411 
Otherwise the wood should sink in water. Used for making 
mortars, bowls and the branches for houseposts, Yoruba 
(Thompson, List of For. Trees, S. Nig. 1910, p. 6). The bark is 
used medicinally by the natives (1.c.). The fruit is edible, but the 
main value of the tree lies in the seeds or ‘‘ Shea nuts.” 
Oil." The residue after the extraction of the butter is used by the 
natives to smear on their mud huts to keep out the rain (Bull. Imp. 
Inst. 1913, p. 156). Meal from the nuts of Shea butter (said to 
come from Nigeria) crushed at Antwerp, was being offered in 
Liverpool, 1910. 1t has a somewhat acrid taste and it is 
doubtful whether cattle would eat it unless disguised by other 
foods i t 
. 
in sizing cotton cloth. Locally it is used by the natives for food, 
In preparing the butter, the outer pulp of the fruit is first 
removed and the nuts dried in the sun or by the aid of artificial 
heat. The outer shell is taken off and the kernels after further 
drying are braised and boiled, the fat being skimmed off the surface 
somewhat in the same manner as for the extraction of palm oil. 
The oil as it cools solidifies like lard, pure white or tinted according 
to the method of preparation. The dried kernels are sometimes 
imported into Europe and there is comparatively little difference 
Analyses made at the Imperial Institute show Acid value 18-0, 
Saponifieation value 179-0 and Iodine value per cent. 58-0 for 
Shea butter from Lagos; 10-3, 181-7, 54:0, respectively, for fat 
extracted from nuts as imported by the Niger Company (Govt. 
‘Gaz. S. Nigeria, Jan. 22nd, 1908, p. 66). 
A sample of Shea butter from Lagos in the Museum, Kew, was 
valued at £24 per ton in 1900 (by Messrs. John Knight and Son, 
Silvertown Soap Works and Oil Mills, London); a considerable 
‘demand was expected if it were continuously put on the market, 
but so far as could be ascertained at that time there had been none 
offering since 1896 when only a small parcel was sold. A sample 
of Shea butter from S. Nigeria was valued in 1907 at £27 5s.— 
p. 93). Sample lots of well dried nuts have been bought in 
S. Nigeria, Feb. 9th, 1910, p. )  Kernels from Uganda and 
the Gold Coast were valued in Liverpool (1912) at £10 10s. per ton 
(Col. Rep. Ann. No. 778, 1913, p. 33). 
- The exports of “ Shea Butter ’’ were, in 1909, 691,219 Ib. value 
£5230 (S. Nigeria); 244,160 ib. value £2188 (N. Nigeria), in 
1910, 761,102 Ib., value £6804 (S. Nigeria), 230,513 lb., value 
