r, was fired by lightning and blown up on the 18th of March 1782.)

MONSOONS.

The causes which produce a successive variety of seasons in the parts of
the earth without the tropics, having no relation or respect to the
region of the torrid zone, a different order takes place there, and the
year is distinguished into two divisions, usually called the rainy and
dry monsoons or seasons, from the weather peculiar to each. In the
several parts of India these monsoons are governed by various particular
laws in regard to the time of their commencement, period of duration,
circumstances attending their change, and direction of the prevailing
wind according to the nature and situation of the lands and coasts where
their influence is felt. The farther peninsula of India, where the
kingdom of Siam lies, experiences at the same time the effects of
opposite seasons; the western side, in the Bay of Bengal, being exposed
for half the year to continual rains, whilst on the eastern side the
finest weather is enjoyed; and so on the different coasts of Indostan the
monsoons exert their influence alternately; the one remaining serene and
undisturbed whilst the other is agitated by storms. Along the coast of
Coromandel the change, or breaking up of the monsoon as it is called, is
frequently attended with the most violent gales of wind.

On the west coast of Sumatra, southward of the equinoctial, the
south-east monsoon or dry season begins about May and slackens in
September: the north-west monsoon begins about November, and the hard
rains cease about March. The monsoons for the most part commence and
leave off gradually there; the months of April and May, October and
November generally affording weather and winds variable and uncertain.

CAUSE OF THE MONSOONS.

The causes of these periodical winds have been investigated by several
able naturalists, whose systems, however, do not entirely correspond
either in the principles laid down or in their application to the effects
known to be produced in different parts of the globe. I shall summarily
mention what appear to be the most evident, or probable at least, among
the general laws, or inferences, which have been deduced from the
examination of this subject. If the sea were perfectly uninterrupted and
free from the irregular influence of lands, a perpetual easterly wind
would prevail in all that space comprehended between the twenty-eighth or
thirteenth degrees of north and south latitude