86 



Art. XI. — Additional Observations respecting the Oil 

 Question, by Samuel Parkes, F.L.S., (Sfc. 



Dear Sir, March I2th, 1821. 



A WORK has just appeared which purports to be Remarks on 

 a paper of mine in the last number of your Journal, entitled, 

 Observations on the Chemical Part of the Evidence given upon 

 the late Trial of the Action brought by Messrs. Severn, King, 

 and Co. against the Imperial Insurance Company, and as this 

 volume contains many inaccuracies and mis-statements, I think 

 it necessary to trouble you with some observations upon it. I 

 am sorry to occupy any of your valuable pages with matter of 

 this sort ; but when you see the nature of the charges which 

 have been adduced, I am sure that you will not wonder at my 

 desire to refute them. 



I am, Dear Sif, 



Yours, &c. 

 To W. T. Brande, Esq. Samuel Parkes. 



Ex fumo dare lucera. Horace. 



The volume in question has the advantage of being the com- 

 bined effort of six Gentlemen, whose names are, in some mea- 

 sure, already known to the public. They are of very different 

 classes in society — some are professional — some commercial, 

 and others purely scientific — but they all appeared in the Court 

 of Common Pleas at Guildhall, as witnesses for the Insurance 

 Offices. For the sake of brevity, therefore, and to avoid any 

 personality, I shall call them the Associated Witnesses. 

 Solicitous, however, not to occupy more room in the Journal 

 of Science, Literature, and the Arts, than will be absolutely ne- 

 cessary, I shall use all possible despatch with the book ; and shall 

 pay no regard to the respective writers individually, but shall di- 

 rect my attention to one object — that of correcting the misrepre- 

 sentations which their book contains. Confining myself, there- 

 fore, to this line of reply, so far as it is consistent with the desire 



