Coconut Soap

How To Make Good

WHEN I' visited a mission station re cently, I witnessed the making of “coconut soap”. I had not previously seen this particular method of soap making. Until I came to Misima I had not even heard of it, but friends state that it is also made in other parts of Papua.

First, the mission boys gathered ap proximately seventy nuts. Then, after the boys had husked and split them, the girls set about scraping them. After this was completed, the coconut was collected in a large bucket and placed in a double copra sack.

One end of the sack was securely tied to a rafter, in the roof, and to the other end the boys attached \ large stick. The bag. plus its contents, was twisted by two husky students, to squeeze out the milk.

which literally poured out into a bucket, held below by one of the girls.

Then the milk was carefully strained into a glass jar. The next move was to place it in miniature “vats” (kerosene tins cut in halves length ways) along with caustic soda and water. After it was stirred for an hour it became exactly like honey.

It was allowed to remain in the tins for three days and was then carefully cut into bars and stored away.

Seventy nuts make one dozen large bars of excellent washing soap.—E.L.

An American naturalist, Mr. W. H.

Weeks, of 508 Willoughby Avenue, Brook lyn, New York, U.S.A., is making a special study of the shells of land snails, and he asks that any persons in the Pacific Islands who may be interested in the same branch of study, and who may be prepared to send snail shells to him, should get into communication with him.