on our oil flasks: 493 



Palm oil ia that gold-coloured "butter" which one puts into home-made 

 pomades, more as a colouring agent than anything else, seeing that it 

 soon turns rancid, and so spoils the whole making. It is said that palm 

 oil, when fresh, has the odour of violets, but I suppose I have never 

 met with it perfectly fresh, as this is a fact quite undiscovered by me. 

 It is principally used in making candles, when it is bleached, unless 

 people chance to prefer them of a muddy yellow instead of white ; and 

 that sickening-looking stuff which the railway porters dab into the 

 wheel-boxes to keep them from taking fire, is palm oil and tallow, mixed 

 with a little soda lye. 



We all know something about colza oil ; those of us at least who 

 use moderator lamps ; but we do not all get it quite pure as it comes 

 from the seeds of that special Brassica devoted to its expression. Colza 

 oil was put on its trial in 1845, when Faraday reported on its excel- 

 lences and blemishes, on behalf of the Trinity House, interested in 

 getting the best light at the least cost, and, until then, burning sperm in 

 all its lighthouses. This report was decidedly favourable to colza : the 

 light being full one and a half as compared with sperm oil, and the 

 cost three and sixpence a gallon as against six-and-fourpence for the 

 sperm. The price has risen since then, unfortunately, being now, for 

 the ill-luck of the consumers, four and ninepence or five shillings the 

 gallon, and decidedly not better than- in the early days ; indeed, not so 

 good, because now adulterated, which it was not then. Not only for 

 light, but also for food and manure, is the colza plant valuable to the 

 world. Cattle fatten on it, and ground fattens on it ; and the Abbe de 

 Commerel, the introducer to the French Agricultural Society in 1789 of 

 this chou a faucher — " mowing cabbage," as he calls it — was a greater 

 benefactor to mankind than he dreamed of. Colza cabbage may be said 

 to have been one of the agents of civilisation. 



Then there is laurel oil, or " the oil of bays," got from the berries 

 of the bay tree (Lauras ndbilis) principally from Italy and the south of 

 Europe generally ; the greater part being shipped from Trieste ; and 

 which our doctors and veterinary surgeons use as a stimulating liniment 

 for sprains and bruises, and in paralysis. Is it one of the ingredients 

 of the famous nine oils ? Also the native oil of laurel or laurel tur- 

 pentine, imported from Demerara, and got by making incisions in the 

 bark of a large forest tree called by the Spaniards Azeyte de sassafras, 

 and growing in the forests between Orinoco and Parime. These incisions 

 yield a pale yellow oil, smelling something between turpentine and 

 oil of lemons, and easily dissolving caoutchouc. The Vateria Indica 

 a Malabar tree, gives " piney tallow oil," if the fruit is boiled in water 

 and the fat skimmed from the top. It is white and smells pleasantly, makes 

 good soap and candles out in its native place, but is little known and less 

 used here. Then our spindle tree gives us an oil as well as butchers' 

 skewers ; an oil yellow and thick, bitter and acrid to the taste, and in 

 odour like colza ; and the beech-tree has nuts good for feeding pigs, 



