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it yields us a valuable vegetable fat, the importance of which is daily 

 increasing in the manufacture of candles and soaps. For its use in 

 the former manufacture we are chiefly indebted to the spirited manager 

 of Price's Patent Caudle Company, Mr. G. F. Wilson, from whom I 

 have received the valuable series of cocoa nut oil and palm oU products 

 exhibited. The credit of inventing the vai'ious methods of separating 

 the neutral fats (steariue), and the acid fats (stearic acid), does not, it is 

 true, belong to this celebrated Company, but I believe it is owing to the 

 untiring energy and perseverance of Mr. Wilson that this valuable 

 branch of manufacture has been brought to such perfection, and that 

 the Company, whilst cheapening this elegant manufacture, receive the 

 reward of public spirit and intellectual enterprise, by an annual distribu- 

 tion of profits ranging from forty to fifty thousand pounds. This Com- 

 pany, the largest of the kind in the world, is working an enormous 

 amount of good for the Island of Ceylon, where they have large planta- 

 tions of the cocoa nut palm. 



The produce of each palm is enormous. An acre of cocoa plantation 

 vviU yield about 4000 nuts per annum if well cultivated ; if intended 

 for oil, the kernels are extracted and are ground into a pasty mass called 

 coperah ; this is submitted to the necessary pressure in the oil mills, 

 and yields for every 100 nuts 20 lbs. of the cocoa fat or oil, or 800 lbs. 

 per acre ; the marc or oil cake called poonac, is very valuable as food 

 for cattle, and especially for manure ; besides this, one of the most 

 valuable of our fibrous materials is derived from the husk of the nut, 

 so that the most troublesome part of the process for procuring the 

 kernel, more than pays its expenses. This fibrous substance called 

 coir, or in India kyar, is now of the utmost importance, as it forms one 

 of the best materials for ropes like hawsers, which are constantly 

 exposed to wet and require great strength, and for matting of various 

 kinds. It is also manufactured into mats and brushes, serving as an 

 excellent substitute for bristles. Such are the applications of the 

 products of the cocoa palm in this country ; but in order to 

 estimate its real utility we must examine its uses to the natives of 

 tropical countries where it flourishes near the sea shores in greater 

 luxuriance than perhaps any other species of its most luxuriant tribe. 

 Under the shade of a group of graceful cocoa nut palms the native 

 chooses the spot for his habitation ; this he constructs wholly of these 

 palms, their tine stems furnishing him with the posts, rafters, and all 

 the solid framework, the walls are made with thin pieces of the same, 

 the window lattices are formed of strips of the large petioles, and the 

 roof thatched with the leaves bound on with cordage made of the coir. 

 For the furniture of the interior he is pqually indelited to this remark- 





