MAHABALESHWAR, or MALCOLMPETH  , a hill station in Satara district, and the principal sanatorium in the Bombay presidency, India . Pop . (1901), 5299 . 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 5o 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 .