On Oil and Oil-gas. 69 
box, anda lighted taper was put in. No ex- 
plosion or inflammation ensued. The air 
within was examined; the taper burned in it 
much the same asin commonair. It had about 
17 per cent. oxygen and a little carbonic 
acid, It had the suffocating smell of sebacie 
acid, Hence it is evident there was no in- 
flammable gas or vapour in the box. 
Gas from Oil by Heat, 
The first time I procured gas from oil was 
in 1805. I find among my notes at that time 
that a quantity of gas was obtained by put- 
ting olive oil into a gun-barrel along with 
hydrate of lime and applying a red heat. 
By afew trials I coneluded it to be a mixture 
of carburetted hydrogen, olefiant gas and 
hydrogen. Since that time I have not made 
any oil gas till the present. Dr. Henry had 
previously found that the gas from oil and from 
tallow contains + of its bulk of olefiant gas, 
and that from wax +, the rest being hydro- 
earburet, as it was then called. (Nicholson’s 
Journal 11—page 70, 1805.) 
