1844.] Tenth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India. 95 



" We regret to learn by a letter dated Poorshottapolium, 27th ult., 

 that terrible destruction has been caused in the Guntoor. district in 

 consequence of the inundation attending the late storm ; many villages 

 having been swept away or sustained great damage by the floods which 

 came down suddenly on the morning of the 23d. Swelled by the pre- 

 vious rains, four nullahs and sixteen tanks near Inacondah, overflowed 

 or swept away their banks, causing a lamentable loss of life and pro- 

 perty, of which the following details are given. 



" Rajahpett. — Three hundred houses destroyed or injured, seven lives 

 lost. Poorshottapolium, 200 houses injured, seven lives lost. Chilkloor- 

 pett, 300 houses injured, two lives lost. Pusmorroo, 20 houses injured, 

 four lives lost. Annanarum and Toolapanee, 200 houses injured, and 

 seventeen lives lost. In addition to the above damage or destruction of 

 above a thousand houses, and the loss of thirty- seven lives, it is stated, 

 that 2,800 head of cattle and horses and 9,000 sheep perished, and that 

 2,700 candies of grain were more or less injured. The whole amount of 

 damage being estimated by our informant at above 100,000 Rupees. 

 The total destruction occasioned by the inundation was indeed hardly 

 ascertained, many villages having been damaged or swept away, of 

 which no perfect account had yet been received. 



" From the notices now received from distant parts of the country it 

 is evident, that the gale and heavy rain felt here about a fortnight ago, 

 formed merely part of a great atmospheric disturbance ushering in the 

 South-West Monsoon, and traversing the entire peninsula from North 

 to South, marked throughout its course by considerable, though hap- 

 pily only locally, destructive violence. At Delhi on the 17th, unusual 

 weather prevailed. * High North- West and Easterly winds and occa- 

 sional storms of rain, the coolness of the atmosphere being, for the 

 time of the year, very extraordinary/ At Hyderabad a few days later, 

 the Monsoon set in with great violence, and at Coringa, Masulipatam, 

 Guntoor and Pondicherry, in fact all along the coast in a North and 

 South line, heavy gales and torrents of rain simultaneously prevailed." 



We glean the following from the Bombay Times of May 24 : — 



•' The Weather. — Since the evening of Thursday, the sky has looked 

 so troubled, and the barometer fallen so steadily, that we supposed 

 the Monsoon to be at hand. The wind has got round nearly to South- 

 west, and the alternating land and sea breezes have ceased. Our sea 



