OIL PALM AND PALM KERNEL INDUSTRY 477 



local use is really quite a negligible quantity, and will no doubt almost 

 die out when there are larger amounts of pomade and other skin 

 emollients available for the natives to buy. 



9. European Machinery for Extraction (Pericarping). — Mr. 

 E. VV. J. Trevor, of 87, Maida Vale, claims two machines for detaching 

 and removing the pericarp of palm fruit with abrading, and has 

 devised also a means by which the fruit is held in place and has 

 along in line, an endless band or chain. It is not stated, however, 

 if this is successful. 



Another apparatus with knife-blades for decorticating the pericarp 

 has been patented by Mr. H. Beckwith, of 2, Rumford Street, Liver- 

 pool. It is called the depericarping machine. Dr. Hupfeld's oil 

 process is carried out at Agu (Togo). 



Haake, a Berlin firm, constructed a machine called the wet process. 

 The fruit is heated with water and freed from the pulp in special 

 machines. The pulp is allowed to drain, and then heated again and 

 put under presses. The nuts are cracked in a large centrifugal 

 machine, and the shell is separated by a drum-like sieve or by brine. 

 With this process 100 lb. of fruit yield 15 lb. of oil and 14 lb. of kernels. 

 Eour or five tons of fruit can be treated daily by fifteen or twenty 

 men. The natives only extract 7 per cent, of the pericarp oil. 

 This oil contains over 30 per cent, of fatty acid and is only 

 used for soaps 



The Government has set up kernel-cracking machines in various 

 places in West Africa. 



10. European Nut-cracking. — Several plants have been put up 

 latterly to deal with the cracking of kernels by machinery. 



One of the first of such factories was started at Benin River, Warri 

 province, where the shells after the nuts had been obtained from them 

 were used for firing the engines of the machinery. Another factory 

 exists at Abonnemma, Owerri province, and yet another was started 

 at Yenagoa in 1914. The na,tives seem very willing to bring in 

 the nuts to be cracked, especially where the population is not large 

 enough to both make the oil and crack the kernels, as in the Brass 

 and Degema districts. Brine is often used for separating the kernels 

 from the shell. 



Some hand-machines have been brought out by Miller Brothers which 

 crack the nuts, but both shell and kernels fall to the ground at the 

 same time. A certain number of the kernels are broken in the process, 

 but of recent years an improvement has been made in this respect. 

 The cost of the hand-machine, amounting as it does to £30, is almost 

 prohibitive for the native, unless a system of hire-purchase were to 

 be adopted. Only a few of these machines (comparatively) have been 

 sold to them. 



Yield of Oil and Kernels from Whole Fruit by Machinery. — It has 



