( 5 ) 



&c. The kernel is largely used in cookery, being grated fine by 

 an instrument called a cocoanut scraper, after which milk can 

 be expressed from it; when dried in the sun it is known as copra, 

 from which oil is extracted, the residue being used as cattle food. 

 The leaves are plaited to form cadjans for thatching roofs, also 

 baskets ; and the trunk yields good timber. The young fruit, 

 called "kurumba," furnishes food and drink. The sap of the 

 unopened flower supplies toddy, arrack, and jaggery. 



The dried frond of the palm is twisted into a bundle and used 

 as a torch. These torches are often employed, for purposes of 

 illumination on festival occasions, being known as " chulu " lights, 

 a corruption of the Sinhalese word " huluatta. " Torches are also 

 furnished by the spathes of the tiowers, called " kolapuwa." The 

 midribs of the leaflets are tied into bundles and form excellent 

 besoms, called " ekel" brooms, a corruption of the Tamil word 

 "irekii," meaning the midrib of a palm leaf. 



The preparation of coir fibre is an important industry in the 

 Western and Southern Provinces. The following account taken 

 from Dr. Shortt's Monograph of the Cocoanut Palm applies 

 equally to the methods in use in Ceylon as to the districts in India, 

 to which he refers more particularly : — 



'*The husks, removed from the nuts, are collected and thrown 

 into pits containing water to soak, and kept there till decompo- 

 sition sets in." [Along the railway from Colombo to Galle many 

 portions of the backwaters and estuaries are fenced in for this 

 purpose.] "The coir, w^hen taken out of the pit, is beaten with 

 stout sticks to break up the adhesion and free the fibre from 



impurities. Next it is hand-rubbed" and "subsequently 



rolled into loose pads of about a finger's thickness preparatory to 

 being twisted into yarn by the palms of the hands." 



In the bottom shelf is shown the apparatus employed in the 

 distillation of arrack, and on the top of the case there is a similar 

 apparatus in native pottery. 



Fisheries and Trausport. — Many of the models in this case 

 were made for the Chicago Exhibition of 1893. 



On the top shelf are shown models of a bullock cart, a Kandyan 

 grain store, fish traps, a rattan bridge, and a " chekku" or oil mill 

 for expressing oil from copra and for the manufacture of gingelly 

 oil. The " chekku " consists of a huge mortar sunk deeply into the 

 ground and made of stone in the Western Province, or of tamarind 

 wood in the North-Central Province ; in this a heavy pestle 

 revolves, being worked by a horizontal lever driven round by a 

 bull or a pair of bulls. A man usually sits on the lever to increat>e 

 the weight of the pestle. 



