APPENDIX. 11 



of the rainy, or S. W. monsoon. The hottest period of the day is 

 about 2 o'clock or 2/i. 40»j. P. M. and the extreme range of temperature, 

 from sunrise to that time, averages most commonly 16° throughout the 

 year. The variation is of course the greatest at the time of frost, viz., 

 January and December, when the extreme radiation, which goes on dur- 

 ing clear nights, produces excessive cold towards sunrise, after which, 

 the sun's rays, shining with great fierceness through the rarefied at- 

 mosphere, speedily restore heat to the earth, and the temperature of 

 the air rises in proportion. Similar causes, reversed in their action, 

 necessarily produce sudden and great cold after sunset, rendering the 

 climate at this season (and indeed at all seasons more or less) one, in 

 which the most healthy residents, and especially those who have recent- 

 ly come under its influence, stand in need of caution in their mode of 

 encountering its vicissitudes. For the reasons alluded to, I would ven- 

 ture to remark, that very early and very late parades, according to the 

 practice of the plains, will be found injurious to European troops locat- 

 ed on these Hills, and especially to those men whose constitutions have 

 been worn by long residence in a tropical climate. 



The chief station, Ootacamund, from its superior elevation (7,300 

 feet above the level of the sea) is more exposed to this unfavovu'able 

 action than the two minor stations, Coonoor, and Kotergherry, which 

 are each 6,000 feet above the level of the sea : although these latter are 

 by no means exempt from the same influence, especially during the 

 cold season, as wiU be seen by the Tables appended to this memoir. A 

 very great advantage, enjoyed by the Neilgherries as a sanitarium, exists 

 in the means which are afforded to an invalid to select the peculiar 

 kind of cHmate which best suits the malady under which he is sufiering 

 — by the existence of three settlements, each under Medical charge, 

 situated in different parts of the range, each having a different aspect, 

 and each a climate peculiar to itself : that of Ootacammid being the 

 coldest — ^but most damp, Kotergherry the next in the scale, and that of 

 Coonoor the warmest. Thus, an invalid whose habits or state of con- 

 stitution render the change, from the torrid heat of the plains to the 

 penetrating cold of Ootacamund, too great and sudden, has the oppor- 

 tunity and option of acchmatizing himself at either of the minor sta- 

 tions, before exposing himself to the vicissitudes of climate which await 

 him on the highest level. 



The resources of this higldy favored region are as diversified and valu- 

 able, as they appear easy of attainment, and are comparatively inexhausti- 

 ble. I commence the long hst of productions, which the NeUgherries are 



9 2 



