given on a fate Trial. 349 



the spouting up of the oil at Whitecross-street, which had a na- 

 tural tendency to alarm and prejudice those who were unac- 

 quainted with the real cause, it is very likely he would have 

 come into court with a different impression, and would have 

 given a very different testimony. 



Arthur Aikin, Esq., F.L.S., M.G.S,, and Secretary to the 

 Society for the Encouragement of Arts, ^c, was then examined. 

 He stated that some years ago he made experiments on whale- 

 oil, and ascertained that besides the proper oil, it contained a 

 quantity of animal jelly in solution. " I found," said he, " that 

 when this was boUed pretty rapidly, it burnt, in some degree, to 

 the pan, in consequence of which the oil became black ; and it is 

 well known that if ajiimal jelly be exposed to such a temperature 

 as to blacken it, it will be decomposed, and a quantity of very 

 volatile inflammable oil will be given out. This oil is known by 

 the name of Dippel's animal oil. He then stated that he thought 

 a thermometer dipping into the surface of the fluid, in a vessel 

 of heated oil, would be a very inadequate test of the tem- 

 perature of the bottom of that fluid. *^ On this account it is," 

 said he, " that I think oil is a fluid which it is not advisable to 

 make us« of to raise the temperature of other substances.'* 



Much of Mr. Aikin s evidence was similar in tendency to that 

 of other gentlemen who went before, and which I have remarked 

 upon already. I, therefore, pass it over, together with other 

 parts which are so ambiguous that I cannot understand them. 

 When cross-examined by Mr. Solicitor-General, he said, that 

 to produce a vapour from oil that would be inflammable, it 

 would require " a temperature sufiicient to char the substance,*' 

 and that " if the mass of oil is kept in motion, it is less liable 

 to this than if it remains quiescent ; " but that southern whale- 

 oil contains less gelatine than the other oils. In answer to a 

 question from Mr. Scarlett, who shewed him a pot of oil, he said, 

 " I should expect this to be oil which had been exposed to a 

 high temperature, in which the jelly is considerably charred, and 

 the oil is fouled ; and I think it would transmit heat more slowly 

 than previous to the thickening and blackening of it ; the more 



