364 Liuminating Gas from Eotton Seed. 
of the fire. A conducting tube is connected with the open. 
end, to convey the gas into a receiver standing over water. 
_ Simply passing the gas through water purifies it sufficiently 
for use. 
“4, Avery moderate fire is applied, sufficient barely to 
keep the part of the tube exposed to its direct action at a per- 
ceptible degree of redness. The heat being thus slowly 
communicated to the seed, converts successive portions of its 
oil into vapour, which traversing the ignited parts of the tube, 
is decomposed into carburetted hydrogen gas. The first por- 
tions may be burnt at the mouth of the conducting tube, until 
the gas becomes as luminous asa candle, after which it may 
e collected for use. 
“5, When the gas begins to come: over less freely, the 
tube may be drawn forward, by little and little, into the fur- 
nace. Near the close of the operation, the gas becomes 
again less luminous, and it may be burnt off at the mouth of 
the tube as at first. 
“If the furnace be of sufficient dimensions to permit a con- 
siderable space of the tube to remain ignited, the oily va- 
pour will be all ea “A ; but if the ignited space be small, 
: i : : 
a portion of yapour will make its way into the receiver unde- 
composed. A spiral or recurved tube for a small furnace, or 
a long iron tube for a broader fire, y effect the decom- 
* An ounce of seed, according to this process, yields 1018 
cubic inches of gas, neglecting the first and last portions as 
before specified. Consequently, a pound of seed yields 
16,288 cubic inches, or more than a hogshead of the gas. _ 
“ According to the former estimate, the quantity of seed 
annually pork at i 
quired for replanting, would afford 2,8°7,500,000 cubic feet 
of illuminating gas, but little ifat all inferior to that produced 
directly from oil. During the last year the culture of the 
cotton crop was greatly extended, perhaps doubled, and the 
quantity of seed proportionally augmented. - 
“ Tt was suggested by acorrespondent of South Carolina in 
alate number of this Journal, that the seed was more valua 
than what} had represented it ;—that it was a rich manure, 
and often sold very high for planting. Itmight doubtless be 
profitably Sopked 
compost, where its volatile principles might be arrested, and 
its powers rendered more permanent ; but the fact is, that in 
uced in the United States, above what is re-_ 
as a manure, especially, in the way of a- 
