454 
ON THE MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF SINGAPORE. 
This table is a beautiful illustration of the little variation we find 
in the general laws of nature, though how often do we remark “how 
changeable is the weather! How varied from the past year, is the 
present ”! and according to our feelings, or our interest do we ac¬ 
cuse the monsoons of blowing longer in one way or another than 
their wont; but from these observations carried on during nearly 5 
years, we find that the wind blows from the N. E. during 474 days 
9 hours, and from the opposite direction S. W. during the contrary 
monsoon during 470 days, 13 hours. Another superficial deduc¬ 
tion to be made is, that during the months of December, January, 
February, and March, the wind blows more continuously from the 
N. E. than any other direction ; while during the months of June, 
July, August, and September, the wind is principally to the S.W. 
During the month of November, the general direction is N.W. while 
its antagonist from the S.E. blows principally in the month of June. 
While the mean of these observations is so very uniform yet there 
are many individual yearly exceptions, for instance in January 1845 
the wind only blew from the N. E. 277 hours instead of 419 which 
would have been the mean ; but then it blew that same month 416 
hours from the N.W. Again in February 1842 the wind blew from 
the N.E. direction 243 hours, while in 1843 it blew from the same 
263 hours. The same applies to the S.W. monsoon as in June, 
1842 it blew from the S.W. 200 hours, and in 1844, 396, in July 
1841 it blew 583 hours from the S.W, but in 1844 the number of 
hours was reduced to 367, hut during that year in both months just 
quoted the wind blew were frequently from the S.E. This leads to 
ing the N.E. monsoon the land breeze and the monsoon coincide. During 
the S.W. monsoon they are opposed. The tendency of the denser land 
air to overflow into the rarer sea air, when counteracted by die force of the 
southerly wind, often fails to produce a land breeze. The lowness and nar¬ 
rowness of the extremity of the Peninsula also favour the southerly wind. 
If Singapore were mountainous the nocturnal land air would almost always 
flow beyond the shore into the strait. On the opposite side of the strait the 
direction of the N.E., which may be called the cold Continental monsoon, 
is opposed to that of the land breeze, and parallel to that of the sea breeze j 
on the other hand the S.W., which may be called the warm oceanic mon¬ 
soon, is opposed to the sea and coincident with the land breeze. Hence, 
at night the angin Jawa, which is w arm on the shore of Singapore, is pro¬ 
bably cold on that of Batiant.—E d.J 
