imports of rape oil, from _Brassica napus_, into
Liverpool, are about 15 to 20 tuns annually.

Rape oil has been found to be better suited than any other oil for the
lubrication of machinery, when properly purified from the mucilage,
&c., which it contains in the raw state. Rape oil is now used
extensively for locomotives, for marine engines, and also for burning
in lamps. It is stated that a locomotive consumes between 90 and 100
gallons of oil yearly; and the annual consumption of oil by the London
and North-Western Railway, for this purpose alone, is more than 40,000
gallons. The oil obtained from good English rape seed is purer and of
superior quality to that from foreign or colonial seed; and as an acre
of land yields nearly five quarters of seed, which is worth at present
50s. per quarter, it is a profitable crop.

Rape seed is now largely imported for expressing oil. The imports,
which in 1847 were but 87,662 quarters, weighing 17,532 tons, had
reached, in 1851, 107,029 quarters, weighing 21,606 tons. The price of
new seed is L25 to L27 the last of ten quarters. The oil is L34 per
tun.

The refuse cake, after the seed is crushed for oil, is in demand as
food for cattle, being worth L4 the ton.

We imported in 1851, from Trance, 289 tuns of rapeseed oil, worth
about L17,000, on which there was no duty levied.

There are exported annually from Hesse Darmstadt, 34,660 cwts. of
poppy and rape oils.

The oil of the colza is much used in Europe, and highly prized. In
France it has been adopted for all the purposes of lighthouses. In
this country it has lately come into extensive domestic use, for
burning in the French moderateur lamps, being retailed at from 3s. 4d.
to 4s. the gallon.

DOMBA OIL.--The Poonay or Palang tree (_Calophyllum Inophyllum_), the
Alexandrian laurel, is a beautiful evergreen, native of the East
Indies, which flourishes luxuriantly on poor sandy soils, in fact
where scarcely anything else will grow. The seeds or berries contain
nearly 60 per cent. of a fragrant, fixed oil, which is used for
burning as well as for medicinal purposes, being considered a cure for
the itch. As commonly prepared it has a dark green color. It is
perfectly fluid at common temperatures, but begins to gelatinise when
cooled below 50 degrees.

THE EARTH-NUT (_Arachis hypogaea, or hypocarpogea_).--This very
singular plant has frequently been confounded with others, partly
through the carelessness of travellers, a