VIII. 



Examination of a Hydro-carbon Naphtha, obtained from the Products of the Destructive 



Distillation of Lime-soap. 



By C. M. WARREN and F. II. STORK R. 



Communicated^ August 9ih, 1865. 



In the winter of 1859, when the supply of coal-oil in the Atlantic States was alto- 

 gether inadequate to meet the daily increasing demand for that article, and he lore the 

 discovery of the fact that abundant supplies of petroleum could be obtained by sinking 

 artesian wells in proper localities, it occurred to one of us that a burning-oil, equal to 

 that from cannel-coal, could be readily obtained from the cheap fish-oils of commerce, 

 by saponifying these with hydrate of lime and then subjecting to destructive distilla- 

 tion the lime-salts thus obtained. 



In acting upon this conception, several trial experiments were conducted by its au- 

 thor, upon a somewhat extended scale, in the manufactory in New York, which was at 

 that time under his control. These trials were as follows : — In a shallow wooden tub, 

 eight or ten feet in diameter, at the bottom of which was a coil of metallic perforated 

 pipe, for the introduction of steam, there was first prepared a quantity of milk of lime, 

 and to this was added some two hundred or more gallons of commercial " menhaden- 

 oil." This menhaden-oil is manufactured upon the large scale by boiling and express- 

 ing the common fish, Alosa menhaden, a sort of herring, which is known popularly in 

 some localities as the menhaden. Steam being then blown into the mixture of oil and 

 lime, saponification was effected in the course of a few hours. After the glycerine-water 

 had been drawn off from the finished lime-soap, the latter was shovelled out into a 

 bin and there left to dry. The amount of quick-lime employed having been about 25 

 per cent, of the weight of the fish-oil, the finished soap was of course mixed with a con- 

 siderable excess of hydrate of lime. A ten-barrel cast-iron still was in the next place 

 charged with the dry mixture of soap and hydrate of lime, and the whole heated so 

 strongly that the bottom of the retort was finally red-hot The distillation proceeded 

 quietly and regularly, the matter in the retort exhibiting no tendency to froth or boil 



VOL. IX. 



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