January.—­At the opening of the year, the north-east monsoon, which sets in two months previously, is nearly in mid career.  This wind, issuing from the chill north and robbed of its aqueous vapour in passing over the elevated mountain regions on the confines of China and Thibet, sweeps across the Bay of Bengal, whence its lowest strata imbibe a quantity of moisture, moderate in amount, yet still leaving the great mass of air far below saturation.  Hence it reaches Ceylon comparatively dry, and its general effects are parching and disagreeable.  This character is increased as the sun recedes towards its most southern declination, and the wind acquires a more direct draught from the north; passing over the Indian peninsula and almost totally digested of humidity, it blows down the western coast of the island, and is known there by the name of the “along-shore-wind.”  For a time its influence is uncomfortable and its effects injurious both to health and vegetation:  it warps and rends furniture, dries up the surface of the earth, and withers the delicate verdure which had sprung up during the prevalence of the previous rains.  These characteristics, however, subside towards the end of the month, when the wind becomes somewhat variable with a westerly tendency and occasional showers; and the heat of the day is then partially compensated by the greater freshness of the nights.  The fall of rain within the month scarcely exceeds three inches.

[Sidenote: 
Wind N.E. 
Temperature, 24 hours: 
  Mean greatest 89 deg. 
  Mean least 71 deg. 
Rain (inches) 2.1]

February is dry and hot during the day, but the nights are cloudless and cool, and the moonlight singularly agreeable.  Rain is rare, and when it occurs it falls in dashes, succeeded by damp and sultry calms.  The wind is unsteady and shifts from north-east to north-west, sometimes failing entirely between noon and twilight.  The quantity of rain is less than in January, and the difference of temperature between day and night is frequently as great as 15 deg. or 20 deg.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Dr. MACVICAR, in a paper in the Ceylon Miscellany, July, 1843, recorded the results of some experiments, made near Colombo, as to the daily variation of temperature and Its effects on cultivation, from which it appeared that a register thermometer, exposed on a tuft of grass in the cinnamon garden in a clear night and under the open sky, on the 2nd of January, 1841, showed in the morning that it had been so low as 52 deg., and when laid on the ground in the place in the sunshine on the following day, it rose to upwards of 140 deg.  Fahr.]

[Sidenote: 
Wind N.E. to N.W. 
Temperature, 24 hours: 
  Mean greatest 87.7 deg. 
  Mean least 73.1 deg. 
Rain (inches) 2.1]