of Fish Oil. ~ 265 



immense ; for, of all bodies, sugar produced the greatest quan- 

 tity of inflammable gas. The oil in the retort was so secured, 

 that it could not have itself taken fire ; and if gas had been formed, 

 it must have escaped through the pipe. If a certain quantity of 

 gas could be collected, and suffered to remain in a particular si- 

 tuation, without any means of escape, until it was approached 

 by a lighted body, it would undoubtedly explode, and destroy 

 the whole building. But this could not be the case here. As 

 the house was not air-tight — as there was a regular way by which 

 the gas could escape, if any had been generated — it was impossi- 

 ble that the fire could be attributable to gas. If any explosion had 

 taken place, its effects must have been seen. The oil-vessel, and 

 every thing in and about the retort, would have been destroyed. 



Cross-examined. — The oil with which he made his experi- 

 ments was sent to him by Mr. Wilson. He hoped that some 

 unadulterated oil was still to be had. He could distinguish new 

 oil from oil that had been used. The latter was thick and ge- 

 latinous. He repeated his experiments several times, and found 

 no difference. Sugar generated gas at 350 degrees. 



-Mr. VV. Allen stated that he was a chemist, and had studied 

 that science for several years. He had looked at the model, and 

 his decided opinion was, that the method employed by Mr. Wil- 

 son was by far the safer plan. The reason of the preference must 

 be obvious to all who knew what an inflammable bodv sugar was, 

 and how easily it became ignited. If fire were placed under it, 

 there was a great risk that it would boil over, and in that case 

 a conflagration was inevitable. By the new method, train oil 

 was heated and conveyed through pipes, by which means the 

 sugar was melted in the most commodious as well as the safest 

 way. One principal reason which induced him to consider this 

 method the most safe was, that the sugar might be brought to 

 boil by the application of heat, from which no danger need be 

 apprehended. He had made experiments with oil, and observed 

 that whale-oil would not give out any permanent or elastic in- 

 flammable gas, unless the heat nearly approached to the tem- 

 perature of 600 degrees of Fahrenheit. It would before that 

 produce a little vapour, but that was often nothing else but 

 aqueous particles which were in the oil. With respect to the 

 difference between new and old oil, he observed that the latter 

 began to generate gas at a little lower temperature than the for- 

 mer. The tlifference was, however, very trifling, but a few de- 

 grees of Kabrcidicit's scale. Looking to the construction of that 

 model, and particularly to the gas-pipe, he was convinced that 

 if any person had left the whole apparatus to its fate, and paid 

 no attention to it, dauL'er would not have been occasioned, since 



V».l. 3:), No. 2G4. /Ipril 1820. T the 



