360 LIEUT.-COLONEL SYKES’S DISCUSSION OF METEOROLOGICAL 
gular meteorological register from the military cantonment at Kurrachee, situated near 
one of the mouths of the Indus ; but the scanty information supplied to me affords 
sufficient proof that if Lower Scinde does not belong absolutely to the rainless districts, 
it approaches very nearly to them. Unfortunately, neither in the large cantonment at 
Kurrachee, nor at other stations in Scinde, up to 1849 were regular meteorological 
registers kept, excepting perhaps for mere temperature, or if kept they were not made 
available to the public. Casual observations have been made and sufficient attention 
paid to the rain-fall, or rather the absence of it, to enable us to say definitely, that to 
Lower Scinde the S.W. monsoon, in its usual sense, does not extend, and that the 
country does not appear to have other sources of supply. The following Table is 
arranged from the details in a letter dated Kurrachee, July 6th, 1848, noticing the 
occasional showers that fell from April 1847, a pluviometer having been set up, but 
apparently for very little purpose : — 
Register of Rain at Kurrachee, from April 1847 to July 1848. 
1847. 
1848. 
May. 
June. 
July. 
August. 
Sept. 
Oct. 
Nov. 
Dec. 
Jan. 
Feb. 
March. 
April. 
May. 
June. 
July. 
None. 
None. 
A shower. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
None. 
A few drops. 
It thus appears, if the register be correct, that in fifteen months only two showers 
occurred, and those so light as not to be appreciable by the pluviometer. 
The following extract from a subsequent letter, dated 1st of September 1849, to a 
certain extent is in harmony with the previous record : — 
“ We have had a few smart showers lately. Ever since June it has been constantly 
threatening rain ; the sky has been always overcast, and both in July and August 
showers fell, but the whole fall for the season has hardly amounted to 3 inches ; and 
yet in Upper Scinde, at Mooltan, in the Punjab, and generally in India, where the 
S.W. monsoon prevails, the usual averages have in some places been doubled.” 
In this year, at Bombay, the unusual quantity of 1 18’88 inches fell. The only other 
part of Scinde from which I have any record is from Kotri near to Hyderabad on 
the Indus, and the return transmitted to me is annexed. The public duties of the 
observer called him occasionally away from his station and prevented a continuous 
record, and it is only for 1846 that a year’s observations are complete, and in 1847 
four months were omitted. 
