Good, fresh nutmegs cannot be ground by an ordinary burr stone, such as is used in spice mills, but must first be broken or cracked in a cracking machine. This machine consists of a roller provided with coarse teeth which revolve through similar stationary teeth, the material being retained by a semi-circular perforated plate until it is reduced to the size of the perforation or about the size of a coffee bean. After this it is pulverized by pounding or by stamps, as they are called, in the same way that mustard seed is pulverized. Sometimes the nuts are extensively mixed with some dry, foreign material, in which case they may be ground on the burr stone by an experienced miller. One or two stamps may be used in powdering nutmegs and mace, two being about all one man can well handle. Powdered nutmegs soon lose their flavor by standing, on account of the loss of oil, but as they have the consistency of tallow, the flavor is for a time preserved. Nutmeg butter or balsam of nutmeg is often obtained by powdering the broken nuts, when fresh, to a fine powder or paste, and then steaming them for five or six hours. The substance is then put into bags, placed between heated iron wedges or plates and is subjected to a strong pressure, which presses out the fluid (though this is sometimes extracted by ether or alcohol), which is about 20 to 25 per cent. of the mass. Ten to 12 per cent. of this fluid is an orange-colored oil, which gives it an agreeable odor. When it is cold it becomes somewhat spongy and has a marbled or mottled appearance. It becomes hard with age and is exported in small bricks, ten inches by two and one-half inches, wrapped in palm leaves. It is known under several names, as nutmeg butter, balsam of nutmeg, concrete oil, or the mace oil of commerce (French, _beurre de mascade_; German, _masket butter_, _muskatnussal_), and as Banda soap, sometimes made from the distilled nutmeg leaves. It has an agreeable odor and a greasy taste, melts at 45 degrees C., and dissolves in four times its volume of warm alcohol, 8 per cent. pure, or in two parts warm ether. The Banda soap is soft to the touch, has a yellow color, and is sometimes counterfeited by using a foreign fatty substance, as palm oil, suet, wax, and animal fat, boiled with powdered nutmeg and flavored with sassafras, which gives it the right color and flavor. The best nutmeg oil is imported from India, often adulterated by the distillation of the leaves of the eucalyptus alba, which has a nutmeg odor and flavor. The fleshy part of the nutmeg fruit is often preserved in sugar and eaten as sweetmeats. London’s annual import of nutmegs is 400,000 to 800,000 pounds, and of mace from 60,000 to 80,000 pounds. An amusing incident is told of an English governor sent to the Isle of Ceylon who, noting the statistics that nutmegs were very abundant and cheap, and mace was scarce and high, called his council together and said: “We must raise less nutmegs and more mace.”