76 VEGETABLE TALLOW. [Cuar. V. 
of purifying the salt. In Chimoo Bay, the natives 
evaporate sea water with the aid of the sun alone, 
and do not saturate the soil as they do in Chusan ; 
but there the sea water is perfectly clear. Amongst 
the Chusan group of islands the water is yellow 
and muddy, being rendered so by the large rivers 
which are pouring in their waters from the main 
land, and more particularly by the Yang-tse- 
kiang. 
For the following account of the Chinese method 
of extracting the tallow from the seeds of the 
Stillingia sebifera I am indebted to Dr. Rawes, of 
the Madras army, who was some time resident in 
the island of Chusan : — 
“The seeds are picked at the commencement of 
the cold weather, in November and December, when 
all the leaves have fallen from the trees, — this I 
saw at Singkong when out shooting in the Sah-hoo 
valley, close by our quarters through the village. 
The seeds are in the first place taken to the build- 
ing where the process of making the tallow is 
carried on, and picked and separated from the 
stalks. They are then put into a wooden cylinder, 
open at the top, but with a perforated bottom. 
This is placed over an iron vessel (about the same 
diameter or rather larger than the wooden cylinder, 
and about six or eight inches deep) containing 
water, by which means the seeds are well steamed, 
for the purpose of softening the tallow and causing 
it more readily to separate. The furnace I saw 
had four or five iron vessels in a row, was about 
