Dr Reichenbach on Petroleum or Mineral-oil. 88S 



the carbonization of coal, its mineral-oil will be the first to dis- 

 appear, and then to mingle itself with the Eupion of the tar. 

 In the subsequent rectification of the tar, the Eupion, the mine- 

 ral-oil, and the remaining volatile parts will pass over first, and 

 become mixed* As both resist the greater number of reagents, 

 they naturally remain together, and it is on this account difficult 

 to obtain the one without the other. The fine ether oils obtain- 

 ed from coal-tar by Syme, Thomson, Sec, with which they dis- 

 solved caoutchouc, and which Thomson called coal naphtha, are 

 therefore never simple, but invariably a combination of mineral- 

 oil and Eupion. A conclusion may be drawn from this investi- 

 gation of some moment in geology, viz, that coal cannot, as has 

 been in part imagined, be the product or a semicarbonizing heat, 

 and that it can never have been subjected to a very elevated 

 temperature, as, in that case, the mineral-oil must have disap- 

 peared, and we should not now find it in our coal. The result 

 of these experiments confirms also the opinion I expressed 

 against Dumas, in my 12th continuation of these essays, vizi^ 

 that naphthaline, a product of a very high temperature, could 

 not exist in coals, since these have been exposed to no high tem- 

 perature, ^i '-''^^ *• -^^t 



General Results. 

 1st, The coals of the great coal formation contain about 

 5?7iVoo o^ ^^ etherial oil, which can be distilled by means of 

 water alone. The coals of the quadersandstone formation 

 (greensand) do not contain it. 



2. This oil is physically and chemically identical with petro- 

 leum, which therefore 



3. Existed previously, already formed, in coals: and therefore, 



4. Is no product either of the carbonization or combustion of 

 coal. 



5. The artificial mineral-oil presents so many points of ana- 

 logy with turpentine-oil, both in a physical and chemical point 

 of view, that, 



6. Mineral-oil is very probably the turpentine-oil of the pines 

 of an early period in the geological history of the globe.* 



• The resemblance of mineral-oil to the turpentine-oil of pines is a feet 

 illustrative of the important observations of Nicol of Edinburgh in regard to 

 the Coniferae of the great coal formation of Britain, New Holland, and other 



ountries. . ' ccii'lCi- .'-. •. T:. ' ' 



cc2 



