148 
SPICES 
chap- 
uses 
Mace is chiefly used as a spice, occasionally only in 
medicine, and then more as a flavouring agent. It 
contains about 8*2 per cent of a volatile oil, consisting 
for the most part of macene. The oil is colourless and 
very fragrant, and is quite unlike that of the nutmeg 
seed. The percentage of oil varies in different samples. 
It is given as 6^ per cent (Herrings and Co.), 8*2 per 
cent (Fllickiger and Hanbury), and as much as 11 and 
16 per cent by Schimmel. 
There is always a good demand for it, and it usually 
costs more per pound than the nutmeg itself. 
THE NUTMEG 
The husk and mace having been removed, the seed 
in its thin, brittle outer coat, the testa, is to be dried, 
to be prepared for export as the nutmeg of commerce^ 
and after drying the testa is to be removed before pack- 
ing. The testa is not broken off till the seed is dry, or 
it would run a great risk of being attacked by beetles. 
The seeds are often merely dried in the sun, being 
exposed in trays of basket-work every day till quite dry. 
But in Banda and other places, where large quantities 
of nutmegs are handled at one time, fire is used to 
dry them. The nuts are spread on gratings about 8 
ft. above a slow charcoal fire, in a drying-house built 
for the purpose, and exposed to the fire for from six 
weeks to two months. Dr. Oxley preferred to have the 
stages 10 ft. above the fire, and urges that it is best 
to commence by drying the seeds at first by exposure 
to sun heat for an hour or two a day in the morning, 
and gradually increasing the length of the exposure,, 
till in eight or ten days they rattle in the shell, and 
then transfer them to the drying-house to be finished. 
Care must be taken not to raise the temperature 
too high, or the seed will shrivel and be less valued by 
the dealers. 
