248 BULLETIN 139_, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the most abundant fish oil, and was sokl as natural, pressed, and 

 bleached. 



VEGETAL 



Abundance of oil is derived from the vegetable kingdom, much of 

 it excellent for bm-ning in lamps. Man}'' of the kinds of vegetal oil 

 for lamps were limited in amount and used locally, and some, as palm, 

 olive, and sesamum oil, were the basis of important industries. The 

 extraction of vegetal oil in most cases is difficult and requires mechan- 

 ical appliances, therefore it would be anticipated that progress in this 

 work would not register until the agricultiu-al period. Many species 

 of the palm, however, furnish fruits and nuts containing oil which is 

 capable of extraction by crude aboriginal methods. In the environ- 

 ment of the palms, however, there was a limited demand for illumi- 

 nants, and the use of palm oil for the purpose is observed principally 

 in southeastern Asia. In Siam coconut oil and in India palm oil was 

 used for burning. 



An important som"ce in the East was the Dipterocarpus, or oil 

 tree. The nuts of the Aleurites triloba, burned as a torch in the 

 Polynesian islands, were made to yield lamp oil in India. In Brazil 

 various palms yielded oil for cooking and illuminating purposes. 

 Among these may be named Denocarpus hacaha, D. patana, Caryoca 

 hraziliensis, and Euterpe edulis. 



Oil from the castor bean was used as an illuminant in many local- 

 ities. The streets of Lima, Peru, were lighted with it in 1879. 



Nut oils were good for burning in lamps. In Cashmere, India, wal- 

 nut oil and oil expressed from apricot seeds were used in lamps. 

 Hickory-nut oil was so used locally in the United States. Beechnuts, 

 brazil nuts, pistachio nuts, canarium nuts, candlenuts, physic nuts, 

 are among the nut sources of lamp oil. 



It was early recognized by the Romans that from the small oily 

 seeds of various plants, especially the sesamum, a valuable product 

 could be secured. In modern times rapeseed and poppy-seed oil was 

 consumed in lamps in Paris, and much of the rapeseed oil was used 

 in the lighthouses of Europe. In the United States it was employed 

 in lighthouses about 1854 on account of the increasing price of sperm 

 oil.^" 



The stones of the grape yield good lamp oil, which was used in 

 Italy before 1850. In the Italian Piedmont walnut oil was burned 

 in lamps in the period before kerosene. 



Olive oil formed the basis of one of the greatest developments in 

 the history of illumination, marked by the diffusion in the Mediter- 

 ranean of the Roman lamp and its common and extensive use for 

 light. In the earlier period of the Roman lamp we have the sug- 

 gestion of Pliny mentioned that lamps could not be used extensively 



M Joseph Henry. Smithsonian Report, 1880, p. 483. 



