^1 



4- Oil and g^iano. — The oil and guano plant includes 

 two steam boilers with two steam boiling pans of masonry 

 and several of wood — all heated by open steam — besides 

 two copper pans for open fire, presses of various sorts 

 including a centrifugal, two filter presses, and a variety 

 of other plant, the object being to produce first-class 

 yellow oil which, according to invoices and tenders, 

 fetches at least 25 per cent better prices than the com- 

 mon brown oil ; a small contract has been made to 

 supply 1,000 gallons of such oil to the Government 

 leather factory at Cawnpore. The steam vats are 

 invaluable for this purpose since the action is rapid 

 and the oil cannot be scorched ; a ton of fish and water 

 can be thoroughly boiled, with a minimum of stirring, in 

 45 minutes from cold with steam averaging 40 lb. 

 Continued experiment since 1908 has led to the precise 

 method and results laid down in the most recent text- 

 book (" Chemistry of the Oil Industries," Southcombe, 

 1913), viz., the "rapid boiling of the fish with live steam 

 in false-bottom tanks, " using fish absolutely fresh from 

 the sea, " separating the bulk of the oil as quickly as 

 possible " by skimming from the surface of the hot mass 

 in the boiling vats, which gives " an oil fairly pale in 

 colour and which needs but little refining," and pressing 

 the residue "when a dark oil is obtained." The whole 

 process is now entirely differentiated from the old in- 

 digenous and highly insanitary process of obtaining oil by 

 the putrefaction of masses of fish in old canoes, etc., 

 when the oil, freed from the tissues by putrefactive 

 rupture of the cells, was " charged with putrefactive 

 impurities which are impossible to remove on a com- 

 mercial basis" (Southcombe). The oil made under the 

 new process cannot be- putrid, nor is it even putrescible 

 if re-boiled and filtered at once ; the fault found on 

 inspecting village factories is not that the oil is putrid 

 but that it is often scorched and therefore unnecessarily 

 dark, and strong with the smell of burnt oil. 



5. Owing to extraordinary local conditions very little 

 oil was made at Tanur ; sardines were enormously 

 abundant but on this part of the coast were young, small, 

 and almost destitute of fat ; oil sardines suitable for oil 

 making run about 30,000 to 40,000 to the ton, whereas 

 the generality of sardines in 1912-13 ran at 90,000 to the 

 ton. These gave good guano, but no oil worth mentioning. 



5 -A. 



