310 NOTES ON TROPICAL FRUITS. 

hair as a pomatum, and whether owing to this application or — 
not, their hair is exceedingly abundant and black. i 
The oil is, perhaps, one of the most valuable products. 
The Micronesians break up the nuts, and expose the meat to — 
the heat of the sun in covered troughs, wetting the mass coi- 
stantly. Fermentation takes place and the oil drops out 
into containers. The East Indian process is almost as ride, 
the nuts being ground in a wooden or stone mill of primitive 
construction. «The oil produced, of course, varies in quality 
as well as in quantity, ten nuts producing one quart, or in 
other cases thirty nuts only three pints. In other places 
the ground nuts are pressed, and sometimes boiled. The best 
oil is used either for cooking purposes, or to anoint the body 
either before or after bathing, —a most grateful process im 
hot dry climate ; and the poorer qualities supply the. lamps: 
Torches are often made of elephant’s dung bound into eyit 
ders by the ribs of the leaflets, and saturated with the oil. 
Borassus Sechellensis, the Double Cocoanut. This w 
long regarded as a most valuable medicinal charm, —ĉ^ “ 
remedy for sterility either of man or beast ; but its reputation 
has much diminished. It differs from the ordinary cocoanut 
in having two distinct lobes, connected at the uppe” end 50 
as to form a continuous cavity. The milk and meat are 
so good as the common nut, and more resemble the contents 
of the Palmyra nut, so common in India and elsewhere- 
Phenix dactylifera, Date. The leaves are shaped like 
those of the cocoanut, but are stiffer and of a lighter 7 
The lower portion of the stalk remains attached to the ee: 
long after the leaf has withered, making it rough and adm 
rably adapted for harboring small snakes, centipedes, or the | 
more agreeable parasites of the vegetable world. ee ving 
blossoms are exceedingly numerous, eleven thousand i 
been counted on a single spadix, and yet to obtain 
crop of fruit artificial impregnation is necessary. 

