April 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



425 



THE MANUFACTURE OF VEGETABLE OILS. 

 Whether considered as a medium for the application of colour in 

 works of art, or of utility as the principal source of illuminating power 

 where gas is unattainable, or as the lubricator without which all ma- 

 chinery, from the simple clock of the cottager to the most complicated 

 and powerful engine, would be all but useless, the value of oil is incal- 

 culable ; and a few words on its manufacture and the process of refining 

 it cannot be uninteresting. To furnish these we were favoured with a 

 visit to the extensive works of Messrs. Pinchin and Johnson, who have 

 two sets of premises, one for the manufacture of oil, called Albert 

 Works, on the Middlesex bank of the Thames, near Hammersmith, the 

 other for refining purposes, in Cable-street, St. George's-in-the-East. 

 The oils they manufacture are rape and linseed only, but their refining 

 operations extend to the animal as well as the vegetable oils. The 

 Albert Works have a river frontage of about 200 feet, and recede from 

 the bank about the same distance, thus covering an area of more than 

 three-quarters of an acre. The building consists of four storeys ; the 

 manufacture is carried on in the lowest, the others being used as storage 

 for the grain, which is hoisted from the barges by means of cranes 

 worked by steam power. The first object which arrests the visitor's 

 attention is the engine, which is a small but beautiful piece of machi- 

 nery of forty-five horse power. With the exception of the workmen's 

 meal-times and Sundays, it is always at work night and day. From the 

 engine-room the visitor is conducted to the manufactory, where, as soon 

 as he can recover from the irritation in the eyes produced by the volatile 

 oil escaping from the heated and bruised seed, the whole process presents 

 itself before him. 



The grain is received from the upper floor into a hopper, in which is 

 a screen, the agitating of which removes all foreign substances and 

 suffers the seed alone to pass through its meshes. This falls between 

 two faced, hollow, iron cylindrical rollers, which are heated by steam, 

 and which as they revolve crush, or, as it is termed, open the grain. 

 Thus opened it is thrown on to a steel plate calf, fixed on a bed of solid 

 masonry, which is constantly traversed by a pair of edge-runners, 

 weighing from eight to nine tons, and travelling at the rate of sixteen 

 revolutions per minute. They revolve in a strong framework attached 

 to a vertical axis, which also, by means of a large cog-wheel at the top, 

 which engages a wheel upon the main shaft, revolves slowly. A double 

 motion is thus given to the grinders or edge-runners, one on their own 

 axis and one on the iron plate, which we may consider the nether mill- 

 stone. A raised border or rim prevents the seed from escaping from the 

 plate, and the paste is brought regularly under the stones by means of 

 rakes or sweeps attached to the vertical framework, and revolving with 

 the runners on the surface of the plate. When the grain has been 

 sufficiently ground, the paste is brought to an open portion of the rim- 

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