346 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[October 28, 1871. 
committee jointly, and not to himself individually. He, 
therefore, in the name of his colleagues, thanked them 
for the good wishes which had been manifested towards 
the institution which had been the object of their care. 
He trusted that the example which had been shown in 
Newcastle in regard to the establishment of that college 
would he rapidly followed in all other important towns 
in the country; for he was satisfied that it was only by 
scattering local colleges over the whole land that they 
could hope to effect that widespread diffusion of scien¬ 
tific knowledge which was so essential to the advance¬ 
ment of the nation in a moral as well as an intellectual 
point of view. That object would not he effected by 
great national scientific colleges ; hut only by bringing 
scientific instruction to the doors of the people. They 
must enable them to have it at home, and not allow 
them to be any longer deterred from seeking it by the 
great expense and inconvenience of travelling to distant 
places. It was surprising how little had yet been done 
in the way of spreading scientific knowledge among the 
people of this country. It was very different on the 
Continent; and had scientific instruction not been con¬ 
fined, as it had been, to a few persons, we should have 
had a vastly greater amount of practical and beneficial 
results arising from the application of science than we 
had actually experienced. The value of scientific edu¬ 
cation was held in far higher estimation on the Continent 
than in England. Its value had been fully recognized 
by all those nations who were our rivals in industrjq 
and it was clear that the greater diffusion of scientific 
knowledge among those nations had been the principal 
cause of the more rapid progress which had been ob¬ 
servable in their industries than in our own. We were 
far more ahead of our rivals twenty years ago than we 
are at the present day, and unless we awakened to the 
necessity of improving our condition by the promulga¬ 
tion of science, we might expect to be rapidly overtaken. 
Our rivals are already close upon our heels—closer than 
was generally admitted in this country, and it ill-behoved 
us to slumber in fancied security. He hoped, then, that 
the college which had just been inaugurated might tend 
to avert that danger, not only by its direct local effect, 
but by leading to the establishment of several similar 
institutions in other parts of the country. 
re- 
THE RELATION OF MINERAL OILS TO FIRE. 
The following letter by Professor Atttfield has 
cently appeared in the Times , and the subject it refers 
to is one deserving the special consideration of chemists 
throughout the country:— 
“The awful conflagration at Chicago was started by 
a boy in. a cowshed. He took with him a mineral oil 
lamp, which the cow kicked over. Accepting this state¬ 
ment of the origin of the fire as true—and the frequency 
with which fires are kindled, afloat and ashore, by the 
new mineral oils is unquestionable,'—-what conclusions 
should be drawn and what lessons learnt ? Nay, to ask 
a more practical question, how does the public stand 
respecting knowledge and ignorance on the subject of 
fires ? That some substances are combustible and others 
incombustible, that some combustibles burn more readily 
than others, and that any combustible material catches 
fire sooner under certain conditions than it does under 
others, are facts well and widely known and insensibly 
acted on by us in the management of households, ware¬ 
houses and such structures. We rightly allow only 
metal and air to be in immediate contact with our do¬ 
mestic fires and flames, we take more care of gas and 
spirits than we do of candles and coals, and we know 
that curtains hanging from a pole are far more easily 
fired than curtains folded and stored. To wilful or 
thoughtless neglect of one or more of these points is 
most generally to he traced the cause of a fire; but not 
always. A person may have occasion to handle a mate¬ 
rial of whose relation to fire he is ignorant; or, knowing 
that the thing handled is combustible, a man may bo 
ignorant of its relation to other combustibles. This 
latter is the present position of the public, abroad as well 
as at home, respecting those mineral oils which during 
late years have been so largely used for illuminating 
purposes, and which now and again cause fires of lesser 
or gi’eater magnitude. The degree of inflammability of 
colza and the other old vegetable oils is fairly well 
known. They cannot easily be fired, except on a wick, 
and even then a flame must be applied carefully and for 
some little time. On the other hand, everybody who 
uses them knows that common spirits and naphtha catch 
fire in a moment; these, therefore, are handled, stored 
and employed with adequate precautions. But the 
mineral oils, though much nearer to spirits than to the 
old oils in their degree of inflammability, are treated by 
the public as though belonging to the latter class. The 
mistake could not well have been avoided; for these 
mineral liquids are more closely allied to oil than to any 
other class of fluids, they are used in the place of oil, 
and hence have come to be sold by oilmen and purchased 
by consumers under the name of oil. Doubtless the 
public will in time learn that in relation to fire these 
substances are of a spirituous rather than an oily nature. 
We may then expect that fires started by mineral oils 
will result from carelessness or wilfulness, and not from 
ignorance. Meanwhile Parliament, the Press, men of 
science, and oil traders must do their best to contribute 
to the removal of this ignorance. Parliament has al¬ 
ready done something, and promises to do more. It is 
now in Great Britain illegal to sell the more inflammable 
kinds of mineral oil, properly termed petroleum spirit 
and paraffin spirit, unless every vessel is labelled as fol¬ 
lows :—‘ Great care must be taken in bringing any 
light near to the contents of this vessel, as they give off 
an inflammable vapour at a temperature of less than 100 
degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer.’ But petroleum 
oil, as at present sold in England, gives off inflammable 
vapour at temperatures very slightly above that just 
stated. Paraffin oil is less inflammable than petroleum 
oil, but both take fire with the utmost readiness com¬ 
pared with olive, sperm, colza, and the other vegetable 
oils. I would implore petroleum merchants and oil 
dealers generally to endeavour to import and supply 
petroleum oil which shall be less instead of more inflam¬ 
mable than paraffin oil. From my own experiments and 
experience I venture to assert that this could be done 
without injury to the illuminating power of petroleum, 
and, if effected gradually, without the slightest risk of 
the British paraffin oil driving the American petroleum 
oil out of the market; indeed, I am of opinion that 
public confidence in petroleum would be so much in¬ 
creased that a still larger trade than ever would be car¬ 
ried on in that important article. The Government has 
undertaken to amend the Petroleum Act next year, more 
particularly as to the way in which the inflammability 
of the vapour of the mineral oil is to be ascertained. 
Perhaps the cause of public safety from fire would, be 
usefully served by the insertion of a clause rendering 
obligatory the employment of a caution-label on all ves¬ 
sels containing any kind of mineral oil, the label of the 
present Act serving as now for petroleum spirit and 
paraffin spirit, and one drawn in simpler and less alarm¬ 
ing terms for petroleum oil and paraffin oil. 
“ From the whole matter the public must conclude 
that its present position respecting the relation of mineral 
oils to fixe is one of ignorance, and therefore of danger. 
The sooner this ignorance is dispelled by enactments of 
the Legislature, full discussion in the Press, and the oc¬ 
currence of fires, which, let us hope, will never again 
approach the fearful nature of that in Chicago, the 
sooner shall we arrive at a time when fires kindled by 
mineral oils will not be more frequent than those started 
by other combustible substances. That they are more 
frequent I think no disinterested person will venture to 
denv.” 
