OBSERVATIONS TAKEN IN INDIA, 
329 
On the 22nd of May 1849, at Ferozepore, lat. 30° 53', on the Sutlege river, the 
thermometer stood at 104° In a g'ood house, the usual precautions being taken against 
the hot winds. Even in August, at Peshawar, with thunder-storms and heavy rain 
on the 7th, 9th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 20th and 29th, and with several light showers be- 
sides, the maximum was 104° at 4 p.m,, the minimum at sunrise 81°, the midday 
maximum 101°, and with a midnight maximum of 100°, and yet the Report says, 
“ The month had not however been characterized, as would be supposed by the in- 
dications of the thermometer, by any unusual degree of heat over those which had 
just preceded it. It even did not range so high as in May, June and July*.” 
Even at Alten, in Finmark in Norway, in latitude 69° 58', where the mean annual 
temperature is between 35° and 36° Fahr., and where in 1846 the thermometer sunk 
to 14°‘8 below zero ; on the 27th of July 1847, at noon, the thermometer in the shade 
rose to 84°*7 Fahr. Capt. Scoresby, in his Arctic Voyages, somewhere mentions, I 
think, that the rays of the sun were sufficiently powerful to melt the pitch on the 
sunny side of his vessel, while the air was at a freezing temperature on the shady 
side. But these intense heats of summer are compensated for by a depression of tem- 
perature when the sun is at the southern tropic and the mean annual temperature is 
not raised. The high mean temperature of Calcutta, therefore, would seem to be 
influenced by local causes, independently of the vertical or oblique action of the sun, 
or the length of time the sun is above the horizon. But the anomalies of mean tem- 
perature are not limited to Calcutta. Aden, situated in latitude 12° 46' 26" N., lon- 
gitude 45° 15' E., on the shores of Arabia, — shores dreaded for their supposed into- 
lerable heat, has a mean temperature (80°’2) lower than that of Bombay, Madras or 
Calcutta, with a less range of the thermometer, with a maximum heat only of 89° in 
May and October, and a minimum of 68°‘5 in January ! and most singularly the 
mean temperature for everp month in 1848 is lower than the temperature of the 
corresponding month at Calcutta, and, with the exception of November, December 
and January, lower than at Madras or Bombay. From the maximum mean monthly 
heat in April 1830, at Calcutta, the temperature gradually declined until the mean 
monthly minimum in December, excepting in September and October, when the curve 
was interrupted by a rise of 1°'5 in the former month, and of 2°‘3 in the latter ; after 
December the temperature gradually rose to its mean maximum. 
* Dr. Wallin of Helsingfors, the traveller in Arabia, has furnished me with a copy of his register of the 
thermometer, from which I learn that at Bagdad, lat. 33° 20' N., long. 44° 24' E., the thermometer in the 
shade of a house on the second story, with a N.W. aspect upon the banks of the Tigris, on the 19th of July 
1848, at 2 P.M. stood at 122°’9 Fahr., wind W.N.W., on the 13th and 18th at 120°'2, and on seven other 
days in the month of July at 118°'4 ; and the lowest heat in the month at 2 p.m. was 101°'3 on the 2nd of 
July, wind N.W., clear. 
2 u 
MDCCCL. 
