400 
ON  KEROSOLENE. 
immersing  sodium  in  it,  a  fresh  surface  of  the  metal  was  only 
slightly  tarnished  by  the  contact. 
The  solvent  properties  of  this  new  substance  are  of  course  of 
primary  importance,  they  appear  to  me  to  present  the  true  key 
to  its  usefulness.  It  dissolves  fixed  oils,  apparently,  in  all 
proportions,  common  resin  freely,  though  with  flocculent  residue, 
wax  and  cocoa-butter  freely,  mastich  and  caoutchouc  slightly. 
It  mixes  freely  with  alcohol,  oil  of  turpentine,  ether  and  chloro- 
form, but  not  with  water.  Iodine  dissolves  in  it  sparingly,  yield- 
ing a  remarkably  rich,  though  changing,  purple  color. 
For  the  common  uses  to  which  benzine  is  now  applied  kero- 
solene  appears  to  be  equally  adapted ;  by  the  absence  of 
disagreeable  odor  it  is  rendered  generally  preferable  ;  it  is,  how- 
ever, unsuited  to  the  purposes  of  illumination,  or  to  generating 
heat,  being  too  volatile,  though  its  vapor  does  not  appear  to  be 
explosive.  Its  extreme  volatility  makes  it  inrportant  that  it 
should  be  excluded  from  the  kerosene  or  other  photogenic  oils, 
and  renders  it  a  residuary  product,  heretofore  without  value, 
of  those  works  in  which  it  has  been  produced  in  a  crude  condi- 
tion. 
How  far  this  product  could  be  furnished  by  the  manufacturers, 
of  uniform  quality,  or  whether  it  could  be  produced  at  other 
kerosene  works,  and  by  those  numerous  establishments  in  which 
the  so-called  rock  oils  now  pumped  in  such  vast  quantities  in  the 
western  slopes  of  the  Alleghanies,  are  rectified,  is  a  practical 
question  yet  to  be  tested ;  its  relations  are  evidently  to  this 
class  of  bitumens  rather  than  to  coal  tar. 
In  view  of  its  use  in  medicine,  the  fact  of  the  great  uncer. 
tainty  of  its  composition,  its  being  a  mixture  of  different  and 
undetermined  proximate  constituents,  must  interfere  with  its 
general  adoption  and  recognition. 
The  physiological  effects  of  kerosolene,  will  probably  be 
reported  on  at  length  by  Dr.  H.  J.  Bigelow,  of  Boston,  to  whom 
we  are  indebted  for  the  first  published  account  of  it,  from  which, 
as  contained  in  the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  under 
date  of  July  11th,  1861,  the  following  extract  is  made  : — 
"A  few  whiffs  were  sufl&cient  assurance  of  its  efficacy  as  an  anaesthetic, 
which,  with  its  other  qualities,  as  I  ventured  to  remark,  would  place  the 
kerosolene  beyond  any  known  anaesthetic,  provided  its  use  was  not  followed 
