The Travancore group presents a striking ana • logy to the island of Ceylon. The hills arc loftiest at the extreme north of that district, where they stretch east and west for 60 or 70 miles, separat ing the districts of Dindigul and Madura.
The Putney mountains are west of the Dindigul, the Anirnallay south of Coimbatore, and the Sheva gu• south-west of Madura.
Climate and Seasons.—A country with such varied features, and extending through 28 degrees of latitude (8° 8' to 36° N.), has climates and pro ducts commensurately varied. In Hindustan the people usually arrange the year into three periods, —the Chouniasa or Burk'ha, which is the rainy season of four months' duration ; after which is time Secala, or Amara, or Mohasa, the cold season ; followed by the Dhubkala or K'hursa, or hot season. This division indicates generally the course of the seasons in all Hindustan, though in one locality or another the rains or the hot or cold seasons may be somewhat more or less prolonged.
Winds and Ititins.—The S.W. monsoon blows from the Southern Ocean, and is loaded with vapour. This is deposited largely along the sea-face of the Western Ghats, and between them and the sea, from 70 to 100 inches at the sea-level, and as much as 250 inches on the mountain face. At Mahabalesh war it amounts to 260 inches annually. In the Southern Konkan, especially in the Sawant wari district, the rains are as heavy as in Canara. At Bombay the rains last from June till the end of September, and the fall is only 71 inches, which is considerably less than at any point farther south on the west coast. At Tanna, however, the average fall is more than 100 inches. This mon soon wind passes over the plains of Bengal, and strikes on the Khassya mountains and the whole length of the Himalaya, discharging itself in heavy rains. From April till August it blows from the east of south, in August S.S.E., and in September more easterly, lowering the temperature of Bengal and of the northern plains, though the plains of the Panjab continue excessively heated.
From the vernal till the autumnal equinox, the heat of a great part of India continues great ; but after the autumnal equinox, the great mass of the Himalaya becomes intensely cold, and the plains of India generally become cool. Where the N.E. monsoon prevails, it is everywhere a land wind, except on the east coast of the Karnatic, the Malay Peninsula, and the Archipelago. In Malaya it blows over a great extent of sea, and is therefore very rainy; but in the Karnatic the width of sea is not great, so that the rainfall, though well marked, is less, and terminates long before the end of the monsoon, probably from the wind acquiring a more directly southerly direction, after the sun has reached the southern tropic: The amount of rain varies prodigiously in different parts of India, from almost none to 555 inches at Cherrapunji ; but the rainfall affords no direct criterion of the humidity of any climate, for the atmosphere may be saturated with moisture with out any precipitation taking place. Thus, while
in Sikkim 1° for 300 feet is the proportion for elevations below 7000 feet, on the Neilgherry hills it is about 1° for 340 feet; in Khassya, 1° for 380 feet ; and the elevations of Nagpur and Ambala produce no perceptible diminution in their mean temperature, which is as great as that which would nominally be assigned to them were they at the level of the sea. The chief fall occurs during the S.W. monsoon, between May and October. On the more southerly part of the Coromandel coast, on the east of the Penin sula, heavy rain falls in the months October to December, at the opening of the N.E. monsoon ; and in all the more northerly provinces, a well marked season of winter rains occur, commencing about Christmas, and extending to February. At this season, in the south of India, showers occur, but they have little effect on agricultural opera tions,—often, indeed, are injurious to cotton when grown as a cold-weather crop. Subject to these exceptions, it may be said generally that the por tion of India east of the 80th meridian has a rainfall of more than 40 inches, while the portion west of the same meridian has less than 40 inches. The region in which the fall is less than 30 inches includes almost the whole of the Panjab, a considerable part of the N.W. Provinces, a large part of Rajputan a and Kattyawar, as well as almost the whole of the Dekhan and Mysore. In Sind, and in the southern portion of the Panjab, the rainfall is less than 15 inches, and is extremely irregular ; but in Sind the agriculture almost wholly depends on artificial irrigation from the Indus. The parts of the country most subject to droughts are—(1) the IV. and S. parts of the N.W. Provinces, the Panjab E. of the Sutlej ; (2) the IV. and N. States of Rujputana and of the Central Plateau, which border on the N.W. Provinces; (3) the districts of Bombay and Madras above the ghats, together with the southern and western regions of Hyderabad and all Mysore, except the strip lying close along the Western Ghats ; and (4) the Madras districts along the east coast, and at the southern extremity of the Peninsula.