iriven on a iate Trial, 321 



C) 



evidence of the respective chemiBtB who were employed for the 

 plaintiffs and for the defendants, and such other persons as 

 spoke to chemical facts, and even such parts of their evidence 

 only, as may seem to require explanation or comment. 



In pursuance of this plan, and with a copy of Mr. Gurney's 

 printed Report of the Trial before me, I turn first to the evi- 

 dence for the plaintiffs. The first person called in their behalf, 

 who was competent to give any valuable chemical opinion on 

 the subject, was Mr. Daniel Wilson, Civil Engineer. This 

 gentleman was examined by the Solicitor General, and deposed 

 to the following facts : — " That he had devoted his whole atten- 

 tion to the refining of sugar for the last six years ; that he is the 

 inventor and patehtee of the new process of boiling by means of 

 heated oil ; that he considers this process to be much less dan- 

 gerous than the common one, in which the sugar pan is ex- 

 posed to the operation of a direct fire ; that sugar is decomposed 

 at a temperature of 344° ; and will then give out inflammable 

 gas ; that the working point to which the oil was heated for this 

 process never exceeded 360° ; and that had it ever been heated 

 to 440°, the thermometer would have burst, and discovered the 

 circumstance to the workmen ; that the boiling point of sugar is 

 about 245°, and the boiling point of oil above 600° ; that the oil 

 emits no inflammable gas at a lower temperature than 600°; 

 that several hours of hard firing would have been required to 

 heve raised the oil to that temperature ; that if such a fire were 

 made under a sugar pan in the ordinary process, the sugar 

 would take fire, and be the means of destroying the building ; 

 that if inflammable gas had been generated in the oil vessel, it 

 would have passed off by the safety tube, and gone up the steam 

 vent into the open air ; that the utmost quantity of inflammable 

 gas which the whole of the oil could have produced, was only 

 8,500 cubical feet, whereas the quantity necessary to render the 

 atmosphere of the sugar-house explosive, was at least 68,000 

 cubic feet ; that if gas had been produced, the vent pipe in the 

 oil vessel was of sufficient size to have carried it all off, and ten 

 times the quantity ; that he had repeatedly heated a parcel of 

 whale oil in the course of two years without its undergoing any 



