114 Review of Dr. Antisell’s Work 
coal-tar as ether is from — 1e term crude-oil, by which the first-named 
liquid is — to manufacturers in this country charnctrizs it perfectly ; so 
does the term huile de schiste (written at tim mply “ schiste” ) = the Fre aii . 
It is siinprtalite that Dr. Antisell should iat followed the example of sev: 
eral Ger man authors—without their excuse—in thus pieilexing his pone TS. 
In returning from this digression, we would expressly declare our disbelief 
in the adage which allows for the existence of nonovelty. Still we do believe 
art or branch of industry, is entitled to ss therefore—and to far more credit, 
and that of a different order, than the man who subse equently meee this 
art into a foreign country. We would not detract from the efforts of the latter; 
on the contrary, would accord them high praise ; but we losivey: first of all, to 
see justice meted out to him who created the —— those who increase hu- 
man a, sooner than to its mere diffu 
en — issue with Dr. Antisell when, in his preface, he 
tells us that his boo a “record of the origin and conditio on of an infant 
art,” and again at oeani “this new branch of industry.” So, also, in the first 
new 
name must ever remain inseparably connected with the history of the art of man- 
a the fluid now known as coal or paraffine-oil. We refer to Set- 
IGUE, ore than twenty-five years ago, this inventor’s method of obtaining 
a oil was described inthe Journal des C; nnaissances Usuelles, ec., 1834, 
p- 28 also Dingler’s Polytechstitehes Journal, 1835, lvi, 40.) This article 
S$ subsequently followe erous others, until in Selligue’s patent 
this specification is m st praisey y. ew subsequent wri pon b- 
ject ha en able to add anything to the stock ot knowl dge which it im- 
a or all in all, it is doubtless the mo meritorious essay wh 
as ever been published upon the art of manufacturing coal-oil an b 
reiterate our statement, that th brief, inaccurate, exceedingly superficial 
nts whi been bestowed by pp. 9, 80, ete.) upon the 
information w lligue has imparted in his — series of essa 
great pet A ee subject as well as to this au or. 
let us first glance at tthe labors of some of his predecess 
As Dr. Antisell has truly said (p. 7), the Bg of ‘the production of oil 
from coal appears to date as far hack as the time of Boyle, (1728~1799), when 
the well known experiments of Dr. Clayton wae made. 
* We y here rve, tha —_ See e late the French 
term hile é fehiate, - its Englih *a.trindit co 
; phical Transac 
se ee ransactions, Jan, 1739, No. - - 7 ; in Martyn’s Abridgment, 
~ 
oe 
