^""jLnTisso?™  I       Oil  of  Calophyllum  Inophyllum.  35 
Dr.  Balfour  informs  us  that  the  wood  of  the  tree  is  employed  in 
Ceylon  for  masts  and  cross- sticks  of  dhonies  and  fishing-boats,  and  poles 
of  bullock  carts.  A  cubic  foot  of  the  timber  weighs  40  pounds.  It  is 
•coarse-grained  but  very  strong,  durable  and  ornamental,  and  on  the 
Madras  coast  is  used  for  ship-building.  He  adds,  on  the  authority  of 
Mr.  Dalrymple,  that  no  tree  is  superior  to  this  for  ships'  knees  and 
crooked  timber.  In  Java,  Dr.  Balfour  says,  it  is  cultivated  for  the  sake 
of  its  shade  and  the  fragrance  of  its  fiowers,  and  he  recommends  it  as 
worthy  of  attention  because  it  will  grow  well  in  sandy  :racts  close  to 
the  sea  where  few  others  thrive. 
The  oil  is  manufactured  and  used  in  Bombay,  in  Tinnevelly  and 
other  parts  of  India  as  a  lamp  oil.  The  seeds  from  which  it  is  obtained 
are  very  oleaginous  and  yield  about  60  percent  of  their  weight  of  oil.^ 
The  fresh  seeds  when  shelled  and  subjected  to  pressure  yield  a  dark- 
green  oil  of  a  peculiar  odor  ;  old  seeds  yield  a  higher  colored  and 
thicker  product.  Formerly  the  seed  and  oil  were  shipped  from  Madras 
to  the  Straits  and  Ceylon,  but  it  has  now  ceased  to  be  an  article  of 
export.  In  Tanjore,  437  acres,  producing  on  an  average  24^  cuUums 
per  acre  of  seed,  are  covered  with  this  tree.  This  yields  2,67 
maunds  of  oil  at  Rs.  20*4  per  maund.  In  Tinnevelly  it  costs  4  annas 
and  8  pies,  and  in  Trichinopoly  4  annas  per  seer.  In  Tanjore  it  is 
used  for  lamps  and  for  caulking  vessels,  but  is  chiefly  valuable  as  a 
medicine.  It  is  seldom  procurable  in  the  bazaar,  but  is  expressed  when 
required.    (Balfour's  "  Cyclopaedia  of  India  "). 
Major  Drury,  Useful  Plants  of  India,"  says  that  the  gum  which 
flows  from  the  wounded  branches  being  mixed  with  strips  of  the  bark 
and  leaves,  is  steeped  in  water,  and  the  oil  which  rises  to  the  surface  is 
used  as  an  application  to  sore  eyes.  Dr.  Waring,  in  the  "Pharma- 
copoeia of  India,"  says,  that  the  kernels  yield  a  grateful-smelling  fixed 
oil,  held  by  the  natives  in  high  esteem  as  an  external  application  for 
rheumatism.  From  the  bark  and  roots  exudes  a  resinous  substance, 
which  has  been  thought,  apparently  erroneously,  to  be  the  Tacamahaca 
of  old  pharmacologi«ts.  It  is  stated  in  the  "  Bengal  Dispensatory  "  to 
resemble  myrrh,  and  to  be  a  useful  application  to  indolent  ulcers.  True 
East  India  Tacamahaca  is  said,  by  Lindiey,  to  be  the  produce  of 
^Apparently  this  is  an  excessive  estimate.  It  is  doubtful  whether  any  seed  would 
yield  such  a  large  quantity  of  oil.  Castor-seed,  for  instance,  which  is  highly  olea- 
ginous, only  yields  about  25  per  cent,  of  its  bulk  in  oil. 
