296 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF TEA. 



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 

 Darjeeling 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 birthplace of the improve- 

 ment. 



" 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! 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 

 two maunds of charcoal, it then follows that each maund of wood, put 

 into Colonel Money's furnace, equals seven maunds of wc>d to make 

 charcoal. 



" Of course the above are more or less random figures, but they 

 suffice to show that the saving of fuel will be very great a boon of 



