251 



into " refined lard" and salad and cooking oil. It is used for illuminat- 

 ing, in the manufacture of bolts and nuts ; for all kinds of soap, bath, 

 laundry and toilet soap. It is used as a substitute for olive oil as an 

 emulsion in medicine ; it has been prescribed as a substitute for cod-liver 

 oil, and for olive oil in packing sardines, and in many other ways. It 

 is said that its non- drying properties debar its use as a wood filler, or 

 for stuffing hides in making morocco and other leathers. No treatment 

 as has yet been discovered which will give it the drying" properties 

 of a good men strum for paint. As a soap for woolen mills, it has been 

 extensively adopted in America, England and Scotland. 



As an illuminant, a writer claims that its place is midway between 

 sperm and lard oil. It can be burned alone or mixed with petroleum. 

 On the coast of Maine there are a number of establishments shipping 

 " sardines" and " shadines," which are said to be cooked and then, placed 

 in boxes containing cotton-seed oil ; and it has been charged that of the 

 immense quantity of sardines exported from France and other European 

 countries, largely more than three-fourths are now treated with cotton- 

 seed oil instead of olive oil, as was formerly the exclusive practice. It 

 has been suggested that the oil could be used in ^andle-making and for 

 steel tempering. — ( American Journal of Pharmacy.) 



USE OF GAS-LIME IN AGRICULTURE. 



By Dr. J. A. Yoelcker.* 



Lime, it is well known, is largely employed in gas-works for the pur- 

 pose of removing from crude coal gas, as it issues from the retorts, sul- 

 phuretted hydrogen and carbonic acid, which deteriorate its illuminating 

 powers. After having served some time in the gas-purifiers and become 

 more or less saturated with these and some other impurities, the lime is 

 replaced by a fresh quantity of quick-lime and thrown aside for the use 

 of the agriculturist. This gas- lime, or refuse lime from gas-works, is 

 generally obtainable at a much more reasonable expense than most 

 other forms in which lime is usually employed in agriculture, and con- 

 stitutes a refuse material which, in many instances, has been applied 

 with marked beneficial effects both to light and heavy land. The suc- 

 cessful application of Gras-lime to the land, however, depends, like that 

 of marl, chalk, and quicklime, upon a variety of conditions, some of 

 which are peculiar to Gas lime. These conditions we purpose briefly to 

 examine, after having referred more particularly to the composition of 

 gas-lime. Different samples, as may naturally be expected, vary to 

 some extent in their chemical constitution, but the differences are not 

 so great as to lead to the conclusion that whilst some samples are very 

 efficacious as fertilising agents, others possess little or no manuring 

 property. Judiciously used, all samples are economical means for in- 

 creasing the productiveness of land adapted for its reception. In order 

 to guard against disappointment, it may be well to state at once that 

 gas-lime is not a universal manure like farmyard manure, benefiting 

 more or less every description of crop on every variety of soil, nor that 

 it^is a concentrated fertiliser acting in a similar manner to Peruvian 



* Journal of Gas Lighting, April, 1865. 



