Indian Arjricidiure in its Physical. Aspects. 
47 
a more tropical nature — numerous kinds of millet, rice, maize, 
sugar-cane, cotton and others. Towards the end of September 
the rains cease altogether, and — except where, as in Southern 
India, currents set in from an opposite direction, and the north- 
east monsoon brings, though not always, the rains of October — 
no rain may again fall over the greater part of India until the 
next rainy season. In October the I'harif cvo-ps are reaped, and 
ploughing goes on briskly on the lands reserved for the winter 
or rabi crops, which are generally sown about November. 
But while this description may be taken as true for the 
greater part of India, it is by no means so for the whole, and it 
would have to be varied in almost each separate locality, for the 
very reason that, although the rain comes, it does not come in 
like quantity everywhere, nor is the soil on which it falls equally 
retentive. To understand rightly how this is so, one must study ■ 
the physical features of the country, and also its geological 
nature. Stretching across the northern part the continent 
from west to east, and forming its boundary, runs the great 
Himalayan range, whilst along the western coast, and in close 
proximity thereto, are the Western Ghats, leaving an open- 
ing between them and the Himalayas. It is here that the vast 
plains of Sind and Rajputana lie, and through this gap the 
south-west monsoon can enter. On the eastern side are the 
Eastern Ghats, whose height, as compared with the others, is 
insignificant. In these three ranges we have the determining 
factors, so far as the configuration of the country is concerned, 
of the different seasons. The earth's surface, in Northern India 
at least, which towards the close of the year has been losing its 
heat more rapidly than the surrounding sea, and has thus been 
enjoying a cold season with its accompanying temperate crops, 
gets gradually more and more heated up as March comes in, and 
so it continues, gi'owing hotter and hotter till it becomes quite 
parched and vegetation is burnt up. Then a south-west current, 
laden with moisture from the surrounding and cooler sea, rushes 
in and strikes on the western side of the continent. The high 
Western Ghats impede its progress and cause it to deposit its 
moisture in heavy rainfall along the western coasts of the 
Bombay Presidency. But over the Ghats it cannot pass, and 
the consequence is that the country on the other side of them 
remaiiis still a dry and heated plain. Further north, through 
the opening referred to above as being left between the Western 
Ghats and the Himalayan range, the monsoon rushes, and passing 
over the intensely heated plains of Sind and Rajputana (which 
are mostly too hot to allow the deposition of moisture to take 
place there), it becomes cooled as it goes farther on, and abundant 
