33'J Phillips on the Oil Question. 



In p. 108 of your Reply, alluding to the Directors of the 

 Globe Insurance Company, you assert that " they not only 

 completely abandoned the idea of danojer from the oil appa- 

 ratus," but that they " actually directed the counsel to declare 

 in court, that they were perfectly satisfied, that this apparatus 

 lessened the danger." 



What truth there is in this declaration, ir.ay be learned from 

 the following extract, from the short-hand writer's notes. 



Lord Chief Justice Dallas. — " Theie is one fact, which one 

 way or another would dispose of this cause at once, and save 

 us hours or possibly days of investigation ; that is, whether 

 the oil process increased or decreased the danger of fire, or 

 left it as it was before." 



Mr. Serjeant Vaughan. — " We propose to prove that it de- 

 creases it, my lord." 



Mr. Serjeant Bosanquet. — (for the defendants') " I shall cer- 

 tainly submit that is not in the cause." And afterwards, — "It 

 is admitted that the premises Avere destroyed by an accidental 

 fire, and the defendants agree not to contend that it was by the 

 oil process. We reserve our own opinion, but we do not con- 

 tend it in this cause." 



In p. 112 of your Reply, you describe an experiment, in 

 which, after raising oil to 600° you found it impossible to 

 obtain any inflammable product — nay, at 610° the light was 

 extinguished ; this is very singular, considering what you have 

 stated in various parts of your remarks. Thus, in your 

 Observations, (p. 346,) you assert, in a tone which will have 

 but few imitators, " I know the care with which I made my 

 own experiments, and how the several experiments which 

 were performed by difl:erent means corroborated one another ; 

 I am therefore satisfied that the results which I obtained 

 were the true results." Now let us examine this agreement 

 of which you boast; in p. 64 of the printed trial, you say 

 that oil heated to 586° gave out inflammable gas, the flame 

 was not permanent, " but at 600° it continued to burn," 

 again, in the Reply, (p. 99, note,) you inform us that " oil 

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



