oct. — MiR. 1859-60.] Rooms in Tropical Climates. 311 



ever so effective in itself, can be of avail to by far the greater 

 number of cases, where the persons are employed chiefly in the 

 open air. It is true that it will be of no use to them when they 

 are there, but if they can be insured, when the day's work is over, 

 a cold house to retire to, and a sound sleep in a cool atmosphere ; 

 that may completely reinvigorate their bodies, and make up for 

 all that has been undone by the heat outside, in the same manner, 

 as in cold countries, men are enabled to withstand excessive seve- 

 rities of cold in open air employment in the daytime, if they can 

 recruit their stock of heat at night in a warm lodging. 



In cold countries when the air is lower in temperature than is 

 agreeable, nothing is easier than by lighting a fire in a room, to 

 raise the heat to anything that may be desired. But when the air 

 is too high in temperature naturally, and in one of those tropical 

 climates where day and night, and summer and winter, the heat is 

 never under 80°, and where the air being saturated by moisture, 

 there is no coolness from evaporation, then the converse of light- 

 ing a fire, that is to say a method of actually lowering the tem- 

 perature of the air, without producing any other change in it, has 

 never yet been brought about. Some method of this sort, how- 

 ever, seems indispensable to give European life a fair chance in 

 the tropics ; and the method which I am about to detail, is my 

 contribution to a subject, which I trust will receive continued at- 

 tention until the problem is completely and satisfactorily solved. 



On the methods hitherto adopted, much time need not be spent ; 

 for 1st, the fan mat, or " punkah" is merely a fan which agitates 

 the air in a room already hot, but does not actually cool it, or pro- 

 duce any regular or salutary ventilation. 2nd. The ivet mats in 

 the windows for the wind to blow through, cannot be employed 

 but when the air is dry as well as hot ; and even then are most 

 unhealthy, for although the air may feel dry to the skin, there 

 generally is far more moisture in it than in our own climate ; but 

 the height of the temperature increasing the capacity of the air for 

 moisture, makes that air at 80° feel very dry, which at 40° would 

 be very damp. Now, one of the reasons of the lassitude felt in warm 

 climates is, that the air expanding with the heat, while the lungs 

 remain of the same capacity, they must take in a smaller quantity 



