310 A method of cooling the Air of [No. 10, new series. 



employment is in-doors, may get through their business, nearly as 

 well as in this country. 



But it is in tropical climates, especially along the sea-coasts of 

 continents and on islands, where heat exists in its most baneful 

 form, as high temperature through day and night, summer and 

 winter ; the sky may be constantly cloudy, or clear by day and 

 rainy at night, the rain descending in a temperature of 80 ° Fahr. 

 and upwards. In such a climate the shade of trees or of a roof 

 brings no alleviation of the heat ; it is felt almost equally all 

 through the night, and throughout the winter as well as the sum- 

 mer. A person employed in-doors is working in the same high 

 temperature as one out of doors ; there is no escape from the heat 

 either by building houses high up into the air, or sinking them low 

 down into the ground. Rivers, springs, rain, the ground, every 

 thing will be of the same temperature as the atmosphere, and that 

 temperature is far too high for European constitutions. 



Against a moderate continuance of such an untoward climate as 

 this, a strong constitution might bear up ; but when this state of 

 things goes on month after month, and year after year, the human 

 frame becomes completely relaxed ; all energy of mind and body 

 is destroyed, and disease finds easy victims. We have but to turn 

 to any statistical account of life, or rather death in India, to see 

 the immense sacrifice that is yearly being made there to the cli- 

 mate. Doubtless many of the deaths may have arisen from in- 

 direct effects of heat, such as miasma, which it is not with- 

 in the province of this paper to touch on ; but still multitudes 

 will be left amongst both soldiers and officers, and civi- 

 lians of every degree, due merely to the living in too high a 

 temperature; which prevents the skin, the lungs, and the liver, 

 from performing their duties, and utterly relaxes the whole com- 

 ponent tissue of the body, producing such diseases as prolapsus ani. 



This now is the case to be met, and for proofs of its sufficiency 

 of claim to earnest attention, let any one look merely to their own 

 friends or relations who have gone out to India, and let them also 

 consider those who have been so fortunate as to return, with more 

 or less grievously shattered constitutions. 



It may be objected, that no plan of cooling rooms, though 



