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Mahabaleshwar

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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or Malcolmpeth, a hill station in Satara district, and the principal sanatorium in the Bombay presidency, India. Pop. (1901), 52 99. It is reached by carriage from Wathar railway station (39 m.) or by motor car from Poona (119 m.). Mahabaleshwar occupies the summit of a ridge of the Western Ghats, with a general elevation of 4500 ft. above sea-level. It was established in 1828 by Sir John Malcolm, governor of Bombay, who obtained the site from the raja of Satara in exchange for another patch of territory. The superior elevation of Mahabaleshwar renders it much cooler than Matheran (2460 ft.), a sanatorium about 50 m. E. of Bombay, but its heavy rainfall (292 in. annual average) makes it almost uninhabitable during the rainy season. The mean annual temperature is 67° F. In the hottest season (March - April) an extreme of a little over 90° is reached during the day. Mahabaleshwar forms the retreat usually during spring, and occasionally in autumn, of the governor of Bombay, and the chief officers of his establishment, and has the usual public buildings of a first-class sanatorium.