CROTON TALLOW. 253 



three round, delicately white kernels, resembling in 

 size and shape our ordinary hazel-nuts, but having 

 small stones in the interior. It is the hard white 

 oleaginous substance surrounding these stones which 

 possesses most of the properties of tallow ; ,but on 

 stripping it off it does not soil the hands. From the 

 shell and stone, or the seed, oil is extracted, so that 

 this fruit produces tallow for candles and oil for lamps. 

 To obtain its useful extract, the Chinese subject the 

 fruit of the tallow-tree to much the same process as 

 the seed of the camellia oleifera, or oil plant. It is 

 ground in a trunk of a tree which is hollowed out, 

 shaped like a canoe, lined with iron, and firmly fixed in 

 the ground. Lengthways within this hollowed trunk 

 there moves backwards and forwards a mill-stone, 

 whose axis is fixed to a long pole laden with a heavy 

 weight to increase the pressure, and suspended from, 

 a beam. The pendulum-like motion is given by a 

 man or boy who grasps the pole, and with very little 

 exertion sways it from side to side. After the seed 

 has been thus pounded it is thrown, with a small 

 quantity of water, into a large iron vessel, exposed 

 to fire and reduced by heat into a thick consistent 

 mass. It is then put hot into a case consisting of 

 four or five broad iron hoops, piled one above the, 

 other, and lined with straw, and then pressed down 

 with the feet as closely as possible till it fills the 

 case. It is then carried to the press. 



Another, and perhaps a more generally adopted 

 process is, merely to boil the bruised seed in water 

 and to collect the tallowy matter that floats to the 

 surface. A certain quantity of some vegetable oil, 

 occasionally in as great a proportion as three pounds 

 to every ten pounds procured from the tallow-tree, is 

 mixed up with it *. 



It is not so consistent as tallow, and therefore, to 

 * Du Halde; Clarke Abel; Alvarez Semedo, 



z 



