes, would one day be covered with 

 mould, and a day or two after that all the books were often 

 curling open, the sudden dryness of the air contracting the 

 backs, while the mass of the papers of the book remained 

 still expanded by moisture. From this I drew the inference 

 that the sudden alterations in the hygrometic state of the air 

 might have something to do with the cause of fever. At the 

 time I had no meteorological instruments by which I could 

 measure the extent of the change, but that great changes did 



* We were informed once by an officer of high rank, distinguished no 

 less by his general information, that the natives of certain hills near the 

 Malabar Coast were invariably attacked with fever on approaching the 

 Coast, which to its own inhabitants as well as to Europeans Avas a 

 remarkably fine climate. — Ed. Cal. Journ. Nat. Hist. 



