Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
July,  1881.  i 
Cotton-Seed  Oil  Industry. 
341 
of  the  Carnauba  palm  are  used  in  Periiambuco  as  coffee. — Scientijic 
American^  May  21,  p.  329. 
Testing  of  Olive  Oil. — In  a  paper  read  before  tlie  Liverpool  Chem- 
ists' Association,  Michael  Conroy  recommends  the  following; :  Mix 
thoroughly  1  part  of  nitric  acid,  sp.  gr.  1*42,  with  9  parts  of  the  oil, 
pour  into  a  large  white  porcelain  dish,  heat  gently  until  the  action  is 
fairly  set  up,  remove  the  source  of  heat  and  stir  with  a  glass  rod  until 
the  action  is  over.  Pure  olive  oil,  thus  treated  and  allowed  to  cool, 
«ets  into  a  pale  straw-colored  hard  mass  in  an  hour  or  two,  while  cot- 
ton-seed and  other  seed  oils  assume  a  deep  orange  color  and  do  not  set 
like  olive  oil.  An  admixture  of  5  per  cent,  of  any  seed  oil  with 
olive  oil  can  be  readily  detected,  and  the  contrast  in  color  is  such  that 
the  approximate  amount  of  the  admixture  may  be  accurately  ascer- 
tained.— Phar.  Jour,  and  Trans.,  1881,  May  14,  p.  933. 
THE  COTTON-SEED  OIL  INDUSTRY. 
From  a  lengtliy  report  in  the  Oil  and  Drug  News  "  of  May  17, 
we  make  the  following  abstracts  : 
The  first  attempt  to  extract  oil  from  cotton-seed  was  made  at  Nat- 
•chez  in  1834,  but  it  failed.  In  1852,  it  was  tried  in  New  Orleans, 
and  again  failed.  Another  attempt,  in  1855,  by  Messrs.  Paulin  Mar- 
tin, F.  M.  Fisk,  Paul  Aldige  and  A.  A.  Maginnis  was  crowned  with 
success.  In  1867,  just  after  the  war,  there  were  seven  mills  in  the 
country;  in  1870,  twenty-six,  and  in  1880,  forty-seven — six  of  them 
in  New  Orleans — which  in  that  year  employed  1,525  hands,  paid  out 
1374,142  in  wages  and  produced  $2,742,000.  At  present  there  are  43 
cotton-seed  oil  mills  in  operation  in  the  South,  each  of  which  is  capa- 
ble of  crushing  two-thirds  of  a  ton  of  seed  a  day.  Several  other  mills 
are  in  course  of  construction. 
When  well  stored  and  properly  ventilated,  cotton-seed  keeps  sweet 
for  twelve  months;  if  allowed  to  become  damp  or  stored  too  long  in 
bulk,  it  grows  heated  and  is  liable  to  spontaneous  combustion. 
The  total  amount  of  cotton-seed  crushed  in  the  LTnited  Ststes  is 
about  410,000  tons,  or  10  per  cent,  of  the  annual  crop,  of  which  the 
New  Orleans  mills  last  year,  1879-80,  consumed  107,000  tons. 
The  seed,  when  landed  at  the  mill,  is  freed  from  dust  by  shaking  it 
in  a  screen  or  cylindrical  sifter,  and  is  afterwards  blown  against  a  screen, 
thus  allowing  heavy  substances  to  fall  from  it.    It  is  then  freed  from 
