336 Dr George Buist on the 



slacken off early in August, and after the first full moon 

 an offering is made, and a festival held by the natives to 

 propitiate the ocean god, and vessels laid up in the end of 

 May prepare for sea. After some weeks of open weather 

 the Malabar coast is usually visited in the end of September 

 or beginning of October by a furious burst of thunder, rain, 

 and easterly wind called the Elephanta, from its occurring 

 as the sun enters the constellation of the Elephant, this 

 finally closing the rainy season. 



On the Bengal side the rains are about a week later in 

 setting in than at Bombay. The amount of fall at Calcutta 

 is nearly the same, but seems more violent while it lasts, 

 and is somewhat less continuous. Along the whole of East- 

 ern and part of Central India, the rains are preceded by 

 furious whirling squalls, called north-westers, from their 

 coming down from the direction of the Himalayas, as our 

 eastern squalls do from the Ghauts ; three or four of these 

 occur during the months of April and May, and are fre- 

 quently accompanied by furious hail-storms, the hail being 

 on an average about the size of walnuts, frequently that of 

 duck's eggs ; single hailstones have occasionally been found 

 from one to three pounds in weight. There are, indeed, 

 four cases on record within the last 70 years of masses of 

 ice having fallen from the firmament of from half-a-ton to a. 

 ton-and-a-half in weight. Recent observations have shewn 

 that the maximum fall of rain occurs, as might be expected, 

 at the ordinary altitude of the principal layers of rain cloud, 

 between 3000 and 5000 feet above the level of the sea, and 

 the amount of fall regularly decreases above this as the 

 higher regions of air are attained. The discharge where 

 this sea of vapour impinges on a cold mass of mountains is 

 tremendous. At Mahableshwar it amounts to betwixt 200 

 and 300 inches, it exceeds 200 on the same level at the 

 Nheilgerries, and at Cheraponge in the Cashia Hills north- 

 west of Calcutta there is an average fall of no less than 610 

 inches, above 20 feet occasionally falling in the month of 

 June. 



In the north of India there are both winter and summer 

 rains, though the former are always the lighter of the two. 



