Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
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Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Himalaya Mountains
The temperature at 3 a.m.. was 65 degrees; at 3 p.m. 82 degrees; and
at 10 p.m., 68 degrees, from which there was no great variation
during the whole time we spent at these elevations. The clouds were
rare, and always light and high, except a little fleecy spot of
vapour condensed close to the summit of Paras-nath. Though the nights
were clear and starlight, no dew was deposited, owing to the great
dryness of the air. On one occasion, this drought was so great during
the passage of a hot wind, that at night I observed the wet-bulb
thermometer to stand 20.5 degrees below the temperature of the air,
which was 66 degrees; this indicated a dew-point of 11.5 degrees, or
54.5 degrees below the air, and a saturation-point of 0.146; there
being only 0.102 grains of vapour per cubic foot of air, which latter
was loaded with dust. The little moisture suspended in the atmosphere
is often seen to be condensed in a thin belt of vapour, at a
considerable distance above the dry surface of the earth, thus
intercepting the radiation of heat from the latter to the clear sky
above. Such strata may be observed, crossing the hills in ribbonlike
masses, though not so clearly on this elevated region as on the
plains bounding the lower course of the Soane, where the vapour is
more dense, the hills more scattered, and the whole atmosphere more
humid. During the ten days I spent amongst the hills I saw but one
cloudy sunrise, whereas below, whether at Calcutta, or on the banks
of the Soane, the sun always rose behind a dense fog-bank.
At 9.30 a.m. the black-bulb thermometer rose in the sun to 130
degrees. The morning observation before 10 or 11 a..m. always gives a
higher result than at noon, though the sun's declination is so
considerably less, and in the hottest part of the day it is lower
still (3.30 p.m. 109 degrees), an effect no doubt due to the vapours
raised by the sun, and which equally interfere with the photometer
observations. The N.W. winds invariably rise at about 9 a.m. and blow
with increasing strength till sunset; they are due to the rarefaction
of the air over the heated ground, and being loaded with dust, the
temperature of the atmosphere is hence raised by the heated
particles. The increased temperature of the afternoon is therefore
not so much due to the accumulation of caloric from the sun's rays,
as to the passage of a heated current of air derived from the much
hotter regions to the westward. It would be interesting to know how
far this N.W. diurnal tide extends; also the rate at which it gathers
moisture in its progress over the damp regions of the Sunderbunds.
Its excessive dryness in N.W. India approaches that of the African
and Australian deserts; and I shall give an abstract of my own
observations, both in the vallies of the Soane and Ganges, and on the
elevated plateaus of Behar and of Mirzapore.* [See Appendix A.]
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