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The mean temperature of a few well-known stations is as 
follows : — 
Calcutta , 8 feet above sea level, is in May (hottest month) 
89°; in January, 70°; but it ranges between 45° in the coldest 
and 92° in the hottest months. 
Madras , sea level. — June (hottest), 88°; January, 76°. 
Range, 72° to 92°. 
Bombay, sea level. — May (hottest), 86°; January, 74°. 
Range, moderate. 
Pesliawur, 1,056 feet above sea level. — June and July 
(hottest), 91° ; January, 52°. Range, great. 
Punjab, 900 feet above sea level. — June (hottest), 89°; 
January, 54°. Range, from frost to intense heat — 110° and 
more. 
Bangalore, 3,000 feet above sea level. — May (hottest), 81° ; 
January, 69°. Range, moderate. 
Poonah, 1,089 feet above sea level. — May (hottest), 85°; 
January, 70°. 
Belgaum, 2,200 feet above sea level. — April (hottest), 81°; 
May, 78°; June, 75°. December (coldest), 70°. 
The coldest months are December and January ; the hottest, 
April, May, and June. 
There are fluctuations in temperature owing to hot, dry 
winds, sea and mountain breezes, great river basins, the 
presence of forests, tracts of jungle and vegetation, arid tree- 
less rainless deserts, which give local peculiarities of climate ; 
but it may be said, generally, that there are three distinct 
seasons in India — the hot, the rainy, and the cold, — which 
vary in duration and times of setting in ; but approximately 
the cold season extends from November to March, the hot 
from March to June or July, and the rainy season from that 
to October or November, these seasons being greatly in- 
fluenced by the monsoons. The south-west monsoon com- 
mences with storms of thunder and wind, which are soon 
followed by the bursting of the rain on the Malabar coast, in 
May, but reaches regions further north later in the year. Its 
force and influence, indeed, are well-nigh spent ere it passes 
the twenty-fifth parallel of north latitude. The Carnatic and 
Coromandel coasts, being sheltered by the Western Ghats, 
are exempt, when the west coast is deluged with rain. 
About Delhi and in the north-west the rains begin towards 
the end of June, and fall in diminished quantity. In the 
Punjab, near the hills, the rainfall again increases ; but in the 
Southern Punjab, and in the Great Desert regions, there is very 
little rain, — in some parts none. There are belts or tracts of 
country commencing, in Sind and the north-west, almost 
