280 On the Volalilhy and Injiummahilily 



ture above 400; but, after the quantity was reduced, he received 

 directions to raise it as high as 500. On the eighth day he ac- 

 cordingly carried it to that point. Inflammability took place at 

 360, but at 500 he took a rule and measured the vapour, which 

 extended seven inches above the tube. When a light was ap- 

 plied to it, it had the appearance of lightning. The vapour 

 took fire on the ninth day at 497, and the heat rose 140 degrees 

 in fifteen minutes. The "fire- place was twenty inches long, ten 

 inches wide, and there was a space of ten inches from the bot- 

 tom of the boiler to the fire-bars. On the tenth, day, the vapour 

 became inflammable at 345 degree?, and spread as before like 

 lightning. At one time on the same day it appeared as inflam^ 

 mable at 3G0 degrees as at another at 500 degrees. On the 

 elevi^nh day it becam ^ inflanrjmable at .3 10 degrees. On the suc- 

 ceeding day sl'ghilv so -at the same point. A similar exj)criment 

 was continued for twenty-three dpys, at twelve hours every day. 



Cross-examined. — The notes to which he had referred were 

 written by himself at the time of making the experiment. The 

 same oil was used during the whjle twelve days, and he did not 

 observe that much was waste \ at the end. He could not ac- 

 count for the inflammability t Ling place at a much lower tem- 

 perature at one day than at another. He did not make use of 

 an hydrometer, nor remark the atmosphere. 



Michael Faraday, esq. chemical operator at the Royal Institu-, 

 tion, stated, that he had lately made various experiments on oil ; 

 he found that it emitted a vapour denser than the atmosphere. 

 It also threw out gas at a temperature of 340, and caused various 

 combustions before it arrived at that degree. The result of his 

 experiments was, that the use of it, for the purposes of refining 

 sugar, or the circulation of it, when greatly heated, through any 

 medium, must be attended with considerable danger. He had 

 found, too, that sugar would throw out gases at a temperature of- 

 240 degrees. Oil, after distillation, was rendered more volatile 

 and inflammable than before, and the vapour would explode frcr 

 quently without any noise. 



Mr. Richard Phillips deposed that he had had occasion to 

 make chemical experiments on the subject of this inquiry, and 

 he found that a volatile oil was created from fixed oil by the apr 

 plication of heut. Aqueous matter was formed during the de- 

 composition by the union of hydrogen and oxygen. His expe- 

 riments were made on a retort that contained about twenty gal- 

 lons. He too was of opinion, that there was great danger of 

 an inflammable gas communicating with the external air. 



Dr. Rostock, physician, and lecturer on chemistry at Guy's 

 Hosj.Mtal, described an experiment which he had seen in White- 

 cross-strect, and which had lasted for twenty-three days. The 



temperature 



I 



