1843.] Law of Storms in India. 391 



in the Western Ghauts — the Paulghautcherry pass, whence it would 

 make its escape Westerly to the Indian Ocean in the direct latitude 

 of the Laccadives. I enclose you a small map, of which I beg your 

 acceptance, on which I have marked by arrows, the probable direc- 

 tion of the Madras storm,* which if it be the identical one that visited 

 the Laccadives, must have pursued this course, and have been felt 

 at Arcot, Vellore, Salem, Darapooram, Coimbatore, Paulghautcherry 

 and Paniani, on the Western coast, the appropriate situation of which 

 I have marked in ink on the map. It will be also seen, that currents 

 of air, blowing Easterly across the peninsula about the latitude of 

 Madura, and winds blowing Westerly about the latitude of Cochin 

 or Alleppie, must be diverted Southerly by the Western Ghaut ridge 

 to Cape Comorin, a circumstance which may account for the gusts expe- 

 rienced off this Cape during both monsoons. Winds blowing from the 

 W. in the latitude of Paniani and N. of it, Calicut, Tellicherry, and 

 Cannanore perhaps, would be deflected by the Ghaut barrier Southerly, 

 in the direction of the arrows on the map marked B. to the great gap 

 of Paulghautcherry, and thence rush through it Easterly on the plains 

 of Coimbatore and Salem. 



" The exact points where the winds are thus deflected, their minute 

 variations of current, with their various minor influencing causes, are 

 still matters of interesting research and a meteorological desideratum : 

 but that they are deflected as I have described on the grand scale 

 by the Ghaut lines of elevation which constitute the main features 

 of the physical contour of Southern India, there can be little doubt. It 

 is a well known fact, that where these ridges attain a certain height, 

 neither the North. East nor South-West Monsoons usually ascend 

 above them. I was crossing the Eastern Ghauts at the time of the 

 storm at Madras a little S. of the latitude of Nellore, and observed 

 an enormous mass of irregular clouds rise from the Eastward, and 

 advance rapidly on the mountain ; here the great bulk was arrested, 

 and (collected by electric attraction ?) into a long, horizontal, wall-like 

 bank, of solid aspect and of a deep bluish hue, varied at the edges by 

 flocculent curves and zones of sombre grey, which appeared in vivid 

 distinctness, as ever and anon coruscations of lightning shot up and 

 illumined portions of the gloomy mass. In height and contour, they 

 assimilated the mural barrier opposed to them. They remained in 

 this sullen form apparently motionless for a day or two, when they 

 gradually dispersed. There was little wind in the sheltered valley 

 along which I travelled, and that little variable. A few detached 

 higher clouds escaped and passed slowly to the Westward, while por- 

 tions of the upper edge of the cloudbank would sometimes curl over 

 the top of the ridge, like the falling crest of a wave dispersing in 

 spray, and descend in a transient shower on the Western slopes. An 

 almost similar phenomenon is presented on the table lands on the 



* I have copied in my Chart No. II, as much of the chain of Mountains as relates 

 to our present subject. 



