rnOPEHTlES OF REFINED OIL. 41S 



succeeded in obtaining a ton or two of oil in the 

 course of one season ; a product which, thougli it 

 paid near about the expence of the apparatus, was 

 attended with such trouble and inconvenience, that 

 he never afterwards repeated the operation. 



In performing some experiments on oil in Green- 

 land, during the lishing season of 1818, I adopted 

 a process for refining oil extracted from blubber, 

 before the putrifying process commenced, by which 

 I procured a remarkably fine oil. It was nearly 

 colourless, beautifully transparent, and very limpid. 

 Its specific gravity, temperature 60°, (compared 

 Vv'ith snow water of the same temperature,) was 

 0.9202, and the gross oil from whence it was sepa- 

 rated 0.922. This oil retains its fluidity, and even 

 its transparency, at a very low temperature. A 

 fine specimen of seal oil, refined in the same way, 

 remained unchanged in appearance, at the tempera- 

 ture of 1.5°, when common whale, seal, sperm, and 

 other oils, were as thick as hog's lard, and had 

 quite lost their pellucidness. The oil refined by this 

 process, is more inflammable than spermaceti-oil,-— 

 and so pure, that it will burn longer, without form- 

 ing a crust on the wick of the lamp, than spermaceti 

 oil, or any other oil with which it has yet been com- 

 pared. 



Besides the oil produced from blubber by boil- 

 ing, the whalers distinguish such as oozes from the 

 jaw-bones of the fish, by the name oijaxic-bonc oil; 



