we were greatly indebted for furthering us on our voyage: boats being
very difficult to procure, we were, however, detained here from the
16th to the 19th. I was fortunate in being able to compare my
barometers with a first-rate standard instrument, and in finding no
appreciable alteration since leaving Calcutta in the previous April.
The elevation of the station is 130 feet above the sea, that of
Kishengunj I made 131; so that the Gangetic valley is nearly a dead
level for fully a hundred miles north, beyond which it rises;
Titalya, 150 miles to the north, being 360 feet, and Siligoree, at
the margin of the Terai, rather higher. The river again falls more
considerably than the land; the Mahanuddy, at Kishengunj, being about
twenty feet below the level of the plains, or 110 above the sea;
whereas the Ganges, at Rampore, is probably not more than eighty
feet, even when the water is highest.

The climate of Rampore is marked by greater extremes than that of
Calcutta: during our stay the temperature rose above 106 degrees, and
fell to 78 degrees at night: the mean was 2.5 degrees higher than at
Calcutta, which is 126 miles further south. Being at the head of the
Gangetic delta, which points from the Sunderbunds obliquely to the
north-west, it is much damper than any locality further west, as is
evidenced by two kinds of _Calamus_ palm abounding, which do not
ascend the Ganges beyond Monghyr. Advancing eastwards, the dry
north-west wind of the Gangetic valley, which blows here in
occasional gusts, is hardly felt; and easterly winds, rising after
the sun (or, in other words, following the heating of the open dry
country), blow down the great valley of the Burrampooter, or
south-easterly ones come up from the Bay of Bengal. The western head
of the Gangetic delta is thus placed in what are called "the
variables" in naval phraseology; but only so far as its superficial