240 TALLOW-TREE. INDIAN RUBBER. 
These become hard by keeping, and are the purest and 
most wholesome part of the cassava. 
The roots of another species of this shrub, called 
'sweet cassava, are usually eaten with butter, and merely 
after being roasted in hot ashes. They have much the 
flavour of chesnuts, and are an agreeable and nutritive 
food. 
252. The TALLOW TREE (Croton sebiferum) is a 
native of China, and in habit somewhat resembles a cherry-tree, 
but has shining egg-shaped, and pointed leaves, that form tufts 
at the extremity of the branches. 
The fruit of this tree, front which the Chinese obtain 
a kind of tallow for the manufacture of candles, is en- 
closed in a husk, not much unlike that of the chesnut, 
and consists of three round white kernels. All the pre- 
paration that is requisite is to melt these kernels, [add- 
ing a little oil, to render them softer and more pliant 
than they would otherwise be. The candles made from 
this substance are very white, but are sometimes co- 
loured by adding a little vermilion. They are more firm 
than those of tallow, but not equal in quality to candles 
either of wax or spermaceti. The wicks that are used 
are not, like ours, made of cotton, but consist of little 
rods of light, dry wood, with the pith of a rush entwined 
round them. 
253. INDIAN RUBBER, or CAOUTCHOUC, is the 
dried juice of a large and^much branched tree (Siphonia elas- 
tica, Fig. 60), which grows in Guiana, and other parts of South, 
America. 
This tree has somewhat oval leaves, entire, veined, and 
smooth, arranged in threes, and on long foot-stalks. 
The jlowers are small, in bunches, near the ends of the 
branches, and the fruit is triangular. 
It was not until about the year 1736, that this very 
extraordinary natural production was made known in 
Europe. It is obtained by making incisions through 
the bark of the tree, chiefly in wet weather. From the 
wounds thus formed the juice flows abundantly. It is 
