468 



Notes o?i the Influence 



[No. 36\ 



the talooks of Closepett, Kankanhully, and Harohully, receive the 

 most rain, — except these last named talooks in the Bangalore division, 

 the others are all either bordering on lines of hills clothed with jungle 

 or have extensive tracts of jungle which may fairly be supposed to 

 influence the quantity of rain. 



I have appended to this report a return showing the quantity of 

 rain measured at particular spots in the four districts of Mysore for 

 the last 12 years, a reference to which will show how little can be 

 deduced from such varying results. The whole of the observations 

 were taken in the open country. Rain gauges kept at a distance of 

 2 or 3 miles vary remarkably in the quantities measured, observa- 

 tions of this sort may, however, become valuable if taken for a series 

 of years in different parts of India with similar instruments, as by 

 comparing the quantities of rain measured in jungly and open dis- 

 tricts, an approach may be made to some certain results. 



In the Mulnaad and Coorg the quantity of rain that falls is very 

 great, and to what can we attribute this, but to the influence of the 

 ghauts and hilly country inland covered with dense jungles, vv^hich 

 attract and retain the largest portion of the south-west monsoon, 

 Bellary, Seringapatam, and Ootacamund are nearly in the same pa- 

 rallel of longitude, but at different distances from the line of ghauts, 

 and to this circumstance we may attribute the difference in the falls 

 of rain at these stations. 



Assistant Surgeon Balfour, in his notes on thi^s subject, has well 

 remarked " that the observations of scientific men support the belief 

 that a mutual reaction goes on between these two physical agents 

 and that the presence of trees greatly adds to the supply of water 

 and feeds the running streams.'' The instance of a single district 

 losing its supply of water on being cleared of forest, and regaining 

 it again when restored to its original state, would not alone establish 

 more than strong presumption that the clearing of the forest and the 

 loss of rain followed each other as cause and efi'ect; but the Honor- 

 able Court of Directors, in their circular, mention that this is not 

 uncommon in America. 



On the subject of springs, Assistant Surgeon Balfour quotes from 

 Jameson's Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, a very remarkable in- 

 stance at Popayan in Peru, of a district losing its supply of water 

 from the clearance of the forest. Two instances corroborative of the 



