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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOL-MOS |
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MONSOON . The two monsoon periods are divided by the change of temperature, due to solar action upon the earth's surface, into two separate seasons; and thus the Indian year may be divided into four seasons: the cold season, including the months of January and February; the hot season, comprising the months of March, April and May; the south
In the cold season the mean temperature averages about 300 lower in the 'Punjab than in southern India. In the Punjab, the United Provinces, and northern India generally the climate The cold resembles that of the Riviera, with a brilliant' cloudless weather, sky and cool dry weather. This is the time for the tourist to visit India. In south
east
Madras
The hot season begins officially in the Punjab on the 15th of March, and from that date there is a steady rise in the temperature, induced The hot by the fiery rays of the sun upon the baking earth, until the break of the rains in June. During this season the weather, interior of the peninsula and northern India is greatly heated ; and the contrast of temperature is not between northern and southern India, but between the interior of India and the coast districts and adjacent seas. The greater part of the Deccan and the Central Provinces are included within the hottest area, though in May the highest temperatures are found in Upper Sind, north-west Rajputana, and south-west Punjab. At Jacobabad the thermometer sometimes rises to 125' in the shade. The south-west monsoon currents usually set in during the first fortnight of June on the Bombay and Bengal coasts, and give more or less general rain in every part of India during the next The three months. But the distribution of the rainfall is monsoon very uneven. On the face of the Western Ghats, and on period. the Khasi hills, overlooking the Bay of Bengal, where the mountains catch the masses of vapour as it rises off the sea, the rainfall is enormous. At Cherrapunji in the Khasi hills it averages upwards of 500 in. a year. The Bombay monsoon, after surmounting the Ghats, blows across the peninsula as a west and sometimes in places a north-west wind; but it leaves with very little rain a strip loo to zoo m. in width in the western Deccan parallel with the Ghats, and it is this part of the Deccan, together with the Mysore table-land and the Carnatic, that is most subject to drought. Similarly the Bengal monsoon passes by the Coromandel coast and the Carnatic with an occasional shower, taking a larger volume to Masulipatam and Orissa
Cachar
Orissa
rule
east
Flora. Unlike many other large geographical areas, India is remarkable for having no distinctive botanical features peculiar to itself. It differs conspicuously in this respect from such countries as Australia or South Africa. Its vegetation is in point of fact of a composite character, and is constituted by the meeting and more or less blending of adjoining floras,those of Persia and the south-eastern Mediterranean area to the north-west, of Siberia to the north, of China to the east, and of Malaya to the south-east. Regarded broadly, four tolerably distinct types present themselves. I. The upper levels of the Himalayas slope northwards gradually to the Tibetan uplands, over which the Siberian temperate vegetation ranges. This is part of the great
genera, ranges over the whole of the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere. In the western Himalayas this upland flora is marked by a strong admixture of European species, such as the columbine (Aquilegia) and hawthorn (Crataegus Oxyacantha). These disappear rapidly eastward, and are scarcely found beyond Kumaon. The base of the Himalayas is occupied by a narrow belt forming an extreme north-western extension of the Malayan type described below. Above that there is a rich temperate flora which in the eastern chain may be regarded as forming an extension of that of northern China, gradually assuming westwards more and more of a European type. Magnolia
cedar
cedar
2. The north-western area is best marked in Sind and the Punjab, where the climate is very dry (the rainfall averaging less than 15 In.), and where the soil, though fertile, is wholly dependent on North. irrigation for its cultivation. The flora is a poor one in west. number of species, and is essentially identical with that of Persia, southern Arabia and Egypt. The low scattered junglg contains such characteristic species as Capparis aphylla, Acacia arabica (babel), Populus euphratica (the " willows " of Ps. cxxxvii. 2), Salvadora persica (erroneously identified by Royle with the mustard of Matt. xiii. 31), tamarisk, Zizyphus, Lotus, &c. The dry flora extends somewhat in a south-east direction, and then blends in-sensibly with that of the western peninsula; some species representing it are found in the upper Gangetic plain, and a few are widely distributed in dry parts of the country. 3. For the Malayan area, which Sir Joseph Hooker describes as forming " the bulk of the flora of the perennially humid Assam and regions of India, as of the whole Malayan peninsula, Upper Malayan Assam valley, the Khasi mountains, the forests of the base mats"' of the Himalaya from the Brahmaputra to Nepal, of the Malabar coast, and of Ceylon," see Assam, CEYLON and MALAY End of Article: MONSOON If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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