PALMS : PALM OIL. There is scarcely a species Of palm in which some useful property is not found: The cocoanut, the date, arid Others are valued for their fruit ; the fan-palm and Many more for their foliage, whose hardness and durability render it at excellent Material for thatching ; the sweet juice of the palmyra When fermented yields wine; the centre of the sage-palm abounds in nutritive Starch ; the trunk of the Triartea Or CerO4loh exudes a valuable vegetable wax; oil is in abundance from the oil-palm; an astringent matter resembling dragon's blood is produCed by Calamus Draco ; many of the species contain withih their leaves a kind of fibrous matter, id hard and tough that it is manufactured into cordage ; and finally, their ttutiks arc in some cases valued for their Strength and used as timber, or for their elaSticity, or their flexibility, as in the cane Of these varied products, palm-oil is that, perhaps, which has of late acquired most commercial importance in this country. It is Obtained from the oil-palm of Guinea, cultiva ted in the Western part of Africa. The fruit
of this tree is about the size of a pigeon's egg, with its Otter fleshy covering of a golden • yellow colour. The oil is obtained by bruising the fleshy part of the fruit and subjecting the bruised paste to boiling water in wooden mortars; an oil of an orange yellow colour separates, Which cools to the consistence. of butter, iafid has, when fresh, the smell of violets. Africans use this oil in cooking, and for anointing the body. When imported into England, palm-oil is used in soap making, candle making, perfumery and medicine. Although liquid in the warm climate of Africa, it is solid in our climate ; and the mode adopted for extracting it from the casks is to place the cask over a trough with the bunghole downwards, and to pass a steam pipe into it, by which means the palm-oil is brought to a liquid state. The large imports of palm-oil are noticed under Ors.