on the Oil Quest io ft. 99 



the utmost brevity to prevent my paper from swelling beyond 

 the limits to which it was necessary to confine it, in order to 

 render it admissible in this Journal ; and when I read over the 

 report of Wilkinson's evidence, 1 did not think that his account 

 of his last experiment, after what I had said of the former, re- 

 quired any notice, whatever, nor can I, on re-perusing it, perceive 

 that I ought to have attached any importance to it. These as- 

 sociates, however, now please to say, that this was " the only 

 experiment that was witnessed by the several scientific gentle- 

 men who attended in behalf of the defendants ;" but how could 

 I possibly know this ; not a word is said by the witness when 

 relating the experiment, that any gentlemen were present ; 

 whereas when giving an account of the other two experiments 

 that he was employed to conduct, he tells us that gentlemen 

 were present and mentions their names. He says that for his 

 last experiment, twenty-four gallons of oil were put in, and that 

 " it wag upon that oil that the gentlemen met afterwards to 

 make experiments :" but how could I tell that this was the exact 

 quantity of oil that was in operation when " the jerks, the con- 

 cussions and the spouting of the oil" occurred. For, as the 

 same witness had told qs that in one experiment he operated 

 upon thirty-three gallons of oil, it was natural for me to sup- 

 pose that this was tjie quantity \vhjch had occasioned these phe- 

 nomena ; especially as the witness himself, who never hinted 

 throughout the whqle of his long evidence at the circumstance 

 of the oil being thrown .flptpf the boiler,|had afforded no qlue by 

 which we could discover any thing respecting it. 



No one surely, who has read the printed report of Wilkinson's 

 evidence, can wonder at my npt attempting to waste more tin^e 

 on such a testirnony : for what dependence can be placed uppp 

 a man who tells us th^t he procured, at the end of a tube, in- 

 flammable vapour from whale oil heated only to 2^0°, and that 

 the vapour took fire in sudden gusts as an explosion*; a man 

 who had very recently been operating upon whale oil and noting 



• See Mr. Gurney's report of the first trial, p. 14G. According to my 

 experiments oil vapour is not inflammable at the end of a tube, unless the 

 oil be heated to the temperature of about 600*' of Fahrenheit. S. I'. 

 H2 



