A Ceylonese Cocoa-nut Oil-Mill. 



CHAPTER XII. 



PALMS. 



The Cocoa-nut Tree — Its hundred Uses — Cocoa-nut Oil — Coir — Porcupine 

 W'ood — Enemies of the Cocoa Palm — The Sago Palm — The Saguer — • 

 The Gumatty— The Areca Palm — The Palmyra Palm— The Talipot— The 

 Cocoa de Mer — Eatans — A Ratan Bridge in Ceylon — The Date Tree — The 

 Oil Palms of Africa — The Oil Trade at Bonny — Its vast and growing Im- 

 portance — American Palms — The Carnauba — The Ceroxylon andicola — The 

 Cabbage Palm — The Gulielma speciosa — The Piacava — Difficulties of the 

 Botanist in ascertaining the various Species of Palms — Their wide Geo- 

 graphical Range — Different Physiognomy of the Palms according to their 

 height — The Position and Form of their Fronds — Their Fruits — Their 

 Trunk — The Yriartea ventricosa. 



THE graceful acanthus gave the imaginative Greeks the first 

 idea of the Corinthian capital; but the shady canopy of the 

 cocoa-nut tree would no doubt form a still more beautiful orna- 

 ment of architecture, were it possible for art to imitate its 

 feathery fronds and carve their delicate tracery in stone. 



Essentially littoral, this noble palm requires an atmosphere 

 damp with the spray and moisture of the sea to acquire its full 

 stateliness of growth, and while along the bleak shores of the 

 Northern Ocean the trees are generally bent landward by the 

 rough sea breeze, and send forth no branches to face its violence, 

 the cocoa, on the contrary, loves to bend over the rolling surf, and 



