226 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



century; and many exertions have been made by 

 those interested in its introduction, to promote its 

 extensive consumption. Cocoa-nuts are produced 

 in so great profusion in Ceylon that the large quan- 

 tities of oil which could be obtained from them, at a 

 reasonable rate, might become a source of great 

 profit to that island. When it was first imported 

 here many trials were made of its quality. It was 

 found that the soap-boiler could manufacture with 

 this oil soap almost equal to that made with olive oil, 

 and at a much lower price. For the same branch 

 of manufacture it proved to be far superior to tallow, 

 which it exceeded in cost only about ten per cent. 



Mr. Marshall, whose notes on the cocoa-nut 

 tree we have before referred to, says he has been 

 informed that the glass-blowers of this country prefer 

 this oil to all others in their ingenious operations. 



Next to the purposes of bodily unction the 

 greatest use the Cingalese make of this oil is that 

 of illuminating their apartments. Their lamp also is 

 furnished by the same bountiful tree, for they burn 

 the oil in an open section of the cocoa-nut shell. 

 The European settlers as well as the natives univer- 

 sally use it for lamp oil, and praise it for the pure 

 beautiful light it emits ; though even in Ceylon, at a 

 certain reduction of temperature, it occasionally con- 

 geals and becomes inconvenient. An English officer 

 on that station has informed us, that in the absence of 

 a thermometer, and from long practice, he often judged 

 of the state of the atmosphere from the condition in 

 which he found his extinguished cocoa-nut lamp on 

 rising in the morning. 



It has been attempted to adapt this oil to the pur- 

 pose of illumination in England, and some particular 

 lamps were constructed in which the oil, as imported, 

 could be burnt ; but its appearance under a different 

 form to the limpid fluid which is ordinarily con- 



