Supply of Fish in Great Britain. 347 
specimens of petroleum placed before them without distin- 
guishinging marks, gave igniting-points in which the greatest 
limit of variation was one degree. It would doubtless be 
easy for an analyst, by processes of fractional distillation, to 
obtain even from safe petroleum, vapour that would be in- 
flammable at 60° Fahr., or even at freezing temperatures ; 
but it would be absurd to regard such petroleum as dan- 
gerous, or to use such a fact as evidence of the weakness of 
any method of determining the igniting-point of petroleum. 
What I claim for the method above described is, that it 
accurately shows the temperature at which petroleum, as 
used by the public, is dangerous, It surely is not too much 
to expect that the method will be adopted by the trade, 
and that no mineral oil will be supplied to the public unless 
guaranteed to give off no inflammable vapour below 100 
degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer. Only by some such 
means will explosions in lamps, &c., be avoided, explosions 
which are alwas alarming, frequently the cause of loss of 
property by fire, and occasionally resulting even in loss of 
life. 
Mie tHe R THE SUPPLY OF FISH FROM THE 
pe PISHERIES OF GREAT BRITAIN IS VJINe 
CREASING, STATIONARY, OR DIMINISHING? 
(Concluded from page 273.) 
as 1833, the House of Commons appointed a Com- 
mittee to inquire into the state of the sea fisheries. 
The Committe reported that the fisheries in the British 
Channel had been in a declining state since the peace of 
1815, that capital employed in them yielded no profit, that 
the numbers of boats and men were decreasing, and that 
the fishermen and their families were, in a greater or less 
degree, dependent on the poor rates for support. The 
fisheries are now in a very different condition. The capital 
employed yields a satisfactory return. The boats are every 
year increasing, both in numbers and size, and, instead of 
being dependent on the poor rates for their support, we do 
not think that any class of our labouring population are 
now in more comfortable circumstances than the British 
fishermen. Their numbers have nearly doubled within the 
