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Three of these fire places keep the room full all day, but there are 
others at the upper end of the building which can be used to increase 
the smoke, if required, either for exceptionally heavy smoking or 
when the building is quite full of rubber. This house will contain 
2,000 lbs. rubber sheet or more. The newest made rubber is put 
nearest the fires so as to get the most smoking and moved further 
up the slope as it gets drier. The advantage of building the house 
on a slope is that the smoke starting from the lowest point naturally 
gradually ascends to the upper end, and the surroundings are 
naturally drier and there is no accumulation of rain water round the 
building. 
All smoke contains a certain proportion of water, and this and 
the free creosote, and naptha are practically absorbed by the wood 
work and attap so that the rubber is not covered with a wet unplea- 
sant layer. At one time we built a brick smoking room with a 
corrugated iron roof. In this house the fire was outside and the 
smoke was conducted in by a tube, but we soon found that there were 
deposited on the floor and elsewhere in the rooms a thick brown 
liquid consisting of naptha and water. This stuff got, too, on the 
rubber. This mess is quite absent from the wooden drying house, 
though the woodwork gets dark brown or black from the deposited 
products of the smoke, the rubber is dry and of a good colour. 
No ventilation other than the cracks is required, as any open 
windows let out the smoke. The entrance door is usually kept open 
but as it is at the lowest end, the current of air that enters drives the 
smoke up to the other end through the rubber. The smoke should 
be as dry as possible, both for the benefit of the rubber and for 
coolies in the smoking shed as wet white smoke containing much 
water is very troublesome to the breathing. Coconut husk can be 
used instead of wood, but waste coconut dust and sawdust are apt to 
give off sparks, which being incandescent pieces of wood fly up and 
settle on the rubber as charcoal. Attempts to improve the smoking 
by adding creosote did not prove successful. For one thing it is apt 
to raise the temperature and produce more rapid combustion. 
In one estate recently I saw an arrangement of an oven outside 
the smoke house connected with a passage with the interior. Here 
the combustion was most rapid in the inner part of the oven, while 
the slower combustion was going on at the outer open end, so that 
the best of the smoke escaped to the open air while the more rapid 
consumption of the fuel in the mounth of the passage increased the 
heat of the air passing in. Thus much smoke was lost, and a larger 
quantity of fuel than necessary was used. 
In the Gardens smoking house no smoke escapes without having 
passed over some, at least, of the rubber, and much of it remains in 
the house nearly the whole day, so none of it is wasted. At the same 
time the slow smouldering does not increase the temperature, nor is 
there any risk ffom fire, as the fire is sunk in the ground in the 
concrete, and produces no flame. However to avoid risks the fire can 
be extinguished at night fall. 
