given on a late Trial, 345 



vessel at Whitecross-street, room was not allowed for the oil 

 to expand sufficiently, and therefore the sudden accession of 

 heat necessarily drove it through the tube, and occasioned it 

 to strike the ceiling ; and as the vessel was not properly set, so 

 as to enclose the fire completely, the oil naturally fell from the 

 ceiling into the fire-place ; but in the vessel which was used 

 at the sugar-house, such ample room was left for expansion*, 

 ' that no fire, which could have been made in the fire-place un- 

 derneath it, could have forced it into the tube of safety ; and 

 if that had occurred, the oil could not have come in contact 

 with the fire, as the fire-place was entirely covered by the iron 

 vessel itself, and completely enclosed on every side by compact 

 brick-work. 



Doctor John Bostock, F.R.S., F.L.S., and Lecturer on 

 Chemistry at Guy's Hospital, was next called. This gentleman 

 told the Court that he attended some experiments at Mr. Tay- 

 lor's on the 6th of April last ; that he saw half a pint of oil 

 submitted to distillation in a glass retort, and that a volatile oil 

 came over at 410°, that was inflammable ; that he then directed 

 his attention to a parcel of oil that had been subjected for 23 

 days to a heat of 360° in an iron boiler, and was reduced to a 

 state like pitch in appearance ; that he applied a taper to the top 

 of the tube communicating with the upper part of that boiler, 

 and that at many degrees under 400°, there where small jets of 

 flame, and that at a little more than 400° those jets became more 

 considerable ; that they coiled up a sheet of paper in the form 

 of a cap, and put it loosely on the extremity of the tube, and 

 that upon applying a taper this became immediately filled with 

 flame. He then described the spouting of the oil out of the 

 tu])e, which had been related by former witnesses, and added, 



• The oil, which measured 100 gallons in the common temperature of the 

 atmosphere, would probably have measured 122 or 123 gallons when heated 

 to 460° ; but as it was heated in a vessel of such large dimensions, and as 

 oil boils, not with a perpendicular, but v^ith a horizontal motion, I cannot 

 conceive that the most violent boiling would have forced it out of the 

 vessel. 



Vol. X. 2 A 



