The Winds. 253 



between April and October, upon the range of the West Ghauts, 

 and thick weather extending to fifty miles from shore. At 

 sea it is a rainless wind. This monsoon stretches across 

 the whole Northern Indian Ocean, from Africa to the Malay 

 Peninsula, originating 3° to 4° north of the line, at the 

 northern edge of the " Doldrums," or equatorial calms, which 

 separate it by a belt of 10° or 12° from the south-east trade. 

 The south-west monsoon sweeps the Arabian Sea, and traverses 

 the rainless district of the Indus. It also enters the Bay 

 of Bengal, and produces a heavy fall of rain upon the moun- 

 tainous coast of Aracan. Farther east it scours the China 

 Sea to its limit in the Philippine Islands, the outposts of the 

 Pacific. In this extensive range the period of its commence- 

 ment at different places is April, May, or June, according to 

 their remoteness from the equator. Probably no greater rains 

 are caused by this monsoon, or indeed by any other wind on 

 the earth, than those which fall at Cherra-Ponjee in the north- 

 east hills of India, where 592 inches of rain are said to be 

 collected annually. Two or three hundred inches are no un- 

 common quantity in other parts of the Himalayan range, during 

 the season of this monsoon. The general aridity of Central 

 Asia is thus in a striking manner accounted for. 



The north-east monsoon commences in October, and 

 occupies until April the whole of the tract vacated by the 

 opposite monsoon. A monthly fall of fifteen to twenty inches 

 of rain, with this wind, on the coast of Coromandel, appears 

 to be caused by its condensing action on the upper current, 

 when upheaved by the elevations of the coast. Like the other 

 monsoon, it is itself a rainless wind. 



The north-east monsoon crosses the equator at two points, 

 one near the channel of Mozambique, which it enters ; the 

 other towards the Java Seas, which it traverses as far as New 

 Guinea and Timor. In these lesser districts the south-east 

 trade wind is replaced by a north-west monsoon (correspond- 

 ing to the anti-trade wind of that hemisphere), occasioned 

 by barometric depressions over the heated continents of South 

 Africa and New South Wales. On the western coast of Mexico, 

 also, the north-east trade in summer is similarly reversed by 

 a south-west monsoon; but the most remarkable monsoons 

 are those of the equator on either side of the great continent 

 of Africa. These two monsoons are westerly, and occupy what 

 is commonly called the calm belt of the equator. They fall 

 at opposite seasons of the year. The first, or " Westerly 

 Line Monsoon," occupies the Atlantic side from July to 

 October. The other, called the " Winter Monsoon," occurs 

 in the "Doldrums" of the Indian Ocean, and occupies the 

 remaining season of the year. In the words of Maury, <c these 



