January i, 1889,] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
491 
NEW USES FOR PARAFFIN. 
In Burmah the use of earth oil as an alleviator 
of pain in rheumatism has long been known. It is 
also used by the Burmese for children, in eases of 
colds and coughs, by rubbing their heada with it. 
Parafliu is said to stimulate the growth of hair in 
Kurope, but the Burmese have seldom occasion to 
use it for this. Miss Gordon Gumming, in a recent 
communication to a home paper, calls attention to 
the important medical properties of paraffin in 
various diseasos : — 
"There seems no end to tho multitudinous fashions 
in which mineral oils come to the aid of man. And 
yet how very recently have these uses been discovered. 
But a few years have elapsed, since the days when 
the J it'tl Indians of North and South America, the 
tribes on the shores of the Caspian and the Red 
Seat — in short, primitive man, wherever dirty, black 
grease, oozing through dark mud, smoothed the water 
of sluggish streams — brought their sick, suffering 
from cutaneous and rhoumatic disease?, to be healed. 
Accident and experience had taught them this value 
of that floating oil ; but that was all. 
" The so-called fire-worshippers (attracted by the 
weird flames which sometimes played on the moun- 
tainside, kindlfld by the spontaneous ignition of gases) 
had indeed erected a temple at Baku where the 
sacred fire was fed direct from the soil ; but it 
bad not then occurred to enterprising mou that the 
oil which floated on the lake, and which when 
ignited by means of blazing straw produced such 
fairy-like illumination could be turned to account; 
nor could the wildest dreams of the earliest oil 
prospectors on the Caspian or in the United States 
have conceived the possibility of a commercial 
success so amazing as that of the oil traffic which 
has been developed within the last thirty years. 
Paraffin his well nigh supplanted the various oils 
and greases previously iu use throughout the whole 
world : even to the remotest Hawaiian, Tahitian or 
J'ijian Isles, where tho cocoa-palm has ever afforded 
the purest of vegetable oil. 
"Nor as an illumiuaut alone has the kiudly earth-oil 
been turned to us. It has revealed such precious 
properties of soothing and healiug, such excellence 
as lubricating oil for maobiuory, it has yielded such 
varied preparations of vasine for wounds and for 
toiletto purposes, that merely to catalogue these 
would be a -task. And now to all previous services 
another is added — perhaps the most domestic of all. 
Miueral oil offers to be the ready benefactor of 
that great body of women whose lives are embit- 
tered by the ever recurring toil of the wash-tub. 
" It .seems that by tin; addition of a very small 
amount of mineral oil to boiling water and soap 
almost all manual labour in clothes-washing may be 
dispensed with, for at the end of half an hour the 
clothes will be found so clean that little further is 
required save to rinse them in two or three hot and 
■Old waters. The smell of paraffin is not pleasant 
during tho boiliug process ; but after the final rinsing 
uo trace of it (it is said) remains, and the clothes are 
easier to iron. Henceforth all temptatiou to use 
deleterious bleaching powders must surely be at an 
end ■ for nothing can be cheaper or simpler in its 
application than this use of mineral oil which has 
DO injurious effoet whatever on any animal or 
vegetable fibre. It is equally good for linen, cotton 
or woollen clothing ; it does not affect the colour 
of cotton drosses or of flannels of any of the 
ordinary ' fast colours,' and it cau be used with 
equal iiiccoiiH iu a copper or iron boiler, wooden 
or earl hen-ware tubs. The only precaution to be 
remembered is to make sure that no caroless sloven 
shall carry her bottle of inflammable and explosive 
oil to the fire-ide to pour tho oil direot into tho 
boiler, but shall measure the requisite quantity into 
■ cup at a respectful distance. 
"The recipe recommended by a lady in a leading 
northern paper (the Scotsman) and which bus called 
forth i chorus of thanksgiving from many grateful 
householder 1 who ti 1 1> I it n perfect success is t<i 
fill au average-sized boiler— say fourteen gallons 
— with water adding half a pound of soft soap, 
and when this is thoroughly boiling, pour in 1J table 
spoonfuls of paraffin. Then put iu the clothes in 
the ordinary course, boil for half an hour, then lift 
them out and rinse in several waters. Add a little 
more water, soap, and paraffin to make up for 
evaporation and what is lifted out with each set 
of clothes. Thus washing is done with a marvellous 
saving of toil, time, temper and soap. The same 
amount of work which by the ordinary method 
requires the whole time of two women for two days, 
cau thus be done and done well, by one woman in 
eight or nine hours. 
" It appears, however, that a yet more excellent 
way has already been discovered and widely practised 
both in America and New Zealand. There only the 
best kerosiue is employed, as being far more free 
from smell, and, moreover, for that reason it can 
be added as soon as the soap ia dissolved — while the 
water is still at a low temperature. Consequently 
flannels and blankets, which must on no account be 
boiled may be placed in the boiler and thoroughly 
steamed. If paraffin is employed, then the boiling 
mixture must be lifted out into tubs, where the 
flannels can be washed by hand while the linen is 
being boiled in the re-filled boiler. Thus no time 
is lost." 
Miss Gordon Cumming has overlooked one point 
inasmuch as she seems unaware that paraffin exists 
commercially in two forms: one a solid, and the other 
commercially so called, a volatile mixture of light 
hydrocarbons, in which benzines and napthalines are 
largely represented ; both these substances are more 
usually obtained by the destructive distillation of 
shale-oil, although they can, in modified forms, be 
obtained from earth-oil and crude kerosine. However, 
common kerosine can be similarly used for washing 
purposes, and with all due deference to the writer, 
is so used iu the Australasian colonies, where its 
employment is by uo means the novelty suggested. 
— Rangoon Times. 
Russian Petroleum. — It is said that the pro- 
ducers of petroleum in the Caucasus propose to 
ask for the construction of a second line on the 
Trans-Caucasus Railway, and for the prohibition of 
foreigners from buying a farming petroleum-pro- 
ducing lands in Russia. — Indian Agricultuist, 
1st Dec. 
Cultivated Land in India. — The twenty-fifth and 
swenty-sixth tables of the new Indian Statistical 
Abstract contain some information of special inter- 
eat it the present moment iu regard to tho area 
of British India actually under cultivation, the arei 
at present uncultivated, which might be cultivated, 
and the proportions of the different crops. Tho total 
acreage >it India according to the Survey Depart- 
ment is 480,007,094 aores. Deduct 110,(515,483 acres, 
the areu of tho feudatory and tributary States 
and of other districts for which agricultural returns 
are not obtainable, aud with which the figures do 
not deal and we get 304,051,611 acres as the area 
of British India for agricultural purposes. Of this 
less than half or 152,834,640 acres is actually under 
cultivation including 22,725,891 acres of current fallows. 
Of the 166,492,468 acres which is uncultivated 
rather more than half is fit for cultivation, and the 
remainder is not available for that purpose, so that 
an area of BO millions of acres in British India still 
awaits the husbandman. Tho area under forests 
which is not included under either cultivable or uuculti- 
vable land is -f(),13 r >,729 acres. .The distribution of crops 
was as follows: — Kice, 23,1 11,002 : wheat, 19,883,040 ; 
other food grains including pulse, 71,439,21a: ten, 
'220,412 (almostwholly iu Assam) ; cottou, 9,852,054; 
oil seeds, 7.678,382; indigo, 1,034,889. It thus 
appears thatthere is practically unlimited scope so far 
as area is concerned lor the iin roa»ed cultivation in India 
of crop? which are mainly intended for export inch 
as wheit, cotton, indigo, ten, coffee, kc. — Indian 
Agriculturist. 
