given OH a fate Trial. 333 



from whale oil at 100° higher temperature than he has stated; 

 and he positively asserts that it was whale oil on which he ope- 

 rated. 



I apprehend Mr. Accum was right in saying, that if the 

 sugar-house had been filled with oil gas, and this had exploded, 

 the explosion would have been heard all over London ; but 

 it surely was of little use to examine scientific men upon this 

 point, as there was nothing in the appearance of the premises 

 after the fire, that indicated any thing of that kind. It is true 

 that Samuel Willoughby made oath, that he saw a window blown 

 out during the fire, and with a force that would have knocked 

 down a horse* ; but unfortunately for the veracity of this man, 

 the window which he swore to, is still standing in the wall, in 

 as perfect a state as it existed before the conflagration, 



William Allen, Esq., F.R.S., Src. Sfc, was next called. 

 This gentleman, who had delivered chemical lectures at Guy*s 

 Hospital for sixteen years, gave a very perspicuous and deci- 

 sive testimony, of which the following is a brief outline, — " I 

 have," said he, ** inspected the model before us with much 

 attention, and I am decidedly of opinion, that the method de- 

 scribed in the model is by far the safer plan, beyond all com- 

 parison." " I consider," added he, " the apparatus before us, 

 as obviating a great part of the danger ; we merely want a heat 

 of 240° or 250° for sugar, and here you heat oil to between 

 three and four hundred degrees ; it is made to circulate through 

 a copper tube, and gives out the heat in the safest possible 

 manner." He moreover stated, that " the difference of the 

 temperature at which old and new oil give out inflammable gas, 

 is very small indeed, and amounts to a very few degrees of Fah- 

 renheit's scale ;" that if gas of this kind were generated in the 

 oil-vessel, no danger whatever would arise from it ; that " if 

 a person were industriously mischievous, it would take him 

 many hours to bring the oil up to a temperature at which it 

 would be decomposed ; and in proportion as it was decom- 

 posed, it would find its way up the steam vent, and out of the 



• Sec Mr. Guruey's Report, paf;e 123. . 



