THE CHAULMOOGRA TREE AND RELATED SPECIES. 21 
carefully washed, after which they are dried in the sun for one or 
two days, then shelled by coolie women, sorted, and placed between 
corrugated rollers worked by a hand crank, where they are crushed. 
They are then placed to a thickness of about an inch in jute bags 
about a foot square. Five layers of eight bags each are pressed at 
one time. A steel plate is placed above each layer and the whole 
submitted to hydraulic pressure. The cold-drawn oil is collected in 
tin cans and filtered through ordinary blotting paper. The resulting 
press cake, still rich in oil, contains 6 per cent of nitrogen and is 
sold as manure to tea planters and to paddy-field owners. Mr. 
Sen complained of the difficulty of obtaining Taraktogenos hurzii 
seeds. He said that often he had to advance money two years ahead 
to the jungle people in order to obtain an adequate supply of seeds 
to keep his concern going. 
Taraktogenos hurzii is apparently very common in the Chittagong 
hill tracts and according to the forest office of Chittagong occurs in 
the Kassalong forest reserve. This reserve is reached in the follow- 
ing manner: A steam launch plies once a week between Chittagong 
and Rangamati on the Karnaphuli River, a journey of three days; 
from Rangamati a dugout canoe has to be employed as far as Maini- 
mukh, a journey of about 7 to 10 days to the edge of the Kassalong 
reserve. The trees occur throughout the hill tracts, but in isolated 
circumscribed areas. It is from this region, infested with tigers, 
panthers, leopards, and wild elephants, that most of the chaulmoogra 
seeds come to the Indian markets and to dealers in chaulmoogra oil. 
Owing to lack of time and to threatened railroad strikes, the writer 
was unable to explore the Kassalong forests. As in any case it would 
have been too early in the year (February, 1921), the fruiting season 
being in July and August, the trip was abandoned. 
It may be of interest to state that certain fish of the Kassalong 
River, similar to those of the Khodan stream, feed on the seeds of 
Taraktogenos kurzii and when killed and eaten produce the same 
effect as would a large dose of chaulmoogra oil. The species of fish 
which is especially fond of chaulmoogra seed is said to be the mirgha- 
mahal (Cirrhina mrigala), and they are on that account absolutely 
avoided. In Assam the natives made a similar statement to the 
writer, but it involved a different species of fish, living in the Dibru 
River. 
Other locations given for Taraktogenos kurzii by the Agricultural 
Ledger of India are : Tipper a, South Sylhet, and the Lushai Hills in 
eastern Bengal and Assam ; also Arakan Yomas, near Kan, at about 
3,000 feet elevation, Mandalay, Pyinmana, Tharawadi, Hanthawadi, 
Shwegyin, Pegu, Amherst, and the Mergui Archipelago in Burma. 
