332 Dr George Buist on the 



When we tind India generally talked of as one country of 

 moderate extent, and nearly uniform condition and character- 

 istics, it is not wonderful that the phenomena of the atmo- 

 sphere should be spoken of with as much looseness as the geo- 

 graphy of the land. The climate of India is in reality still 

 more various and diversified than the features of the country. 

 In the south, showers are frequent all the year round ; on 

 the southern Coromandel coast three months of violent rain 

 occur in winter, the rest of the season being dry ; while a 

 few degrees to the north of this, on both sides of the Bay of 

 Bengal, and all over Western India, the precise converse of 

 this is the case. In Central India the rain becomes ex- 

 tremely light, and occurs mostly about midsummer ; in the 

 north there are both the summer and winter rains ; in Scinde 

 and Beloochistan there is no rainy season whatever, and the 

 heavy showers which occur irregularly, and at intervals of 

 years, are productive of sickness, and considered injurious to 

 the country. 



To go, however, more into detail : — From the conjoined 

 influences of the heat of the sun and the rotation of the 

 earth, there are two vast currents of air constantly cir- 

 cling round the globe from east to west, called the north- 

 east and south-east trade-winds, the two being separated 

 from each other by a belt of turbulent and irregular cur- 

 rents, and frequent precipitation, called the rains, calms, 

 or variables. These three great bands of air move somewhat 

 to the north and south, according as the sun is to the north- 

 ward or southward of the line ; and where they impinge upon 

 a continent or peninsula stretching towards the equator, a 

 branch is broken off, and a current, varying according to the 

 season of the year, produced, called a monsoon. On the western 

 side of India, north to the Gulf of Cutch, and on the western 

 shore of Burmah and the peninsula of Malacca, this blows, for 

 betwixt two and five months in summer, according to the lati- 

 tude, from south-west ; for the greater part of the rest of the 

 year from north-west, an interval of storms and calms occur- 

 ring in both cases at the period of change. It is usually held 

 that this takes place about a week or ten days after the 

 passage of the sun northward or southward over the parallel 



