Asia to the N. E., is during those months covered by the
belt of calms and rains, as heretofore stated; and the S. E. trades
blowing into it are attributed to the suction created by the ascent of
heated air _there_. So, then, the monsoons are blowing away from under the
rainy belt, from 500 to 1000 miles, to Cobi and the burning plains of
Asia, while the ascensive force of that belt is such as to draw the S. E.
trades toward the very spot, a distance of 1,200 or 1,500 miles, at 20
miles an hour! What must the ascensive force over Cobi, etc., be, if, as a
"stronger power," it can overcome an ascensive force over the Indian Ocean
sufficient to draw the S. E. trades 1,500 miles, at 20 miles an hour; and,
in addition to the force necessary to resist this central suction, not
only stop or hold back the N. E. trade, but reverse it and draw it back,
at 20 miles an hour, as a monsoon? Must it not be, at least, double that
of the belt of calms, or the "great region of expansion," as Professor
Dove calls it?

Now, I am irresistibly tempted to ask whether a meteorological theory can
be too absurd for credence, and whether it would not be as well to endow
the deserts with ribs and lungs, and a proboscis long enough to reach the
Indian Ocean, and the necessary power of inspiration and expiration? Such
a theory would avoid all difficulties, conflict with no more analogies,
and, in my judgment, be as much entitled to credit as the one to which
meteorologists adhere.

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 Cob