120 SCIENCE IN" SHORT CHAPTERS. 



the spoiling interest. This same interest has otherwise suffer- 

 ed. The old haunts of the snipe and woodcock, of partridges, 

 hares, and pheasants, are being ruthlessly and barbarously 

 destroyed, and horrible to relate hundreds of cottages, 

 inhabited by vulgar, hard-handed, thick-booted human beings, 

 are taking their place. Churches are being extended, school- 

 houses and chapels built ; penny readings, lectures, concerts, 

 etc. are in active operation, and even drinking-fountains are in 

 course of construction ; but the trout have suffered, and the 

 woodcocks are gone. 



We may thus measure the good against the evil as it stands 

 here in the head- quarters of oil-making, and should add to one 

 side the advantages which the cheap and brilliant light affords 

 advantages which we might continue to enumerate, but they 

 are so obvious that it is unnecessary to go further. 



There is one important and curious matter which must not 

 be omitted. This, like the moral and intellectual advantages 

 of the cheap paraffine light, has hitherto remained unnoticed 

 viz. that the introduction of mineral oils and solid paraffine for 

 purposes of illumination and lubrication has largely increased 

 the world's supply of food. 



This may not be generally obvious at first sight ; but to him 

 who, like the writer, has had many a supper at an Italian 

 osteria with peasants and carbonari, it is obvious enough. He 

 will remember how often he has seen the lamp that has lighted 

 himself and companions to their supper filled from the same 

 flask as supplied the salad which formed so important a part of 

 the supper itself. Throughout the South of Europe salads are 

 most important elements of national food, and when thus 

 abundantly eaten the oil is quite necessary ; the oil is also used 

 for many of the cookery operations where butter is used here, 

 and this same olive oil has hitherto been the chief, and in some 

 places the sole, illuminating agent. The poor peasant of the 

 South looks jealously at his lamp, and feeds it stingily, for it 

 consumes 'his richest and choicest food, and, if well supplied, 

 would eat as much as a fair-sized baby. 



The Russian peasant and other Northern people have a simi- 

 lar struggle in the matter of tallow. It is their choicest dainty, 

 and yet, to their bitter grief, they have been compelled to burn 

 it. Hundreds and thousands of tons of this and of olive oil 

 have been annually consumed for the lubrication of our steam 

 engines and other machines. A better time is approaching 

 now that paraffine lamps are so rapidly becoming the chief 



