184 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF TEA. 



new invention. The following will be shortly the advantages of this 

 new process, even supposing the Teas are no better: 



1. Economy. This will possibly be even greater than what is 

 set out in the extract of the local paper below ; for the fact that the 

 Tea is never placed over charcoal until the whole is ignited and has 

 become ' live charcoal,' is not there recognized, much of the caloric 

 thus escapes. 



2. Cleanliness and absence of charcoal dust. 



3. Absence of the objectionable fumes of charcoal. 



4. Immunity from fire in Tea-houses. 



5. Greater speed in the firing process, and the saving of all the 

 labour employed to make charcoal. 



6. Reduced temperature in Tea-houses. 



If all the advantages are, as I expect they will be, attained, the 

 life of a Tea planter will be more pleasant than hitherto. 



The following is the opinion of the new process expressed by the 

 Darjeelimr News of ist August. 



' It has long been a question, which all planters were desirous to 

 solve, if the fumes of charcoal were necessary to make Tea, that is 

 to say, if any chemical action was produced on the Tea by the said 

 fumes, and if not, whether it would not be possible to do the firing 

 in some other and far cheaper way. 



" The question has, we believe, been solved by Colonel Edward 

 Money, and if so, for the invention is quite a new one, a boon of 

 great magnitude will have been conferred on the Tea interest of 

 India. We congratulate this district as being the birth-place of the 

 improvement. 



* The apparatus at present in use at Soom, and which we have 

 seen working, is a rough and crude one made on the spot. This, 

 and the more perfect plans from which larger and better ones are to 

 be made, are readily shown by Colonel Money to anyone visiting 

 Soom ; but until the invention is patented, it is not well to describe 

 it in print. Suffice if we say the invention is a remarkably simple 

 one cheap to erect durable in its character, and the working 

 thereof unattended with any expense whatever, beyond the cost of 

 the fuel (which may be of any kind) and which of course will be 

 many times less than charcoal. 



( If true, as we hear, that it takes 3 J maunds of wood generally to 

 make one maund of charcoal, and if also true, as Colonel Money 

 suggests, that the caloric in one maund of wood equals the caloric in 



