THE VALUE OF PETROLEUM AND OTHER OILS AS A FUEL. 
301 
worked ; if its growth can be more confidently relied on ; if its molasses be a saleable 
article, which is not the case with the beet, surely we say that, far from despair, the 
feeling that should animate the planters should be that of hope that the proper ap¬ 
pliances may yet rescue their industry from ruin. Every year that passes shows moro 
indisputably the necessity for improving cultivation, for improving machinery, and for 
making the best instead of the worst sugar ; and if cane planters will take advantage of 
their opportunity, they may yet retrieve their position,— Travers’s Circular. 
THE VALUE OF PETROLEUM AND OTHER OILS AS A FUEL. 
In a former number we referred to the experiments in burning petroleum, as carried 
on at Woolwich, and the follovving is taken from an article which appeared in the 
‘Standard’ newspaper, on the official report of the experiments at Woolwich made to 
the Admiralty:— 
The engineers of the Woolwich Dockyard have returned to the Admiralty, we hear, a 
statement, without comment, of what Mr. Richardson has done, and have accompanied 
their statement with a drawing of the apparatus by which the results have been obtained. 
Good wine needs no bush, and such results as the patentee, aided by the dockyard 
authorities, has obtained need no comment. When it is known to every practical 
engineer that 7^ lb. of water per 1 lb. of the best steam-coal is the maximum quantity 
in ordinary practice; that not more than 3^ lb. to 41b, of water are done by common 
coals, and 64 lb. is the usual rate for railway locomotives, what need could there be to 
add one word of remark to a table of practical experiments showing 13 lb. for American 
rock oils, 15 lb. to 17lb. for Burslem, and above 18 lb. for the Torbane Hill oil? 
Taking the average evaporation effected by coal as G lb., we may fairly urge that the 
best mineral oil, being three times as strong as coal in the quantity of heat it generates, 
and evaporating three times the quantity of water in the same space of time, is just as 
cheap as coal if it cost three times as much to distil it from the shale as it does to get 
the coal out of the earth, and convey to our furnaces. It is quite a mistake to say that, 
however valuable shale may be for the production of paraffine, it can never be a satis¬ 
factory substitute for coal. No one ever dreams of carting shale about with its great 
percentage of earthy base, any more than bones and coprolites are expected by farmers 
to be carted over their lands while chemists can supply them with superphosphate of 
lime. What men have been trying to do is to burn shale-oil; to get the oil away from 
the mineral base, and to have as little useless matter to carry about as possible. What 
has been done at Woolwich has been to burn such oil in a boiler-furnace practically, 
and to beat coal with it. It is no use any longer to question results. The mineral oil 
has been burnt for days together, just as it might be burnt for months together, and it 
has raised steam effectively, efficiently, quickly, steadily, and continuously. It is now 
only a question of time how soon the world will accept the fact, and engineers begin to 
employ it. Already oil-works are dotting with numerous manufactories considerable 
regions in England, Wales, and Scotland, and our shales and bituminous rocks are being 
fast brought into commercial use. Evident it is that great will be the future supply 
when oil is admitted as the best steam fuel—a fuel that our factories will burn day and 
night with only a flickering glimmer of hot air from their chimney tops. Ships will 
carry the oil in tanks, and stow it in the bilge-ways under the lower decks, and in other¬ 
wise useless spaces, pumping it as wanted; all the labour of moving coal, all the dust 
and dirt from coal will be avoided, and every drop of oil will be consumed, and there 
will be smokeless fires ashore and afloat. As with coals, so with oils, there is a differ¬ 
ence of quality, and it is not a little remarkable that England, possessing the superior 
qualities of the first, should possess also the best of the latter. While the American oils 
will touch 13 lb., nearly all the English ones exceed them, and the Torbane Hill oil will 
go nearly, if not quite up to 20 lb.; and here we would hint to oil distillers that their 
present crude oils and the veriest tarry refuse will have as fuel a value in the market, 
for most of them will do as much as ordinary coal. For the best work engineers will 
have the best oil, as they have now the best coals; but if the thickest refuse of the dis¬ 
tilleries will evaporate probably its G lb, of water, the niineral-oil-makers will have a 
