January i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



5*9 



Vegetable oils form a very important item in our sup- 

 plies, inasmuch as oil-seeds to the value of £5,500,000 are 

 annually imported into Britain for crushing purposes, and 

 our exports of oil are roughly valued at £1,600,000. The 

 export of Seed-oil from London, Hull, and Liverpool, in 

 1880, was 14,508,000 gallons. 



Under the head of seed-oils rank Unseed, cotton-seed, 

 and castor-oil. Colza-oil, also, is made from mustard, hemp, 

 radish, rape, turnip, and other seeds. Then we have olive- 

 oil and almond-oil. From India comes poppy-seed oil; 

 from the Black Sea, oil of sunflower-seeds. From Oeylon 

 and the Pacific Isles comes coconut-oil. From "Western 

 Africa the palm-nut oil of the oil-palm, and oil of ground- 

 nuts for use in fine machinery. From Singapore and China 

 we receive kokum-oil and vegetable tallow. About four- 

 teen thousand tons of croton-oil are annually imported for 

 the use of the wool-dressers of Britain. 



Besides, these, so familiar to ourselves, almost every 

 country has some speciality in oils. Thus, in Southern 

 Russia, tobacco-oil is largely used; in Italy, oil of grape- 

 stones; in China, oil of tea-seed; in India, oil of nutmegs, 

 of seeds of the gamboge-tree, of custard-apple seed, of 

 cashew-nut, of cardamom, of meam, of margosa, and many 

 others. Brazil, too, has a large number of oils, both animal 

 and vegetable, peculiar to itself. 



In this connection, aud bearing in mind Lelyveld's essay 

 on smoothing the waves with tar-oil, we note that Great 

 Britain annually imports five million gallons of wood-tar, 

 and that about an equal quantity is made in the country 

 from coal at the charcoal- work, the gas-work, and the 

 bone-factories. 



From a very much shorter list of materials than those 

 here enumerated, o ir grandparents derived all their arti- 

 ficial light. We, their fortunate descendants, have not 

 only added to these, but are now iu the enjoyment of such 

 vastly developed resources, that in this respect, at all events, 

 the nineteenth century may claim to be an Age of Light. 

 Strange indeed is it to remember, that for its first quarter 

 the cumbersome flint and steel still held their place in 

 every household, and good housewives rejoiced when rude 

 brimstone matches, six iuches long, with point dipped in 

 sulphur, were invented to receive the spark thus obtained. 

 How would they have marvelled to learn that within fifty 

 years many factories in various parts of Britain would each 

 be turning out their ten million per diem of neat matches, 

 warranted to ignite at a touch ! And yet that development 

 of the light-bearing lucifer is but a trifle compared with 

 the materials on which it has to act. 



To M. du Boisson, a Frenchman, is due the credit of 

 first attempting to distil oil fit for burning from the bitu- 

 minous shales hitherto deemed worthless. He succeeded 

 in his experiment, hut the shales of France were not found 

 to yield oil in paying quantities. An effort was made to 

 apply the same process to the bituminous shales of Dorset- 

 shire, and " Kiunneridge coal" was found to yield a much 

 larger proportion of oily matter. It was, however, found 

 impossible to overcome the noxious smell of the various 

 products, so that this enterprise did not command large 

 success. 



About the year 1847 Sir Lyon Play fair discovered a 

 petroleum spring at Riddiugs, in Derbyshire, to which he 

 called the attention of Mr, .Tames Young, a Manchester 

 chemist, who proceeded to distil it. thereby obtaining a 

 clear thin burning oil, and also a thick lubricating oil. 

 Certain solid crystals floating in the petroleum suggested 

 the presence of paraffin, and the possibility of obtaining 

 a candle-making substance. This resulted iu the manu- 

 facture of the two first paraffin-candles, and these were 

 lighted by Dr. Playfair to illustrate the novel subject at 

 a lecture to the Royal Institution, when he foretold that 

 ere long they would become the common light of the 

 country — a prophecy which was very quickly realised, but 

 not from the Derbyshire springs, as those were soon ex- 

 hausted 



Mr. Young's attention was next attracted by seeing oil 

 dripping from the roof of a coal-miue, which led to further 

 experiments, with the result that cannel-coal was found to 

 be essentially oleiferous. The discovery near Bathgate, in 

 Linlithgowshire, of a very rich coal-gas, like the celebrated 

 Boghead coal, led to the establishment of a distillery in its 

 neighbourhood, the coal being broken up into fragments 

 like road-metal, and heated to a red-heat in cast-iron re- 



torts. A ton of this coal was found to yield about 120 

 gallons of crude oil. This being subject to a second dis- 

 tillation, resolved itself into certain proportions of light oil 

 for burning, thick oil fur machinery, a small quantity for 

 naphtha, and a large residuum of paraffin, which, when 

 purified with animal charcoal, is transformed into a sub- 

 stance like beautifully white wax. 



Great was the interest excited by this discovery, but 

 difficulties were thrown in the way of Dr. Young's ob- 

 taining a patent for his invention, as it was proved that 

 many years previously Reichenbach had tried a similar 

 experiment, and by distilling 100 lb. of coal had obtained 

 2 oz. of an oil resembling naphtha. Young, however, carried 

 the day, and his now celebrated patent was granted in 1850. 

 It was not till six years later that any fresh attempt 

 was made thus to utilize the great beds of bituminous 

 shale which are so extensively found in carboniferous dis- 

 tricts, but which had hitherto been totally neglected. These 

 have been found to yield from 30 to 50 gallons of crude 

 oil per ton, and great works for the manufacture of min- 

 eral oil have been established at many places in England, 

 Wales, and Scotland. In the latter alone it is stated that 

 upwards of 800,000 tons of bituminous shale are annually 

 distilled, yielding 



25.000 gallons of oil. 

 5,800 tonsof paraffin. 

 5,800 ,, of lubricating oil. 

 2,350 „ of sulphate of ammonia. 

 "Greater Britain" was not slow to adopt the new industry 

 started in the mother country. In 1865 New South Wales 

 discovered among its hid treasures a shale similar to the 

 Boghead coal of Scotland, but considerably richer in oil 

 and less sulphurous. A sample was brought to Sydney for 

 distillation, and one ton yielded 160 gallons of oil. There- 

 upon the New South Wales Shale and Oil Company was 

 established, and seems to have developed into a very im- 

 portant industry. 



America had taken up the subject earlier. In 1854 the 

 Kerosene Oil Company and several other companies were 

 started to distil oil from coal, and by 1860 upwards of 

 fifty factories tor this work had been established in various 

 parts of the States. 



Then came the discovery of real mineral-oil wells, which 

 so quickly revolutiouise the oil traffic of the world here. 

 Here, as iu most other cases, we have evidence of the 

 " nothing-new " theory; for since King Petroleum has 

 asserted his power, men marvel to find traces of ancient 

 workings, proving that bygone generations had discovered 

 the native oil — so long ago, that very old trees of several 

 centuries' growth have been found growing in the excavated 

 ground. From some strange cause unknown, these oil-seekers 

 had abandoned their work, and (although mineral oils were 

 known to exist in Asia), their presence in America had 

 been altogether forgotten, when, in 1826, salt-workers who 

 were engaged in boring brir.e shafts iu Ohio were amazed 

 to find that they had struck oil as well as brine. 



Certainly it was known to the Seuecoa Indians of 

 Pennsylvania that oil flowed from the rocks at various 

 points in the Alleghany mountains; and a French traveller 

 has recorded a curious incident which he witnessed in 1750, 

 when the tribe assembled for a religious ceremony, at the 

 junction of a small stream with the Alleghany river. The 

 stream was covered with a thick oily scum, to which, 

 after a solemn oration, the chief applied a lighted torch, 

 Immediately the flames spread over the surface of the 

 water, amid shouts of the red warriors. 



In the same district, at the spot now known as Titnsville, 

 was a well, on the surface of which oil habitually floated; 

 and the Indians, who had long known its healing pro- 

 perties (now so fully recognised in its refined form as vaseline), 

 were in the habit of collecting it, by laying their blankets 

 on the glassy surface of both well and stream, thus absorbing 

 the oil, which they then wrung out, and stored for the 

 use of the tribe. So early as 1833 an account was published 

 in the American Journal of Science describing how cert- 

 ain persons made a living by skimming this dirty-looking 

 and most unfragrant grease with their boards, aud then 

 purified it by heating, and straining it through flannel, when 

 it was sold under the name of Senecca oil, as an excellent 

 specific for healing sores of man ami beast, and curing 

 sprains and rheumatism. 



In 1853 it occured to Dr. Brewer that this natural oil 



