mer is in and near the focus of the monsoons, and has a temperature in
July (when 18 inches of rain fall), about as low as in December.

In the foregoing table from Kaemptz, the rain is in millimetres, about
twenty-five of which make an inch, and the temperature is centigrade,
which may be raised to Fahrenheit by adding four fifths of the quantity
and also 32 deg.--thus, if the height of the centigrade thermometer be 25 deg.,
add to this four fifths of 25 deg., which is 20 deg., and also 32 deg., the result is
77 deg.. Twenty-five centigrade is therefore equal to seventy-seven
Fahrenheit.

Lieutenant Maury is not, and should not be a theorist. He occupies the
position, in some sort, of a national _investigator_, and, of course, of
national _instructor_. Opinions which emanate from him, or which are
endorsed by him, should be accurate. Sooner or later that which he has
adopted in relation to the monsoons, and some others, must be abandoned.
In addition to what has already been said, I wish to call his, and the
reader's attention, to several other facts and considerations in relation
to the monsoons, and particularly those of India.

1st. The deserts of Cobi and Bucharia, which constitute the "burning
plains" of _Central_ Asia, north-east of the Indian Ocean, lie between 38 deg.
and 45 deg. of north latitude, and under the zone of extra-tropical rains.
They are not wholly rainless. They partake of that saline character which
affects so much of Asia and the western part of this continent. South of
them, running nearly east and west, are the lofty ranges of the Himmalaya
and Kuenlun Mountains, and the table lands of Thibet. To their saline
character, in part, but mainly to the interposition of these mountain
ranges, depriving the counter-trade of moisture, they owe their
comparative sterility. _If bountifully supplied with rains, this salt
would doubtless ere this have been washed to the ocean, as it has been
from other countries, once as salt as they._ But they have some rain, and
more or less vegetation, and are not intensely hot. They lie too far
north, and are too elevated. Their temperature is not materially different
from that of the western, and comparatively desert portions of our own
country, and they are utterly incapable of creating a monsoon at the
Indian Ocean, and especially from the long line of Malabar coast, where
the south-west monsoons are found in most strength. The sterile portions
of Utah, New Mexico,