582 
ME. H. F. BLANFOED ON THE WINDS OF NOETHEEN INDIA. 
northern regions *. I have not included in the foregoing discussion the wind-registers 
of any Himalayan stations : a detailed analysis, such as I have attempted for those of 
the low-country stations, would in their case only mislead, since at all such stations 
local influences are so powerful as in a great measure to obscure the effects of such as 
are more general, and with which alone I am now dealing ; but I may observe that at 
Darjeeling (7000 feet), even in the cold-weather months, southerly elements of wind- 
direction predominate over northerly f , and according to Dr. Hooker’s observations, at 
great heights in the interior of Sikkim, a southerly current prevails throughout the year. 
At the stations of Chuckrata and Nynee Tal in the north-west Himalaya, at about the 
same elevation as Darjeeling, Dr. Murray Thomson’s registers show that the winds are 
almost exclusively from the south or some southerly quarter at all seasons of the year. 
In Lower Bengal, south and south-east winds are not very common from November to 
January ; but their representatives (viz. easterly winds) are more common in Upper India, 
specially in proportion to winds from the opposite quarters, calms being most frequent 
of all. I have already mentioned that these easterly winds bring the winter rains ; and 
it will presently be shown that the latter are more regular and copious in the Punjab 
and upper part of the Ganges valley than in Lower Bengal. From these facts we must, 
I think, conclude that a portion of the upper or anti-monsoon current, following the 
same course in the upper atmosphere as the summer monsoon does in the lower, descends 
on the plains of Upper India, while another portion impinges on the southern slopes of 
the Llimalaya or even crosses them into Tibet. In the narrower valley of Upper Assam, 
at least at Seebsaugor, this current appears to be less felt, and winds from north and 
east blow steadily and persistently ; but the omission of the observer at this station to 
record calms, and the frequent occurrence of rain in the winter months, lead me to doubt 
whether the effects of the return current are not felt to a great extent in that region 
also. 
With the advent of the hot weather the winds of Northern India draw round to the 
westward, and dry currents (partly perhaps derived from the mountainous and desert 
country lying to the west of the Indus) radiate out over the whole region as far eastward 
as the eastern limits of the Gangetic delta, and, becoming heated in their passage over 
the plains, form the well-known hot winds of April and May. These winds, however, 
are not steady, continuous currents : they are, as Dr. Hooker has described them, 
essentially diurnal winds, due to the local heating of the soil ; they set in about 10 
o’clock in the day and blow sometimes in gusts, but in general with tolerable steadiness 
till sun-down, when they are followed by a calm. On the coast of Orissa, and in the 
* In the Eeporfc on the Meteorology for Bengal for 1871, page 122, I wrote otherwise, having been misled 
by the apparent steadiness of the winds in the Punjab and Upper Assam. Further information on this point, 
and a consideration of the rainfall distribution, which in the cold-weather months seems incompatible with the 
existence of dry currents from the Tibetan regions, have induced me to modify the views then expressed. 
t See the Eeports of the Meteorological Department of Bengal, 1869-71. The prevailing directions are east 
and west — that is, parallel to the great Eungeet valley below the observatory ridge. 
