3d. North of the Malabar coast, in the north-west of India, lies an extensive desert. West of that is Beloochistan, with its rainless deserts. Further west are the rainless deserts of Arabia, and these three, including the Persian deserts further north, cover _as much surface_ as the deserts of Cobi and Bucharia--have the sun vertical in part, and nearly so over the entire surface--_are more intensely hot_, and lie within _one third of the distance_ which intervenes between that desert and the Indian Ocean off the Malabar coast, with _an open sea and_ no _mountains between_. Now, look at it. The north-west desert of India, and the rainless deserts of Beloochistan and Arabia _reverse no trade_ and _have no monsoon_, although the Arabian Sea heads right up among them. They do not attract one from the Indian Ocean off the Malabar coast, although not more than one third of the distance off, and without such mountains and table lands intervening as separate that coast from Cobi. It is said by Lieutenant Maury that the monsoons, "_obey the stronger force_." But which is the stronger force? Cobi, not _wholly_ rainless, lying north of 35 deg., under the zone of extra-tropical rains, with India and the Ghauts, the Himmalaya Mountains, the table lands of Thibet, and the Kuenlun Mountains between? or the deserts of India, Beloochistan, and Arabia, _wholly rainless_, and _intensely hot, near by_, and in _open view_. There can be but one answer to this question. Nothing in the way of desert barrenness, or elevated temperature, unless it be those of Sahara, can exceed the deserts about the head of the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. Certainly those of Cobi can not compare with them; yet the trades blow steadily over them, although more northerly there, as every where, near their northern limits, especially on land. Says Hopkins, in his atmospheric changes: