While at an interior mission station on the Ogowe River, I made some
experiments in soap making. With palm oil I succeeded very well, using
for an alkali the old-fashioned lye of ashes. But I was disappointed
with the odika, though I learned some peculiar characteristics of it as
a grease. By boiling the crude odika, I was unable, as I hoped, to
separate the oleaginous from the extraneous matter, of which it contains
a large proportion, but when the above-mentioned lye was used instead of
water, the mass, instead of saponifying, merely separated; the grease,
resembling very much in all particulars ordinary beef tallow, rising to
the top of the caldron, while the refuse was precipitated.
After clarifying this, it answers instead of oil of theobroma very
nicely, and I have used it considerably in making ointments and
suppositories with pleasing results.
Gaboon, W. Africa, Aug., 1882.--_New Remedies._
* * * * *
CALIFORNIA CEDARS.
The incense cedar (_Libocedius decurrens_) is one of the valued trees of
the California coast and mountains. It is eminently noted for great
rapidity of growth, wonderful lightness, stiffness, and extraordinary
durability. A thousand uses have sprung up and are multiplying around
this interesting cedar as its most inestimable qualities become better
known. Fortunately it is one of the most extensively distributed trees
of the Pacific--found from the coast range north, south to San Diego,
Sierra Nevada, southern Oregon, and most of the interior mountain region
from 2,000 to 4,000 feet, and it even thrives quite well at 6,600 feet
altitude, but seeming to give out at 7,000 feet, though said to extend
to 8,500 feet, which is questionable.
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