364 MR. S. A. HILL OX THE WINDS OF NORTHERN INDIA, AND THEIR 
surmount,* and often passing right across India to Sindh, the Rajputana desert, or 
the western Punjab ; while those formed at the spring and autumn transition periods, 
which either do not extend to so great a height or meet with increasing pressures at 
moderate elevations as they go westwards, very seldom succeed in crossing from 
Orissa to the Central Provinces. 
From the charts attached to Mr. Eliot’s paper it appears that, during the five years 
1877-1881, inclusive, 30 cyclonic storms crossed the coast near the head of the Bay 
in the months of June, July, August, and September. Of these, 23 proceeded west¬ 
wards at first, and the remaining; seven went northward into Bengal. Onlv five storms 
occurred in the month of July, all of which crossed the Orissa coast in the westward 
direction. The majority of such storms either proceed almost due west towards 
Gujerat and Sindh, or turn off northwards to the valley of the Ganges, doubtless owing 
to the obstruction presented by the high-pressure region in Eastern Rajputana. Of 
the 23 above enumerated, 9 turned off towards the Ganges Valley, 2 succeeded in 
crossing the Aravali range near Ajmere and ultimately reached the Indus Valley, and 
the remainder either proceeded vid the Narbada Valley to Gujerat and Sindh, or died 
out during the trans-continental passage. To the frequent passage of such storms over 
the Central Provinces and Malwa is doubtless to be attributed the fact of these 
regions having a heavier and less variable rainfall than any other part of the interior 
of the Indian Peninsula. 
In October, the highest pressure is over Rajputana and Malwa, and the lowest in 
Arakan and Upper Burma, and in the Trans-Himalayan regions of Ladakh and Thibet. 
The general appearance of the isobars is that of a system of more or less wavy loops 
surrounding the high-pressure centre in Rajputana, and extending to an unknown 
distance westwards over the Arabian Sea. The system of winds due to this distri¬ 
bution of pressure must be E. or S.E. in the extreme south of the Peninsula, S.W. in 
the Indus Valley as well as in Lower Burma and Tenasserim, W. in the Punjab, N.W. 
in the Ganges Valley, N. over the Bengal delta, and N.E. over the rest of the country. 
Except in Bengal and on the western side of the Indus Valley, this is not dissimilar 
to the system due to the pressure distribution at sea-level, and accordingly, we find it 
is only in these parts of the country that there are any marked anomalies in the 
direction of the wind observed on the plains. 
In confirmation of the general direction of the circulation of the atmosphere at 
10,000 feet elevation, we have the evidence of the winds at the hill-stations in 
the Himalayas and in Southern India. On the whole, though these stations, with 
the exception of Leh, are only at elevations between 6,000 and 7,000 feet, the 
accordance of the actual wind directions with those given by the distribution of 
* Instances have been known to occur in wbicb such storms, after crossing the Orissa coast, gave 
little or no indication of their ex-i^terne on the charts of sea-level isobars, but after a day or two 
reappeared in the Narbada valley. This seems to prove that, unlike the cylones of October, they are 
high-level disturbances. 
