VOL. XXXVII. No. ll.l 
WHOLE No. 14«S. i 
NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 1G. 1878. 
(PRICK SIX CENTS 
l *‘2.50 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by the Rural Publishing: Company, in the office of the Librarian of ConwesB at Washington.] 
^rborinilfittal, 
THE OIL PALM TREE AND ITS PRODUCT. 
Of tbe multitudinous species of the Palm 
family, the products of a few only have found 
their way into American and European com¬ 
merce, the most valued being those of tbe Cocoa- 
nut, the Date and the Oil Palms. Of these the 
appearance of the last is the least familiar to 
most persons as, unlike the others, it has never 
hitherto been accurately pictured in scientific 
and popular works. In Western Tropical Africa 
there are vast regions thickly covered with the 
members of this species, and it is from this tor¬ 
rid region, especially from the River Bonny, that 
the l»rgest quantities of palm oil find their way 
into the American markets. The trade with the 
natives is carried on chiefly by barter, glass 
beads of various forms, sizes, and colors being 
among the principal articles of exehauge. 
The trunk of the tree from which palm oil is 
obtained is seldom over thirty feet high, and is 
surmounted with a tuft of long piunate leaves 
garnished with prickly petioles. The flowers are 
dioecious, and borne in dense heads, sometimes 
two feet long and two or more feet in circum¬ 
ference. In these closely crowded spadices the 
fruit is so compactly clustered that the bunches 
bear a strong resemblance to large pine-apples. 
The individual fruits are about an inch and a 
half long, somewhat pear-shaped and wheu fnlly 
ripe of a bright orange color. They consist of an 
outer soft, pulpy substance from which the best 
oil is obtained, inside which, forming about one- 
fourth of the whole, is a very hard, stony shell 
inclosing the seeds, and yielding, when crushed, 
a clear, limpid product called palm-nut oil. Tbe 
fruit, when sufficiently ripe, are gathered by 
men, boiled in Jarge earthenware pots by women, 
and then crushed in mortars. They are next 
placed iu large clay vats filled with water, and 
women tread out the oil which rises to the sur¬ 
face and is skimmed off. It is then once more 
boiled to get rid of the water, and packed away 
in barrels or casks for exportation. It still re¬ 
tains the coloring matter of the fruit, which is 
removed by subsequent processes in numerous 
factories in Europe, either by bleaching in shal¬ 
low nans on the surface of hot water or by va¬ 
rious chemical methods of treatment. As each 
drupe affords only about one-sixteenth of an 
ounce of pure oil and each tree only three or 
four pounds, an immense amount of labor is 
required to procure the product and a vast area 
of forest is annually destroyed to supply the de¬ 
mands of commerce. 
Good palm oil is a fatty substance of tbe con- 
sisteuoe of butter, of a rich orange color, a sweet¬ 
ish taste, and an odor lik i that of violets or 
orris root. It is now extensively used iu the 
manufacture of candles, soap, and also as an 
axle grease, chiefly for the wheels of railroad 
cars. At a temperature of from 75' to 95" F. 
it melts to a very thin fluid, and the older it is, 
the greater the heat required to liquify it. By 
age aud exposure it becomes rancid and as¬ 
sumes a whitish tinge. It is perfectly soluble in 
ether, slightly so iu cold alcohol, but readily 
dissolves in hot alcohol, though on cooling it 
solidifies. It consists of margerine, oloiue. and a 
solid fat like stearine, which is called palmatine, 
and constitutes two-thirds of its weight. 
Palm oil is used more extensively for the man¬ 
ufacture of candles than for any other purpose 
and the process, though somewhat lengthy, is 
highly interesting. Having been melted by a jet 
of steam introduced into the oasks, and freed 
from all impurities, it is mixed with from 
one-seventh to one-sixth of its weight of sul¬ 
phuric acid and briskly agitated for about two 
hours in copper boilers in which steam maintains 
a temperature of about 350P. The sulphuric 
acid and the glycerine, which is an ingredient of 
its component fats, are in this way decomposed 
and Escape partly in the form of carbonic and 
sulphurous acids, and partly by subsequent 
waahiug. The impure pcids are then distilled in 
copper stills steam-heated to a temperature of 
600°. The dark residue in the boilers is made to 
yield still more oil by heavy pressure and the 
black refuse that remains is used for fuel. When 
cooled, the distilled fat is broken into cakes 
eighteen inches long and at about an inch and 
three-quarters thick. These are spread upon 
squares of cocoa-nut matting and are then piled 
on top of each other and submitted to hydraulic 
pressure at a temperature of 75°. The fat ob¬ 
tained may be run at once into candles for the 
European and American markets, but for tropi¬ 
cal use, it is again submitted to pressure at a 
temperature of 120°. The engraving is from a 
TIIJEi OIL. PALM TREE. 
