Himalayan Journals — Volume 2: 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 2: 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 rapid drying of the lower strata of the atmosphere during the
day, as indicated by the great decrease in the tension of the vapour
from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., is the effect of the great violence of the
north-west winds.
From the few days' observations taken on the Kymore hills, the
temperature of their flat tops appeared 5 degrees higher than that of
the Soane valley, which is 500 feet below their mean level. I can
account for this anomaly only on the supposition that the thick bed
of alluvium, freely exposed to the sun (not clothed with jungle),
absorbs the sun's rays and parts with its heat slowly. This is
indicated by the increase of temperature being due to the night and
morning observations, which are 3.1 degrees and 8.5 degrees higher
here than below, whilst the 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. temperatures are half a
degree lower.
The variations of temperature too are all much less in amount, as are
those of the state of the atmosphere as to moisture, though the
climate is rather damper.
On the subject of terrestrial radiation the paucity of the
observations precludes my dwelling. Between 9 p.m. and sunrise the
following morning I found the earth to have lost but 6.5 degrees of
heat, whereas a mean of nine observations at the same hours in the
valley below indicated a loss of 12 degrees.
Though the mean temperature deduced from the few days I spent on this
part of the Kymore is so much above that of the upper Soane valley,
which it bounds, I do not suppose that the whole hilly range
partakes of this increase. When the alluvium does not cover the rock,
as at Rotas and many other places, especially along the southern and
eastern ridges of the ghats, the nights are considerably cooler than
on the banks of the Soane; and at Rotas itself, which rises almost
perpendicularly from the river, and is exposed to no such radiation
of heat from a heated soil as Shahgunj is, I found the temperature
considerably below that of Akbarpore on the Soane, which however is
much sheltered by an amphitheatre of rocks.
V. _Mirzapore on the Ganges._
During the few days spent at Mirzapore, I was surprised to find the
temperature of the day cooler by nearly 4 degrees than that of the
hills above, or of the upper part of the Soane valley, while the
nights on the other hand were decidedly warmer. The dew-point was
even lower in proportion, 7.6 degrees, and the climate consequently
drier. The following is an abstract of the observations taken at Mr.
Hamilton's house on the banks of the Ganges (below).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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