OBSERVATIONS TAKEN IN INDIA. 
359 
considered their dry months ; but Mercara, lying much further south than Maha- 
buleshwur, would appear to benefit slightly from the terminal falls of the N.E. mon- 
soon, or from the preliminary squalls of the S.W. monsoon. On the eastern or Coro- 
mandel coast, the months that are comparatively dry (or rather destitute of rain, for 
the wet bulb won’t admit them to be dry) on the western coast, are necessarily the 
reverse of the eastern, and we thus see October, November, December and January, 
at Madras, and the other stations on the east coast, with a monthly fall of rain 
ranging from 0*90 to 15’ 13 inches. The mean annual fall at Madras, for twenty-two 
years, from 1822 to 1843, ranges from 18'45 inches in 1832 to 88‘68 inches in 1827. 
Calcutta, although within the regular S.W. monsoon, appears to benefit more from 
the Coromandel monsoon in January than any other of the stations noticed in the 
Table. The Tables indicate that as the stations approximate towards each other, 
and lie nearer to the apex of the triangular-formed peninsula of India, excepting at 
Cape Comorin, so do they respectively benefit in an increasing ratio from the mon- 
soons of either coast. For instance, Madras derives considerable advantage from 
the Malabar monsoon in the months of July, August and September, while Cochin, 
Quilon, Allepy and Trevandrurn, on the Malabar coast, and the mountain stations 
of Uttray Mullay, Kotergherry and Dodabetta, lying between the Malabar and Coro- 
mandel coasts, are liberally supplied from the N.E. monsoon in the months of October, 
November and December, while Mercara and Mahabuleshwur, similarly situated as 
Uttray Mullay and Dodabetta, but in a higher latitude, and nearly in the same me- 
ridian, derive scarcely any benefit from the N.E. monsoon ; indeed, north of the 
eighteenth parallel of latitude, that is to say of Poona, the rain-fall of the N.E. mon- 
soon does not extend, at least as far as the returns I have been able to collect afford 
me the means of judging. Another feature of the Table indicates that the S.W. mon- 
soon does not burst simultaneously along the whole line of the Malabar coast, but 
would appear to creep up slowly from Allepy towards Bombay, commencing in 
fact on the coast of Travancore partly in April, but absolutely in May, and rarely, 
if ever, commencing in Bombay before the first week in June; the S.W. monsoon 
therefore on the coast of Travancore and Malabar, precedes the time of its occur- 
rence at Bombay by a month at least. I had thought that along the coast the 
quantity of rain diminished as the latitude increased, and the large annual fall at 
Allepy and Cochin, compared with the fall at Bombay, seemed to justify the opinion ; 
but the fall at Cape Comorin, Trevandrurn and Quilon, does not justify the opinion ; 
and supposing that any such law held good on the Malabar coast, it plainly has not 
any existence on the Coromandel coast. It is certain, however, that as the tropic is 
approached on the western side of India, the annual fall of rain sensibly diminishes 
along the coasts of Kattywar and Cutch ; and at the mouths of the Indus, not only is 
there no trace of the S.W. monsoon, but Lower Scinde would appear to resemble those 
singular tracts on the earth, the Deserts of Sahara and Gobi, and the coast of Chili, 
denominated “ rainless.” I regret not having been enabled to get more than one re- 
