ON OUR OIL FLASKS; 495 



which have none of the narcotic properties of the capsules whence we 

 get the laudanum, the seeds being' sold for birds, under the name of 

 maw-seed, and quite harmless. The oil is like olive oil in look and 

 taste, and is used to adulterate it ; when treated with litharge or sub- 

 acetate of lead, it is used for paints — without such treatment, for light- 

 ing. Hempseed feeds birds, and gives a capital oil for varnishes ; also 

 sometimes used for lighting, but not often or satisfactorily, for it makes 

 a thick edge and clogs the wick ; it does better in the soft soap and 

 paint manufactories. Sunflower oil makes soap ; it is sometimes used 

 for food, and sometimes for lighting, but chiefly for soap. Grape-seeds 

 have an oil which must not be confounded with the fusil oil obtained 

 in the rectification of spirits, whether from grapes or corn, for the one 

 is bland and insipid, inodorous, and sometimes, in the south, used for 

 food, and the other is simply disgusting, but largely used for confec- 

 tionary. And there is the oil of belladonna, which is used in Wurtem- 

 burg for lighting and cooking, limpid, golden-yellow, insipid, and in- 

 odorous, with all the poisonous principles left in the residual cake, 

 which cannot, therefore, be used for cattle-feeding, as other more harm- 

 less residual cakes, and the expression of which stupifies the workmen 

 employed. And there is tobacco-seed oil, limpid, green-yellow, and 

 inodorous, and with no more of the narcotic principles of the plant 

 than poppy-seed oil. And, lastly, there is castor-oil, and there is croton 

 oil ; the one got by expression from the seeds of the Ricinus communis, 

 or Palma Christi, the other by expression and distillation by alcohol, 

 from the seeds of the Croton Tiglium. These are the principal vegetable 

 oils, of the fixed or fatty kind. 



The only animal oils, properly so-called, are lard-oil, tallow-oil, and 

 neat's-foot oil : and these are obtained from the fats of the various 

 beasts indicated — from hog's lard, from sheep's tallow, and from cow- 

 heel ; but the fats, or stearine, or adipose tissue, or by what name soever 

 it is considered well to call them, come quite under another heading, 

 and do not rightfully run into our oil-flasks. Lard oil is used for 

 greasing woollens ; tallow oil makes the best kind of soap ; and 

 neat's foot oil oils church clocks admirably, because it does not solidify 

 at even a comparatively low temperature, neither does it soon turn 

 rancid. 



The animal oils are few, and the fish oils are not many ; but of 

 enormous value. First, there is train oil, which comes from the whale, 

 the porpoise, the pilchard, the seal, and others ; an oil of a brownish 

 colour, disagreeable to the smell, used for lighting, for making soft 

 soap, and in the preparation of leather ; also, says historical ill-nature, 

 much valued as a winter dram by Russian soldiers, to whom a pound 

 of tallow candles is as welcome as a box of bonbons to a Spanish belle. 

 The peculiar, and most peculiarly disagreeable odour of train oil, is due 

 to the decomposition, during the homeward passage, of the animal 



