Am  M0ayr;^95arm-}  The  Production  and  Uses  of  Cottonseed  Oil.  249 
THE  PRODUCTION  AND  USES  OF  COTTON-SEED  OIL. 
By  P.  Iy.  Simmonds,  F.L.S. 
1  think  I  may  claim  the  merit  of  having  first  suggested  the  pro- 
duction of  cotton-seed  oil.  Forty  years  ago,  in  a  course  of  lectures 
I  gave  before  the  Society  of  Arts  and  Manufactures  in  London,  on 
"  The  Utilization  of  Waste  Products,"  I  mentioned,  among  other 
waste  products,  cotton  seed,  which  was  then  an  incubus  cotton  culti- 
vators did  not  know  how  to  get  rid  of. 
The  Council  of  the  Society  of  Arts  awarded  me  their  silver  medal 
for  my  valuable  suggestions,  and  subsequently  elected  me  a  life 
member  under  one  of  their  rules,  in  consideration  of  being  eminent 
in  the  application  of  abstract  science  to  the  Arts,  Manufactures  and 
Commerce. 
These  lectures  I  afterwards  expanded  into  a  volume,  under  the 
title  of  "  Waste  Products  and  Undeveloped  Substances,"  which 
went  through  several  editions  and  is  now  out  of  print.  I  have 
reason  to  believe  that  the  adoption  of  many  of  my  suggestions  has 
resulted  in  fortunes  to  some,  and  has  utilized  profitably  much  of  the 
former  waste  in  manufactures. 
The  Science  and  Art  Department  employed  me  to  form  a  collec- 
tion of  waste  products  and  their  utilization,  with  a  descriptive  cata- 
logue, which  is  now  placed  in  the  Bethnal  Green  Museum. 
I  had  also  to  make  a  similar  collection  for  the  Austrian  Govern- 
ment at  the  Universal  Exhibition,  held  in  Vienna  in  1873. 
To  return  to  cotton-seed  oil.  At  the  time  my  suggestion  was  made 
of  utilizing  cotton  seed  for  oil  in  1855,  the  United  States  production 
was  less  than  1,250,000,000  pounds;  now  the  production  has  risen 
to  about  3,500,000,000  pounds.  The  first  shipment  of  cotton- seed 
oil  in  the  year  ending  June,  1872,  was  but  547,165  gallons,  and  few 
would  have  anticipated  it  would  reach,  in  1892,  the  enormous  export 
of  nearly  14,000,000  gallons,  worth  nearly  $14,000,000.  The 
various  forms  of  cotton  seed  all  yield  good  oils  capable  of  being 
refined  for  dietetic  use. 
The  oil  possesses  excellent  lubricating  qualities,  and  is  useful  for 
soap-making  and  for  lamps.  The  quantity  of  oil  produced,  even  in 
England,  is  large,  the  imports  of  cotton  seed  exceeding,  in  some 
years,  400,000  tons. 
In  the  States  the  production  of  seed  exceeds  3,000,000  to 
4,000,000  tons,  of  which  half  is  available  for  oil;  100  pounds  of 
