148 PALMS 



furnislies no less than fifty thousand tons of oil, worth at least 

 2,000,000/. 



The American palms are pre-eminent in beauty, and many of 

 them bid fair to rank highly in the future commerce of the 

 world. 



The leaves of the Carnauba (Corypha cerifera) furnish £tn 

 abundance of wax. The lowlands of Gruiana, between 3° and 7° 

 N. lat., are frequently covered with this social fan-palm, whose 

 full-grown fronds, when cut and dried in the shade, cover them- ■ 

 selves with light-coloured scales. These melt in a warmth of i 

 206° F., and then form a straw-coloured liquid, which again 

 concretes on cooling. It burns with as clear and bright a flame 

 as the best bees'-wax, and will no doubt become a considerable 

 article of trade, when once the spirit of industry awakens in 

 those rich but thinly-populated regions. Like many other 

 palms, the Carnauba does not confine her gifts to one single 

 product. The boiled fruit is edible, and the pith of the young 

 stems afifords a nutritious fecula. Eoofs thatched with its leaves 

 resist for many years the effects of the weather, and its wood 

 may be used for a variety of purposes. 



A kind of wax, exuding from the rings of its trunk, is also 

 produced by the beautiful Ceroxylon oMdicola, which grows on 

 the slopes of the Andes, up to an elevation of eight thousand feet. 

 Even the lofty vault of the Crystal Palace would be unable to span 

 this majestic palm, which, according to Humboldt's accurate 

 measurement, towers one hundred and eighty feet above the 

 ground, and bears a tuft of fronds each twenty-four feet 

 long. 



The cabbage-palm of the Antilles {Oreodoxa oleracea) almost 

 rivals the mountain Ceroxylon in magnificence of growth, as 

 its stem, which near to its base is about seven feet in circum- 

 ference, ascends straight and tapering to the height of 130 feet. 

 Its lofty fronds, moved by the gentlest breeze, are an object 

 of beauty which can hardly be conceived by those who are 

 unused to the magnificent vegetation of a tropical sun. Within 

 the leaves which surround the top of the trunk, the cabbage, 

 composed of longitudinal flakes, like ribands, but so compact as 

 to form a crisp and solid body, lies concealed. It is white, 

 about two or three feet long, as thick as a man's arm, and per- 

 fectly cylindrical. When eaten raw, it resembles the almond in 



